Day 17 (09/27/17): downtown park, meeting a rude dog

Terra ate 4.5 cups of Honest Kitchen plus a few chicken drumsticks today.

We did play time and training in the morning when she was feeling feisty (woohoo!). I challenged her to touch her nose to the target stick while I held treats in my free hand. So hard! Then we did stand-stays - she sometimes mands, and sometimes walks out from the stand, so she doesn't have an understanding of the concept yet.

We went to downtown Winters, which always has a stream of people and cars going by, but is fairly quiet during weekday mornings. We hung out for 20 minutes and saw 8 or 9 people. 3 were on bikes and 1 was pushing a small cart. I let her walk around at first a parking area first, and after 10 minutes she plopped down on the grass at the edge of the park and we watched the world go by. She was getting more relaxed as time went by, other than getting scared of a nearby bathroom door banging a few times in quick succession. I managed to get a tiny amount of playful paw and head movement out of her at the end, but the part was a tad too busy for her even without the loud banging.

The client dog with separation anxiety came over again. I knew that Terra would end up needing to poop while he was here, and his owners had done a good job tiring him out right before he came, so I thought that this was the right time to have him meet her. Unfortunately he was still overly aroused and ran straight at her. She of course tucked her tail and ran. Ack! He loses interest after the initial greeting and we got him chasing after a ball. Terra recovered better than I expected. She came out into the yard. At first she gave the dog distance, but her flight area steadily decreased. After 30 minutes she would let him walk right by her, and choose to get petting from his owners rather than avoid him. She leaned heavily against the wife, soaking up the attention. She approached him from behind to sniff his butt.

There was a small increase in stress signals as all the dogs and people entered the apartment but again she recovered well, and quickly. Not long after the owners left, Terra started to play with the boarding doodle, and she just ignored the sep anx dog when he tried to butt in.

I've seen from the beginning that Terra is easily overwhelmed but has much better recovery time than most shy dogs I've worked with. A few people have asked me if I was thinking of returning her, but it's this recovery, combined with her steady improvement, that makes me dedicated to keeping her and working with her. I see a lot of potential in her.