Day 1
Steve asked me to go and put Bodhi on leash with
his prong collar on. I brought Bodhi out and he was doing barking and snarling
like I had never seen before (mainly because we had never been in this
situation).
...My homework is to bring
strangers to Bodhi over, keep him on leash the whole time, and not let Bodhi
make a bit of noise (and defiantly not let him lunge).
Steve Hayes of Fidelio Dog Works came by my
apartment on Friday afternoon to work with me on Bodhi. First, men that Bodhi
doesn't already love haven't been to my apartment... EVER. I knew this was
going to be bad. I put Bodhi in my room, let Steve in, and Bodhi proceeded to
go crazy barking and pounding on the door.
Steve asked me to go and put Bodhi on
leash with his prong collar on. I brought Bodhi out and he was doing barking
and snarling like I had never seen before (mainly because we had never been in
this situation).
Steve had me lift
straight up on the leash until Bodhi shut up, even for a milla-second then give
him a treat, but if he started back I would lift him up again. It was really
tough because he's barking and choking and it looks terrible, but the
alternative of his biting someone bad and having to be put to sleep is worse for
me.
Steve stayed and worked with me for
about an hour, starting at first working with him inside the apartment. He
would sit, stand, sit, stand, and any time he would change position Bodhi would
lose his mind. Then once sitting and standing were under control we worked on
staring, and leaning in. Then we moved outside to find
strangers.
Bodhi normally will bark
terribly at strangers but was being very well-behaved, so we worked on Steve
power walking towards me. Sometimes I would power walk towards him, and Bodhi
had to sit and be quite. It wasn't a sit if he was making even a peep of noise.
By the time we were outside I would just have to put a itty-bit of pressure on
the collar for him to get the point. He wasn't even barking, he was just making
the "start-up" noises.
Then we went
inside and worked on Steve coming in, knocking from the outside first. That
starting going wonderfully.
My
homework is to bring strangers to Bodhi over, keep him on leash the whole time,
and not let Bodhi make a bit of noise (and defiantly not let him lunge). The
people aren't to pet him, but can look at him and walk around my house like they
would at a normal house. I also knock on the door anytime I come in so that
Bodhi learns that good people knock too.
Posted: Sun - January 22, 2006 at 07:37 PM