I’ve been pretty good about taking the Puppy for a neighborhood walk at least twice a week. One of the nice things about the neighborhood is there is a park quite close by. We can leave the house, walk just a quarter of a mile or so to the park, and then have a nice loop around the park and back home. All in the space of about a half an hour. I try to spend the time bonding with the Puppy, occasionally asking for a behavior, often stopping to play tug for a minute and in general working on manners. Its a good time. Most of the time….
The other day my timing was off and we shared our route with three other folks and their dogs. They provided great examples of typical “meeting other dogs” scenarios.
- A man running with his two off leash dogs. I’ll give this guy some credit – he was way off the path (in a field) and when he saw me, still probably 1/4 mile away, he stopped and downed his dogs and waited until I had passed him before starting up again. I also watched and he did put his dogs on lead when he turned out of the fields into the neighborhood. The Puppy noticed the dogs and I just kept rewarding him for following me.
- A woman walking her dog on leash. No issues, we were kind of going different directions and didn’t even meet. The Puppy also noticed this dog in the distance and again, I just rewarded him for turning his focus back to me.
- A man with an off leash dog over which he had no control. “Here Fido, Fido COME” he kept calling as his dog was barreling down to us. The Puppy started barking and was quite distracted. I had to resort to tossing kibble in the face of the oncoming dog a-la Patricia McConnell’s video. This did seem to distract the dog. But WHY? WHY do people do this? Thankfully I was not walking The Palace Guard, who would have gone ballistic!
As the days get warmer and brighter at 7am, I think I’m going to face other folks more often. I guess I’ll be happy when Daylight Savings Time starts and at least for a little bit it is darker again when we set off.
Parallel Tails 