Talk about stressful

                     I Survived!! What the heck did I survive you ask? Oh just running into not one but FOUR DOGS!! I mean come on really. Okay so here is what happened.
                I was on my driveway about to leave for a walk with the dogs(Missy and puppy) when my little cousin(9) asks me if she and her little brother(7) could come. My first mistake was saying yes, second was walking at 6:00 which is when my neighbor Don walks Koda and my third mistake was not putting Missy in the house. Okay so we were walking back and everything was fine.
            Missy was walking great and Puppy well was being a puppy and to my horror I see Koda. So I go down a small hill so that I'm against a pasture fence as far as I can get from Koda. I have Missy sit and I wrap her leash around my hand to prevent it from slipping and did the same with puppy. I told the kids to back off because 9 year old kept trying to pet Missy right than bad idea I think so. Anyway the kids wanted to pet Koda so I told them to go ask Don. While they were doing this I started walking away and to my utter surprise Missy did NOT yes I said Not react. And yes she did glance at Koda yes she just glanced at her!! This was the First Time Missy did not react to Koda when passing her on a walk. Why? Was it the kids being there? OR have I finally found where Missy is under threshold with Koda? I'm going with the 2nd option. Oh and you ask what was the puppy doing this whole time? She was trying to pull my arm off to go say hi to Koda. How rude am I for not allowing her to say Hi. Well I say to her you'll live.
         Yes I did say four dogs so here it is. We're almost to my house and here comes my cousins three small dogs Princeton(2 year old Dachshund Pomeranian.) Copper(Same as Prince) and Mickey( 6 year old Dachshund mix) Oh and did I mention that Missy has NEVER EVER meet Mickey. Usually introductions to other dogs for her is done very slowly and Not with little kids and me holding onto another dog. There was no avoiding Missy meeting Mickey we were surrounded by dogs! I was so happy that Missy politely smelled Mickey though I was worried because she was slowly waging her tail, not her normal "I'm happy as heck" wag. After they all said hi I had to Drag the dogs back home. No worries they had on harnesses so they weren't being chocked. I did drag them because I really felt that it was a dangerous situation. Three unleashed dogs two leashed dogs, two young children, and one Very young adult(Me).

      Yes you guys you are reading this which means yes, yes I did come out alive.... somehow.
Disclaimer, This will Never Ever happen again. Kids= Missy not walking with us. 6:00 means no puppy and no kids walk with me and Missy.

It's been too long

Sorry I haven't posted in awhile.  Okay so update on Sunday my brother and cousin found this puppy running around my cousins yard and since my cousins mom HATES big dogs she told him that she couldn't stay there. So the puppy is at my house while I'm looking for her owners. It is possible that the puppy may end up staying with me and my family if my parents say yes if not we will find her a very very good home for her. She is a American Bulldog/Boxer... and something else mix. She is about 20-30 pounds right now and will probably be 40-45 pounds full grown.

          Okay so about Missy's reactivity nothing new really because we haven't been running into any dogs. But yesterday when I was walking Missy and the puppy, just my luck my neighbor was walking Koda( Yes Koda the dog Missy has the worst reaction too). They were in front of me so I turned around. And here I was with a puppy who I don't want picking up Missy's bad habits!! The puppy decided to torcher me by stopping in her tracks she would not budge. I was getting really scared because Koda just kept getting closer. Desperate to get away I picked up the puppy and used a high pitch voice to keep Missy's attention and keep her moving forward. I knew that to keep walking was a bad idea so I looked for a good driveway and went halfway down a fairly long one. I had Missy sit and just held on to the pups leash focusing my attention on Missy. I tried keeping her calm but she was over threshold apparently two car lengths from Koda is not far enough. And it didn't help that I had no treats. I was done for I held on to Missy's leash kept it really short and tried keeping her level down out of her scale of reactivity 1-10 it was a 6. I will not go walking at 6:00 in the evening again with both of the dogs.

Danielle

So close, and Great

                     Okay so I've talked about Koda and for some reason Missy react worse with her than other dogs. Well yesterday I came so, so close to Missy not losing it when Koda and her owner walked by. When I saw Koda coming toward us on leash with her owner I pulled over to the side with Missy had her sit and got kneeled down so I would be at her level. I got my treats out (hotdogs) and kept telling her watch me treat she'd look away "watch me" treat and so on. She was doing pretty good but when Koda was pretty much beside us 3is feet away Missy lost it. I know once she hits that point there is no reason in trying to stop it so I got up and we walked away. This is the best she has done with Koda.
                 Another plus that day was my other neighbors dog happened to be out, contained by an electric fence. When we walked by yes Missy reacted, so I turned around to try again. But this time I got my treats out. I had Missy sit to where she could not see the dog I allowed her to look in it's direction then told her watch me, after doing this a few times we moved forward some this time she could see the dog and I continued doing this till we passed the dog. After we passed the dog that second time it was time to walk calmly passed the dog. I had Missy at a close heel and would allow her to look in the dogs direction while walking than would tell her "watch me" we got passed the dog without a problem!!!
           Yes, there is more we ran into a third dog. I saw that another dog was coming and if I tried to walk past it me and Miss would be on a very narrow bridge bad idea. So I told her "let's go" I walked away and started looking for a place to get off the path to create distance. I did find a spot not ideal(as in I would have prefered to be farther away), but it would have to do. I tried keeping Missy's focus on me because looking at the dog for a certain amount of time builds up excitement and frustration in her and she goes off. So if I can't get her focus off the dog soon enough she will go off. It was a somewhat successful attempt. Why somewhat? Because for a little while I was able to keep her from going off but the closer the dog got to being in front of us the more challenging it was for Missy not to focus on the dog. When she did go off I was able to get her attention back. She did go off twice but both times I was able to refocus her attention back to me by saying "watch me" and "Hey Missy" in a sing song voice. Yes when you have a reactive dogs sometimes you will have to sound stupid to keep the dog chill.
                  I'm glad to say Missy is progressing in her training. Slowly yes, but hey at least it's progress.

Small Breakthrough

So the past two weeks have been frustrating because Missy has been reacting pretty bad at Every dog we walked past and it is just embarrassing that the other persons dog calmly walks past my crazy dog. Well today Missy did NOT barley reacted to the dog we walked past today, plus the dog was only about an arm span away!! She didn't bark or lunge toward the dog, but I could tell she was one level below that. Hopefully this will be a more common occurrence, of course she could just go back up a level. I'm crossing my fingers that she does not go back up a level.

2 blog post in 1

Ignorant Owner But so Proud of Missy

            So last week when I was walking I saw another dog coming toward us so lucky me there was a empty area for me to pull over to with Missy so she would be under threshold. Well it turned out I was not so lucky the freakin dog was Not on a leash. How did I figure this out? Missy was facing toward the creek and to my horror a dog a little bigger than Missy walks up behind her. Surprisingly both me and Missy keep our cool. At first Missy stayed facing the opposite way while calmly looking a the dog who was directly behind her. When I say directly behind her I mean if Missy had of taken a step back they would have been touching. When the unleashed dog took a step Missy flipped around. She wanted the say hi and so they did. The problem... Missy and the other dog wanted to play. Why you ask is this a problem? Think about it Missy is leash reactive because she is frustrated she can't say hi and play with other dogs. The leash restricted her playing because the dog would get out of her reach antagonizing her to play. Poor Missy was trying to do so, but couldn't because of the leash. This is where the problem started, Missy got frustrated and this started a chain reaction... Missy began to bark, so the unleashed dog began to bark, and the other dog barking got her worked up to where she was desperateness trying to get to the unleashed dog. After 3-5 minuets a child who I can only assume was one of the dogs owners told the dog to come, thankfully the dog listened. When we were clear of the dog I walked back onto the trail than jogged for a short bit to put a distance between us and the dog.

Embarrassed, Yes, Yes I am.

 So today was Not a good day for Missy at all. While we were walking we ran into someone who had 2 dogs, yes 2. So one dog was on one side of the owner and the other on her opposite side. This meant that one of the dogs was way to close to Missy. Missy totally flipped, and slipped out of her gentle leader, reminding me of another reason why she also wears a halter. Just my luck a few minuets later we run into 2 dog owners that are together that had 5 dogs all together. I was thinking please someone save me. The other owners stopped and pulled there dogs to the side as much as they could, which wasn't much after they saw Missy was starting to act up. When we got pretty close to them once again Missy totally flipped out and slipped out of her gentle leader? Missy has not reacted this badly(not including Koda) for about 1 month maybe two. I was disappointed but understand that it was because there was multiple dogs.

Pretty Good Walk

I went to walk past a gate that allows a neighborhood access to the trail and I heard a dog bark. I took a closer look and there was an owner standing there with his dog, they were blocked by trees and bushes. Missy became alert so I turned around and walked the other way because I wasn't sure how much leash the dog had and how close it was to the trial. After walking in the other direction for three minuets I turned back around trying to come up with a plan on getting by. Than a women ran by "that's it" I thought. Me and Missy would run pass. I got Missy at a close hill on my Left side(the dog was to my right) and ran past. Missy knew the dog was there, but she didn't even glance it's way. Happy dance. Of course my girl got lots of praise. We also ran into a Labrador jogging with his owner, same procedure close heal and keep her from fixating on the dog. Her reaction was way below than normally All she did was lunge Once that's All! I was so happy. We ran into the same dog on our way back her reaction was just a notch worse she lunged and I guess you would call it a bark, but it was really quiet. I'm so happy and proud of her for so much improvement. Go Missy!!

WoofStock

I am probably bringing Missy to Woofstock, a dog event help at Suwanee Town Center in Georgia. There will be a ton of dogs there. I'm hoping this won't be a mistake. I will stay away from the crowd if she is showing signs of being stressed, but I'm hoping she'll like it or at least not bark and flip out. I've been going since it started and this will be Missy's 2nd time coming. The first time she got a rabies shot(it was free) and left. My friend may be bringing her Boxer Lily who is Missy's friend. Crossing my fingers all goes well on Saturday.
http://www.star94.com/Woofstock.aspx