life, the universe, and donna

One of those dog posts that nobody wants to read but me.

Anyway, I’m proud of her. She’s improving, slowly but surely. Last night, Carol Ann & I took her for a walk so she could have a run under the power lines. This is, of course, a popular spot for other dogs… so we muzzled up and off we went.

I’ve decided if she’s off leash around other people, she’s going to wear her muzzle for now. It’s also not a bad idea to have her in it while we’re walking, as it tends to make other people stay away from her, which is good. She’s actually fine with people away from the house, but there’s no good reason for strangers to come up to my dog, so why encourage it? But mostly, they keep their own dogs away, which is better.

We had two close encounters of the k9 kind. The first was while walking up to the trail, and a couple sitting over the creek had their off leash dog running around. When he spotted us, he came running up, and Justice immediately started getting anxious… and laid down, with no prompting. Oh, good girl! We were within earshot of the other couple, so I asked if they could call their dog back, which they did. And Justice was SO well behaved with the whole deal. Generally, when she starts having a hissy fit or getting fearful, she’s told to lay down, and I’m so, so proud of her for picking up on that.

Of course, to get past them, we had to pass within her threshold for being near other dogs on leash, and we had a minor growlfest… but nothing too serious. I’d call that one a win overall.

The next encounter wasn’t quite so good. Further along the path, a family-type group came along with their off-leash pit bull-type dog. Now, I have nothing against pits and actually think they’re usually really sweet dogs. But, I have a dog-aggressive dog, and while I can keep HER under control… I don’t want her setting off a dog who could tear through her without thinking about it. I wasn’t actually concerned at all at first — again, Justice just laid down when she started getting anxious, but the pit kept coming towards us.

I can’t really fault the other owners — they figured out pretty quickly to try to keep their dog away, which is good. I mean, we have a dog wearing a muzzle who’s laid down at the sight of another dog, and I’ve purposely put my body between them (mostly to obscure her vision — she tends to fixate on things, and it bugs me — pay attention to ME, Justice. Ignore the other dog.) Unfortunately, they didn’t have very good off leash control, and the pit kept coming towards us… and got close enough to make Justice go bonkers. Damnit.

What we’re working on right now is being … if not comfortable, then at least accepting of other dogs while she’s on leash. She doesn’t need to be friends with them, she just needs to accept that they exist and take her cues from me as to whether or not there’s a threat. To do this, I try to expose her to other dogs in a semi-controlled environment, where we can keep them far enough away from her that she’s anxious, but not freaking out. The problem is that I don’t know too many other people who have dogs, and so I end up using strangers for this purpose… and then I lose the control that I want, because while I can verbally request that people keep their dogs away from mine… well, it doesn’t always work in practice. And I end up feeling like the jerk who’s got the vicious dog.

I feel like I need a big sign that says “Rescue dog being trained. Please keep 10 feet away at all times.” or something.

I really need to get her out to the group training classes that my trainer holds, but getting to Vancouver at 10 on a Saturday is harder when it takes an hour to get there, and I’m just not a morning person. Dang.

Anyway. She’s doing better, anyway. I’m really happy with the automatic lay down around other dogs. Poor little psycho freak dog.