Where has my brain been?

I'm feeling kind of slow lately... maybe it's the stress of the end of the semester finals or whatever but I don't care. I'd just like my brain back. For those that don't know, Toby and I have slowly be working through his on-leash reactivity with other dogs. Off leash he's fine, a bit of an over sized dork because of his lack of socialization as a pup but he takes direction well and fast learns when to knock it off. On leash with dogs he knows, he's fine. It's off leash with dogs he doesn't know that's been our problem. He's made great progress for having an owner who has to bumble along on her own because we don't have any positive trainers around here and when I finally did break down and take him to a trainer for help things just got much, much worse.

So on our own it's been and it's taken me about 6 months to get back to where we were before I took him to the last trainer (about this time last year...). In these past 6 months he's gotten much, much better than I'd ever thought possible. He still has his moments (which I try to avoid... but we're in the real world I can't control the other dogs), but his recovery time has gotten shorter and shorter. To show just how far we've come... a year ago he was back to exploding at any dog he'd see. Now he's never been the worst of the worst. Just lunging and crying, screaming his head off and when that doesn't work, then we get the growl-scream mix. This is a dog who at about this time last year, I was dragging back in the house with screaming because he saw a dog five houses down in their front yard... just laying there. That was one of his worst moments... but it sticks out in my head.

Today... we walked outside to go for a walk and saw a man with two kids walking down the street (the kids on tricycles) and had to wait on the front steps for them to pass (Our front yard is fenced in with a small picket fence, so I couldn't open the gate until they passed). No biggie, we just waited. My neighbors of course chose this moment to take their little dog for a walk. A week ago they'd tried it and the little dog had come growling and barking up to the fence and I'd had to turn Toby back in and give him a few minutes to stop the small whining and make sure he was calm.

Instead Toby just sat there calmly and watched the dog come out and wagged his tail happily at the kids. Relaxed. If I'd been on top of my game with my brain in full functioning mode I'd have been rewarding him like a madwoman right then! Sadly I wasn't and sure enough the little dog rushed to the end of it's leash and started growling (at least it was on a leash...). Toby started to whine and then my brain kicked back in and "Oh crud!" meter flashed and started shoving the bits of steak into his mouth. Thankfully that was all he needed and he stopped whining and played "Look at the dog" with me.

We were even able to follow the dog down the road (we were going to pick up mom her work...) something that's we're still working on. Toby was calm about it most of the way. I think our biggest obstacle these days is passing the group of feral cats on our normal walking route... and you can't plan your walk around them because they're hiding in the bushes all over the place.

Nonetheless, I'm so proud of him! Even after our run in with the cats he relaxed with me outside the bank as we waited for mom. There was a time when he couldn't just lay down outside and be relaxed, especially not after even glimpsing a cat, let alone a growling dog. He's been incredible these past few months... it's mind boggling. All that's missing is my brain and maybe I can catch back up to his excellence. :-p