Friday, May 23, 2008

Opening the Bar

This past Monday was the first time I'd actually tried the "Open Bar" technique. It's mainly, feeding the dog while a stressor goes by. It helps change how the dog perceives the situation... from the normal negative to something more positive. Well I'd been reading a few blog posts from someone else on the Control Unleashed Yahoo group doing it and had decided to try it... and in Monday's post, just getting him to nibble the cheese the whole way really worked. I was a bit stunned.

So today I went out intending to do the same thing. I wasn't feeling comfortable or confident enough to set out with the mindset of doing it if we saw another dog. Why? I don't know. Maybe I still felt like I'd be making the situation worse. Or bribing him. Or something... I don't know. But we headed out... barely made it off the block when I saw a dog heading in our direction across the street and Toby hadn't noticed him yet. So I made a split second decision and called him to me. I grabbed the cheese and let him start nibbling while I held his collar. Part of me hoped we'd get through it without him noticing the dog... Me, insecure? You betcha.

He did indeed notice the other dog. Now... I really couldn't have asked for a better 'test dog' than that one. It's a husky-mix (probably) and this dog is one of the calmest dogs I've seen on walks. He always walks perfectly calm with his older gentleman and whenever we've ran into them, the dog barely blinks an eye if Toby reacts. I knew there wouldn't be any lunging back from this dog... so that's better than most could have hoped for. The moment Toby saw him he stopped eating and started to focus, I just moved the cheese back in front of his nose and he started nibbling. I laughed when I read in the other CU member's blog about her dog growling and slurping as he watched the dog go by and had an similar odd-sensation as Toby whined, and nibbled at the same time. And yet... Toby was choosing to eat. When I had to move my hand to get another small chunk to let him nibble (I'd gotten 'smart' and cut the string cheese up before heading out) he moved with my hand, whining and latched onto the next chunk. Wow.

Once the dog was beyond us and moving onto the other block I was able to cue Toby to continue the walk and just wow... Up he went and rather happily! He may have been just on his threshold line or a bit over as the dog went by, but the recovery time was in the blink of an eye. Now sadly, we made it about five steps before my neighbor jogged to catch up to us, startling Toby. This man Toby has never once tried to jump on but the man has never tracked us down to walk with us. So Toby did get a bit stressed then, jumped towards the man (to greet... but that's not smart with this guy) and I made sure we kept our distance. After the rest of the block we turned another way so we didn't have to do the whole walk with him. He freaks me out and that's NOT the vibe I want to send my dog... not after such a success! But we made it home without further trouble.

I have to say... I'm a lot more open to the thought of feeding him through a stressor. I'd tried it in the beginning, but it had always been having him sit first, and trying to piece little bits of treats into his mouth making the whole process slow. Having something that he can just nibble/suck on the whole time works 10 times better. He got through the situation of having a dog walk past us (albeit across the street) without ANY of his normal fuss. Normally he's dancing at the end of that leash, loud whining/crying/growling, loud huffing breaths, scanning the surrounding area during and after and can take him about 10-30 seconds minimum to recover. Today, we got through it with some mild whining as he watched the dog go by. I'm definitely going to make more use of this! It's a shame I can't pin down the man's walking times and use them to my advantage. -grins- If only all people had set schedules!

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