A mixed couple of days training. Yesterday did really well lead walking in uncongested environment (no people or dogs) on pavement. Dillon in the zone and focused. This afternoon on grass with people and dogs around, Dillon much less interested in engaging, and couldn’t get him lead walking or focusing on much. This was a good prompt though to start doing some lead pressure training (thanks Livvy for your help). Dillon does dig his heels in when lead pressure applied and we see this regularly. Some early success today in getting him moving forward and responding whilst light pressure applied. Need to do tons more of this but will reap huge benefits if we can make this work. Dillon very flat today, not been himself since having the stomach issue so will need to explore this with the vet. On the positive side, Dillon did really well on find the dropped toy and indicating this find with a sit. He found and sat every time, had to be patient on the very last effort waiting for the sit but he got there eventually.

Dillon starting to get the hang of close walking and we did around 300 yards on pavements, with close and a few leave it commands without breaking. Some success this morning as he turned perfectly onto the cycle path without losing heel and didnt freeze, so possibly starting to break the fear/anticipation of going onto the cycle path where he often meets dogs. Towards the end of the lead walk, turning back on the pavement area, some improvement here also with less freezing and less coaxing needed. I recognise that the fear/freeze situation where he meets dogs (that he's not familiar with) will be a longer term challenge, but good to see he's becoming less fearful of actually moving into the area where he meets dogs on the cycle path. Close walking on grass also likely more of a challenge for Dillon due to the smells around.

We took Dillon up to Kings Weston House to get some outside off the lead recall training. It didnt go so well, we didnt see good recall more than Dillon wanted to sniff by the trees. Its been sometime, probably two or three months, since we've done off the lead recall training as Dillon has had a bad stomach. Anyway we're back to it now, somewhat disappointing recall today, so reverted back to basics with long lead recall and looking to build it back up again. Still working on getting a good high value treat that he can have with his food intolerance/IBD. Finished off with some tea and snacks in the cafe, and more good practice for Dillon to sit quietly under the table while we talk, eat and drink. He's now really good with his behaviour in this area so at least this was a positive.

Decided to build on the lead walking training of yesterday. Not many people out and about on this cold morning which so possibly less challenge than yesterdy for Dillon. That said the first section of the walk using regular close commands, along pavements, went really well and Dillon stayed in the close positon throughout with only one leave it command, that was good, and all without any treats. There are two areas on the walk where Dillon freezes, the turn onto the cycle track and towards the end of the walk where the cycle track splits. I think these are both fear related where Dillon anticipates danger around from previous experience. So definitely an area to work on in the coming weeks. Will look to do some different training in the next few days

So Day 1 is here, thanks Nick for the opportunity to join. I chose today to go for a circular walk from home, roughly half of the distance on pavements (not a particularly busy area) and half on a cycle/footpath on the edge of a wooded area (lovely country environment). The walk is close to half a mile so on my own it takes around 8 minutes to complete. The challenge today was lead walking. Dillon as a 3 year old (Romanian) rescue is a friendly dog but sensitive to the outside world, probably conditioned by his early months on the streets. The plan today was to get him to heel walk. Dillon likes to sniff and smell. Today when he wanted to stop and sniff, on most ocasssions I asked him to leave so we had lots of leave training. My experience today was he did always move on after the leave command, sometimes in a few seconds and sometimes it would take longer, perhaps a minute or more. Today, Dillon as per norm, will stop/freeze when someone on their own or with a dog comes towards us, and will usually stay in that position until they have passed. Sometimes he will want to look back at them when they've passed so it takes even longer to move on. So one issue is getting Dillon moving (once he's seen someone) when in his mind he perhaps sees danger in people and dogs. He is motivated by food but this is more difficult at the moment as the vet says he has stomach issues (possibly IBD like) and we now have him on a hydrolysed diet and we havent, as yet, found a suitable treat that he likes. Anyway we had a great walk, he's great with people and dogs if not a little anxious on first meeting them. For the record the walk took around 23 minutes. And he had a fantastic mental workout. I have a number of questions/challenges to get him, from his background, to being a great lead walker. By the way, he's made great progress, in the early days it was hard to even get him out the front door and would be completely spooked by things like bikes and pushchairs (thank Livvy for your great help).