A Dog in Sight - Success!

Or Day 2 of McDonalds, you are my hero. I stopped by on my way home from work and got two double cheeseburgers from the dollar menu - one so I could have lunch before I got home and the second for Toby's walk today. I took him out to the track and the moment he figured out that cheeseburger was on the list of rewards I had, I couldn't lose him. Which was great. I got to reinforce a lot of eye contact and working with me out somewhere different.

Then I spotted a dog. It was outside of the fenced in track and a across the street. All in total, the dog was a good 80 feet away, if not a little more. A nice place to start. So I started asking him to look in that general direction and then back at me for some more cheeseburger. He liked that game. Then he saw the dog and instantly took four steps away from me as he focused in. Because of course, at the same time he noticed the dog, said dog took off at a dead run around and around a parked car. Hmm... not good. I know him, if I move into him he'll move away from me. We were definitely slightly over his threshold of what he can handle too... not much. He was still there. I could see his ears flick back when I talked to him and he wasn't 'frozen' yet... So I started moving backwards. I told him let's go and moved out to the end of the 50 foot. If he went over board and I needed to drag him away I didn't want to have to deal with rope burn if the rope slipped in my grip. I told him "Let's Go!" again, all cheerful and patting my leg. His ears flicked and that was it.

So I started moving out to the side, called it one last time and his ears flicked back to me and this time the rest of his body followed. He trotted up to me, a few whines when he reached me, but wow! My mind was already into the management mode... I never expected him to be able to turn away and walk 50 ft of line away from a dog. I partied and fed him bits of the cheeseburger for awhile, all the while telling him just how amazing I thought he was. He's such a special boy. He did glance back several times while we were still there but the dog had left and Toby was willing to keep working with me. Great!

I do need to find locations that I can safely desensitize him to other dogs. Todays was rather safe. There weren't any holes on that line of fence... but the distance wasn't easily adjustable because if we'd moved back too much farther you couldn't see the dog because the track is set up 10 feet higher than the street on that side. That and that's the first time I've seen that dog there. I do think I have an idea... at the college I go to there is a loop of the city walking path around the small lake there. Right by the main entrance for the loop is a large hill. I'm thinking of taking him there some nights and sitting way up on the top of the hill (about 150-200 feet from the path) and starting some work there. It's just random when dogs go by... so we could be up there for a half hour one night and see none and then 10 the next night. But it's the first time that I've seen anywhere around here that might actually work.