The Week of September 1 - Lots of pictures

We have had a busy and fun week yet again, we had many outings and so many new experiences. I am sorry but I did not get video like I had planed to do. I will try to get some this week.

Outings

We went out to breakfast at a local restaurant. Luke did very good with going under the table and settled down after a few minutes. We will need to work on him tucking up a little bit better when laying down. He did softly bark when someone ran behind my chair but I told him leave it and he went back to resting.

Luke accompanied Ara to a doctors appointment this week. This was his first time going to this doctors office and meeting this doctor. He was able to push the door buttons and even hit the call button for the elevator. In the office he was polite and did a great down stay while we talked to the doctor.

So a new experience was going to the hair salon (a kid friendly small shop) Luke has been there once for only a few minutes but that was a while ago. He really struggled which surprised me, as he has been doing so great. Because the girls and I were all getting our hair done they blocked out about an hour so we were the only ones in the shop. Ara was the first to go and her anxiety was really high and Luke kept trying to climb in the chair with her. After about 20 minutes Luke finally settled down and relaxed. I was even able to hand off his leash to one of the workers while I got my hair done. So what went wrong in the beginning? I did not bring high enough value treats with me for a new place, also I should have let him settle down before letting Ara get in the chair for her hair cut, because that just added to his distraction. So in short it was my fault he struggled. I did not set up the situation as I should have. So next time we will set it up properly.


Rally O class, Luke is my demo dog for class :) and he did a great job. This is very good practice for Luke and we can also work on him ignoring other dogs while we are doing class.

Then the big event of the week was we went to the Choke Cherry Festival. It was 3 times as big as two years ago. There were huge crowds, loud noises, lots of smells, different types of people and even other dogs. Luke did very well except for the other dogs, he got excited and vocal when they were vocal. When that happened I pulled out a piece of hot dog (very high value treat) and had him watch me as we walked. After we passed the other dog and Luke did not react I gave him the treat. He did great while Ara played in the jump house and while she was on a ride. Luke did really great.

Other things we worked on:

This week we also worked on desensitizing to certain noises such as door bell, dogs barking, knocking ect.
We also worked on Take it, Give it, paw push, nose touch and leave it.