Monday, August 13th

I was off work today, as usual.  I decided to work on teaching Re that sometimes we go back to bed and sleep longer than 7 or 7:30.  He was fine with that idea, had his breakfast in his crate, played with his toys and was pretty happy until about 8:30 when I started getting ready to get up.  The heat and humidity has been really hard for me to deal with so we have been hanging out indoors a lot!  I had a Dr appointment today, which meant Re had to stay home with the big dogs.  I heard him barking as I walked out to the car, but was quiet when I got home.  I really need to make a point of leaving him home everyday or so to make sure he doesn't develop separation anxiety since he is so attached to me.   Early this evening we drove over to Carol's house to practice leash walking on her street because it's quieter than mine.  Re had a hard time paying attention to me when we first started walking but, on the way back he did much better- able to look up at me for more than one or two seconds, taking treats from my hand, and staying close to me instead of at the end of his leash.  Things were going fine, we met two of Carol's neighbors, they both seemed very nice until one of them told me that "I need to put a different collar on him if I wanted to train him right."  I asked, "do you mean a pinch collar?"  "Yes," he replied.  Long story short, I thanked him for his unsolicited advice and said that I don't use pain to train my dogs.  ("Well, it really doesn't hurt them."  "Then why do they yelp when they get to the end of the leash?")  I should take Ry for a walk over there, excellent leash manners without having used a pinch collar.

I was trying to walk and photograph Ry walking close to me with eye contact.

Close walking on left side without eye contact.

Anyway, on to tonight.  Ryan and I took a walk in the neighborhood where we live.  We were happily walking down the busy street when I saw the cars slow down and stop in both directions, then I saw a very scared dog running between the sides of the road.  I was hoping she would get close enough to Ry and me so that maybe I could lure her to the side of the road and keep her there.  Unfortunately that is not what happened, someone (I'm assuming her owner or a family friend.) jumped out of a pick up truck and chased her into a driveway.  Well, that was a terrible idea since she ran away more scared than before.  I dropped down into a squat to see if I could encourage her to come closer.  Ry was pretty focused on her, which may have kept her at a distance to me.  The poor girl was so frightened.

The reason why I'm posting this on my blog is to remind people to NEVER CHASE A FRIGHTENED DOG!!  Actually, never chase a friendly one either, especially if you want to get closer to it.  If you need to get your dog to come closer to you, jog the opposite direction of where he is.  If you have a puppy, teach it to come when called in a variety of situations using positive reinforcement techniques including food rewards and play.  When Ry was a puppy I started running towards him when I called him and then rewarded him heavily when we reached each other, just in case we were separated and someone else was trying to get him.