Since Sampson did a partial CCL tear on his ‘good’ leg, we’ve had a restructuring of walks.

Oh the dogs still get two walks each per day, except now they get them separately. Sampson just can’t go as far, or as long as Delilah can. And it’s not fair to Delilah to have her walks cut short, just to save me the extra time.

SO…I set my alarm for 5:00 am, (my clock is about 20 mins fast) (eventually,) I drag my ass out of bed, and give my dogs their morning walks.

Sampson’s walks are always timed. Eight or nine minutes, then turn around and head home.

Delilah’s are a bit longer, but hers are more designed by routes, and some are longer than others. Because I’m pressed for time there are certain routes I will not take on a work day. On the weekends, she basically has carte blanche.

Taking four walks a day can definitely be challenging, but I’m all about finding that silver lining.

The silver lining in this situation is, managing one dog at a time is a hell of a lot easier than dealing with two.

Walking one dog, also allows me time to work with them individually. You may recall, both of my dogs can be reactive, but for different reasons.

Remember this?

(That was the day I sat down in the grass to keep myself from being pulled across the street by my dogs. Let me just say, that was not a stellar day in my dog owning book, so I set out to change that.)

FTR, Sampson is reactive because he’s excited to see and meet, new people and new dogs.  Delilah is reactive because, well, she’s Delilah. Honestly, I never quite figured out why she reacted. If I had to guess, I think she senses the energy/personality of the other dog. She knows when another dog is going to be a jerk, and she takes the lead. It’s her, kill or be killed attitude. I believe it’s how she survived before she found us.

I think that’s a digression, but I felt like I had to add it.

We rarely encounter dogs in the mornings. (That’s what dragging your ass out of bed at 4:45 am will do for you.) But in the afternoons, we’ve been known to encounter dogs, dogs, dogs, and dogs.

I’m super lucky (or cursed, depending on how you look at it,) because I have Labradors, and Labradors are highly motivated by food.

Lucky because a food motivated dog WANTS to get that treat. Cursed because a  food motivated dog WANTS to get that treat. (Caution: working with a highly excited food motivated dog can result in injuries such as scratches, unintended bites, bumps, bruises and in some instances, falling over.)

To help control her reactivity, I worked Delilah extensively with the “Look”command (which pulls her mind of the dog(s) and puts her focus on me.)

How To Teach The Look Command

Personally, I feel the look command is one of the easiest to teach.  Hold a treat in between your thumb and forefinger, make sure your dog sees the treat, then bring the treat up to just about where your nose runs into your forehead. Your dog should automatically follow the trajectory of the treat. Once your dog is doing this reliably, add your command of “Look,” “Watch,” or “Focus,”  whichever word you want to associate with this command.  **Author’s Note :  I highly recommend NOT using the thumb and forefinger for this visual command. While your dog will certainly understand, you might get some strange looks from your neighbors.

We’ve got this command down pretty well. In fact, most times we can walk past a yard dog without me having to pull out a treat. Sometimes I have to remind her with “Look,” but mostly she just ignores the other dog. And of course, she gets rewarded after, but it’s much easier to reward a calm dog, than one who is overly excited.

Typically, our dog encounters were with dogs in (or coming out of) their yards, but now, with the fair-weather-dog-walkers, we do encounter dogs walking past us. This has been more challenging, but what I discovered with my treat-motivated-Labrador is…pull a treat out, cup it in my closed fist and hold that right in front of her nose and keep walking. I am usually talking as we do this, encouraging her by telling her what a good girl she is.

I’m proud to tell you, that we have successfully walked past walking dogs.

Try to say that three times fast. (Never mind, I just did and it was easy.)

For me, “Look” is one of the most important commands I can teach my dog.  What’s a command you can’t imagine not teaching your dog?