Day 303: Reactivity and Confidence Training

Today we did a couple of sessions of leash pop = focus on me exercises at home which went well. I had to pop out this afternoon to pick up some bags of horse feed from town so I loaded Aster into the car too to capitalise on the journey. Coronation Park in Launceston is mostly ideal for training around other dogs - I say mostly because it's lovely and open so you can see a fair way, there is usually enough other users to have some dogs visible but not completely jam packed and technically they are meant to be on lead at all times.

Of course, they never all are and as soon as we entered the car park there was a bloke with a German Shepherd puppy wandering wherever it wanted with the bloke walking miles behind. I am not even sure he took a leash with him. I waited for him to get up around the corner and into the park proper before I got Aster out the car. I noted before we even left that she was reluctant to jump in herself. She has clearly over done it running around and is a bit sore/stiff. She is the same about getting out too so I lifted and we just walked on lead. My goal was to literally get some "leash pop = focus" reps in with other dogs in the distance and just make a mental note of her general demeanour, ability to focus on me and take food. She was clearly not 100% comfortable/confident to begin with but she does take confidence from being asked to do stuff she knows well. She did well to break her attention from other dogs and take food from me. We did a couple of food chase games too and right at the end we went and sat on the hill to watch a lady throw a ball for her cockerpoo thing. It went well and I noticed the GS puppy coming back around from the top of the park so we started walking towards the exit. Annoyingly, the cockerpoo and another bouncy curly haired fugly looking dog (really sorry you guys that like the poodle crosses but they just really don't do it for me. No offence!) were loitering around it so I was kinda back tracking to get some distance when the bloody GS puppy came speeding towards us 🙄bloke clearly had no control and was pathetically waving his ball thrower through the air like it was going to magically get his pup to recall. Aster had a few barks and hit the end of the leash bristling but I just ran backwards and lightly popped the leash and engaged her in a game and we somehow managed to get enough distance that the pup left us alone. Luckily the poodlies were greeting one another at this point and couldn't give a toss about Aster which meant we could slip out. Overall she did really good. Could have done without the final hiccup but not the end of the world.

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