We are on the other end of the leash this week.
I was training Alice in our unfenced, shared backyard a few days ago when I lost control over Alice's long line and she ran up to my neighbor who was walking his reactive dog.
Everything turned out okay, the dogs met and I was able to capture Alice's face (letting her nibble on treats) so the other dog could get a really good smell of her, like I was taught to do at my last job. Face to face greetings are very difficult for dogs so pulling faces out of the equation can really help a scared dog. We jollied the dogs through the situation and everyone went on their way, a little stressed out but okay.
I left the situation feeling like a major jerk, though. I have a dog who is scared of other dogs (Phoenix) and I know what it's like to have a friendly dog charge up to me. How could I have let this happen to someone else!? Even though Alice was way more interested in seeing the owner than the dog, it still really sucked for them. So I baked and took them some cookies for the humans and their dog this morning.
I know it was a total freak accident, Alice was leashed and the long line slipped from under my foot and she's in training, she's not trained yet. I still feel so bad, though! It's definitely something we will be working really hard on in the coming weeks.
Friendly dogs!!! Dammit. Friendly dogs. I've never had a dog this friendly before. Zoe has always been indifferent with people. She has her favorite people and she's good. Phoenix is a one woman dog and my family dog was also shy. I've always said that each dog is here to teach us a specific lesson and Alice has a lot of lessons for me!
The lesson that I learned from this is that I need a longer long line, need to spend more time proofing my recall around other dogs and people and I need to be more understanding and empathetic of other owners when accidents like this happen, instead of getting irate.
Accidents happen to the best of trainers sometimes! Dogs are dogs, even the best trained dogs have their moments, they are not robots and they don't always listen. Everything is a lesson!
Yup, accidents can happen to everyone.
ReplyDeleteHappened to me too. (That is - I allowed it to happen). While I was distracted chatting with someone, my dog-social Obi bounced up to a reactive dog owned by a friend of ours. "Oh hi!". BIG oops. It also wasn't a disaster, but Koda certainly didn't need that in-your-face greeting. My fault entirely, and I certainly know better.
ReplyDeleteThis is a good reminder that we reactive-dog-experienced folks can make mistakes too. I've been more careful since.
Drawing on "Lessons From Habi", we (almost always) model good trail manners when out hiking. Yesterday Obi, Rowan and I were out hiking off-leash when we saw two on-leash shepherds approaching. I leashed mine up, and we stepped off the trail about 20 feet to let them pass. Even so, one did fuss at us a little.
Thanks for the reminder, and enjoy all the benefits of Social Alice!
Cheers,
Chris from Boise
Thanks for sharing this. I've now been on all sides of this with my uber-friendly, extremely fearful, and now reactive dogs... and all sides suck! You are so sweet to have brought them cookies. We do all make mistakes.
ReplyDeleteDear Alice's person,
ReplyDeleteMy person felt the same when she brought home Ojo. You see, I do not like children. At all. I have learned to walk past them, and to let them run their hands over my back. My person gives me lots of cheese for this. But I prefer to avoid them if I can.
Ojo LOVES kids! She likes to jump on them! She likes to steal their food!
I think this is our person's fault, because after me she purposefully got a Dog that likes kids! So our person says that she understands.
Also, all humans have "whoops moments". (Okay, us Dogs do sometimes too.) Our person says to not feel bad!
Licks,
Cobi