Revisiting old places anew
Today I had an errand to run over by Whiteman Park. So we went back to the place we had been going to last year. Amika and I were there most every day some weeks, for short periods doing CU type stuff. I didn’t let her off lead and kept sessions pretty short. I also felt fearful at that stage.
Today, as over the past couple of weeks, my partner came along. He makes me feel more confident because he is able to spot people and dogs off in the distance before they arrive. I’m usually so wrapped up in watching Amika that I don’t pay that much attention, plus I have sub-average eyesight.
I’ve improved in confidence in general (though have been having one of those sooky weeks) but have realised that I need to shake off a bad habit. This is, I actively avoid looking at distance, because it is an effort for me to pick things out. It’s a behaviour that has been punished out of me due to social pressures I guess. You look pretty stupid to other people when you are squinting into the distance and unable to percieve what they can easily see. To avoid looking less than perfect, I have avoided looking. “What’s that? Oh, I didn’t see that thing go by because I was looking at my feet.” Stupid, really, but that’s where it originates.
Today we did what we’ve been doing at the local spot. The difference was we had a longer walk from the picnic area to an unoccupied field on the lead. Amika did amazingly well on the harness, pulling very little except when she came across a scent she wanted to track. I had high value raw sausage treats to reward nice walking with.
The run was uneventful and fun. We practiced recalls in running games and Amika got lots of sniffing and some rolling in grass time. As with the local park, walking on lead after a run is somewhat easier most of the time. We stopped at a picnic table after Amika had a drink and practiced doing nothing, which is hard for this dog in a new-ish place, even when tired. I gave her a toy to mouth, used some of those calming signals ala Turid Rugaas and played a brief bit of Look At That game (from CU) with some people returning to a car. I think I need to go back and retrain LAT with a neutral object again, as it is seeming to hype her up. Overall, though, I think Amika was more settled in the environment than she was when we were going there last year.
On the way home, we had to stop to pick something up and ended up parked next to a paddock with a dog in it. Amika, despite being tired, proceeded to have a full blown episode in the car before we got the owner to bring her provocative (to Amika at least) dog inside. He got out again before we left, too, so I now have one tired and fried puppy. No outings for her tomorrow, so her stress levels can recover! I need to get another blanket into the car so that I can cover that crate next time and avoid that. It will be interesting to watch her stress levels and see how she recovers over the next couple of days.
