Life on the Leash

I’m in the middle of a “training trend.”

Sometimes I’ll have a breed trend, where, because of the way the stars aligned, I spend a month working only with one breed, like Greyhounds. Sometimes it’s a location trend, where every client lives within a mile of each other. Right now the trend is based on behavior: I’m seeing a ton of “reactive” dogs.

There was Maxie the Grumpy Teddy Bear, and these two … lovely Lola:

And handsome Henry:

Both lessons had us prowling the streets of DC, looking to hone our “be kind to strangers” skills on unsuspecting canine victims. Of course, as is always the case, the streets were deserted, and we wound up chasing every shadow that resembled a dog so that I could demonstrate how to deal with the reactivity. We had more luck in Lola’s neighborhood - she lives close to a very popular dog park.

She rocked it. We were all impressed with her ability to focus on us instead of the dogs leaving the park.

We weren’t as lucky in Henry’s neighborhood … we never got close enough to any dogs to really dive in to the meat of the technique. It bummed me out, but it’s par for the course … I show up and every other dog disappears.

Henry has a very sweet, very old sister who charmed the dog out of me. She’s sick, but she didn’t let on:

I think the surly dog season is coming to an end … I don’t see any others on the books. But I wonder - what’s next? The fluffy white dog trend? The boxer trend? (Yes please!)

Stay tuned …