After being on lead his entire life, being leash-reactive his entire life to other dogs and putting me in danger with that, after a lifetime of dragging me onlead, after his whole life mostly only being "free" of a leash while in my apartment.. living a confined life, never knowing freedom, never running free, stressed by the dischord between himself and his frustrated, stressed, frightened owner.. my 18 month old, back from send-away training and being worked with now by me, got to work & relax in nature both on
and off lead for 2 hours.
Yesterday, Grimm and I walked in a great big country park, with fields and shady woodsy paths.
*No pulling on leash
*We heeled without a leash for 5 - 10 minutes at a time, several times in the 2 hour period that we were there (he ignored all interesting butterflies, bunnies, smells-- kept on heeling offlead by my side)
*Grimm was offlead and a bicyclist came, and Grimm downed on command. (he doesn't chase, but i wanted the cyclist to feel secure)
*Grimm
was able to run free and play off-lead with a
good recall
*Grimm was offlead free, tugging on a big branch he found, when a farmdog suddenly charged a wire fence, barking wildly at us. Grimm only
calmly looked up to see what it was about, I called him to me--
and he came!! trotting happily to me for pats!!
*Grimm was offlead in a big field this morning. Two bunnies suddenly shot out of the short grass, and streaked away-- Grimm in hot persuit!! This was his big moment, he thought-- closing the gap.. he could almost taste those bunny butts!!... as Grimm was closing the gap, I bellowed "AUS!!!" and Grimm skidded/slid desperately to a stop on the wet grass, I called him, and
he came to me!
*This morning, an off-lead Chihuahua ran out of a development onto the country lane ahead of us, and was dancing as his owner tried to catch him. He ran up to Grimm's side-- Grimm
calmly kept heeling on lead! When the Chi zipped around Grimm then zoomed up from behind, Grimm looked back, but kept on heeling. Not tense! He looked back at the Chi one more time as we walked away-- I corrected him for that.. and he just calmly kept on going. No big deal!
I have to reeeeallly keep working hard with Grimm right now. The training is new, he is a teenager, will try to test by sneaking in slow responses, testing me at this stage and at his age... that's okay--- I am ready for this! We can work together.
3
