Long jog

I took the dogs on a longish jog yesterday, about an hour (well, admittedly I didn't actually jog the whole time, there were breaks for training, sniffing, etc.). The very first thing that happened was we left the house and saw a guy and I was giving Gustav treats, but then the guy saw something in his car and pivoted and started hustling towards us. Gustav lost it and started barking and lunging, Dottie joined in barking but not lunging. Details: guy was wearing sunglasses and was on the same side of the street as us, but we were on the sidewalk. Gustav also hadn't had tons of exercise recently so maybe that played a role. I was frustrated so I just took them back home for a few minutes. I ignored them completely and waited until Dottie stopped whining at me, then got up and tried again. I'm not sure if they understand the meaning of this time out, but I know I needed it to get in a positive frame of mind again.

Which I'm glad I did, because I needed it. On our way out we saw plenty of people, plus some running kids and a few dogs behind fences. Both dogs did well. In light of two facts I tried to keep extra distance: one, in my experience if Gustav's lost it once recently, he has a much lower tolerance for scary stimuli and is prone to react in situations where maybe he wouldn't have another day. Two, I have been giving a lot of thought to two of Chelse's ideas: one is quality over quantity, that one really nice controlled set-up is better than haphazard but longer training. two, counterconditioning works best waaaay under threshold, like the dog is actually relaxed but still noticed the stimulus. So I've been trying to stop way far away from people and do the counterconditioning until the person disappears, if their path of travel makes this possible. For example, if someone is coming towards us I can give treats until they're maybe three-quarters of a block away, then actually turn around and walk away. This is also like a tiny, poorly-executed version of CAT (relaxation equals scary thing goes away). The other advantage of this is that the real trigger is people approaching him, not Gustav approaching the person voluntarily. So this system addresses that issue more precisely by having us stay still.

Okay, so then we got to a nice part, a bike path with no one around and Dottie got to do these crazy runs around the field just because she wanted to, which always makes me happy to watch. Me and Gustav started sprinting around and having a good time.

Then at the bus transfer point we did some more long distance CC (I actually got a tail wag!) then walked up Milwaukee street. Milwaukee street is busy and has no sidewalk on one side, so it's a gamble for safe walking. We walked up it and past some people standing in their garage, no issue. Then we saw a guy walking towards us. I looked around and realized that due to snow and traffic, etc, there was no was this was going to work. So I turned around and when we walked back past the driveway a little dog came running towards us. He only got about half way when his owner got him, but Gustav was spooked. He started barking and lunging and due to the guy coming up behind us and wanted the little dog to not come to the street, we just started jogging quickly away from it all. I can't remember if Dottie was barking or not. But Gustav was really concerned, had all his hackles up and kept turning around and whimpering this horrible whimper. I interpreted that as his discomfort at not being able to see the two scary things, the guy and the dog. When I recounted this to Justin he interpreted it as frustration at not being able to meet the dog. The whimpering made me feel really sad for Gustav, like he is really terrified. Since he's usually such a jerk about things he's scared about, it made me really sad to see this more pathetic manifestation of his utter terror. We finally got to a side street and turned up it. I stopped so we could collect ourselves. We watched the guy who had been behind us pass and Gustav got lots of treats for that. A little kid got into a car across the street with her mom and the dogs got lots of treats. Then after everyone was gone I gave Gustav some firm petting down his spine like Chelse suggested and some calm talking and deep breaths. Gustav got all squinty-eyed and leaned his head into my leg and I felt much better and he obviously did too.

Whew.

The rest of the jog home was mostly uneventful. We saw more people and I stopped super far away to do CC, which was definitely the right decision based on Gustav's tension even with the people over a block away. On our last turn towards home we were suddenly faced with the husky from across the street. I one-eightied and the dogs didn't even notice the husky. Thanks to dog's best friend classes for teaching us an automatic turn, it has saved us from hysterics more than once. The dogs know it, but more importantly I automatically cheerfully say "this way" or "let's go" (I know I should be consistent but I forget in the heat of the moment) and turn on a dime. I used to just stand there dumbly for a split second while I decided what to do, and in that moment my dogs would decide on a course of action for me.
I brought them back about half a block and CCd at the husky passed and I'm not even sure my dogs noticed the husky, but regardless they were perfect and I was proud, and I know the husky owners noticed and they know I'm working hard on these dogs, so I felt good about that.

Daily stats:
Times over threshold for Gustav: two.
People CCd for: probably about ten.