This video is Bert leaving the house. He does get excited on his walk and barks when we come onto the drive. He wasn’t too bad today. I let the bark happen for the video.
What I will not do for this blog is put him into a situation that escalates his behaviour. One thing that is part of all my behaviour work is to keep the dog away from triggers when I can.
Watch the video and you can see his body language walking to the corner. This corner and the next have always been challenging times for him, and I need to work on these areas. He is far more likely to react in this area.
There were 2 cats that lived on the corner which have no gone so I can work better with him.
We came across a cow that could not be avoided. And a dog popped up!
I don’t normally hold him by the collar, or advise this, however, due to the dog randomly appearing and lack of space, and the fact that the cow was close, and his reactions to certain dogs are exaggerated (huskies in particular) I felt at that point it would be better than risking a lunge.
The above two videos show Bert’s reaction when he saw, and got closer to another dog and how I managed to make him feel safe and prevent escalation. Every dog is different and every situation is different so get to know your dog.
Guess what? He met the dog and there was no reaction! This isn’t unusual, his reactions are generally limited to understanding the dog is not a threat. But he was very calm.
The dogs stopped at the top of the field and Bert was calm enough to say hello without any reactions!
Unfortunately, the video will not upload so you can check it out here https://youtube.com/shorts/pWf4IeGMYgE