Greeting a new person

26/12/08

Exciting new friend

We took her out to my parent’s again in the evening. I again got her to stay relatively quiet in the car on the way in with treats (she does like the new kibble). Mom’s friend was over. Last time Amika saw her, it was a screaming lunging frenzy. One of the things this friend does is use a high pitched “ee!” type voice- she has a lot of natural vocal variety, volume and tends to show lots of enthusiasm through her voice. I had Mom mention to her that one thing that sets Amika off is high pitched voice, so I think that helped.

We repeated yesterday’s “no whining on the way in” routine. It was odd, but when we got her out of the car it went very smoothly until we got to the door and pressed the door bell. I didn’t think she knew the sound, though someone had come to the door yesterday and she got excited… So she went back in the car and had a tantrum while the people said their greetings.

When I finally got her in where the people were (with false starts down the hall) she did very well. Mom’s friend had conveniently taken a trip to the back of the house, so she met the other people and checked out the new scent on things. Before the firend came back in, she made noises (flushing, door opening, hand washing), so I started the LAT game with the noises as the target. Then she came in and leaned on the door frame while we played LAT with her from about 4m away. Amika did GOOD with this. I can see if I had left it too long to C/T she would have reacted, but with LAT going, she didn’t. After a bit the new person came in, Amika started her “eee!” type greeting so as I backed up as she went past into the kitchen (out of sight for Amika).

Amika pinged back and forth on the lead whining (kitchen has two entries either side of a tall “bar” type wall we can lean on). The humans chatted and ignored the dog. When she did quiet and put herself in a down, she got treats. Once she was calmer we did a “drive by” greet through the kitchen. She started to flare up almost instantly she had her nose on the new person so I kept going. I took a quick break to go outside and get Amika a drink at this stage, then back to it.

After a few tries of waiting for calm (increasingly quick) and going into the kitchen, I parked us at the meals area entry to the kitchen, in sight of all the other people. I was able to ask for Amika to give eye contact (we’ve been doing this all the way in from the car) and give treats. Gradually we moved closer. Amika tried to rush the new gal once and was brought up sharp on the end of the lead (attached to my middle), came straight back to me and focussed again. From there, we were able to move into the kitchen to do sit for patting while she was mostly focussed on getting treats from me. Then I let her off lead. There was one flare-up of whining / escalating arousal, which I corrected verbally, then called her (and she came eagerly) to come to the laundry to get her new rope toy. That occupied her somewhat as she buzzed around *quietly* mugging people (mainly the new gal) for pats and play.