Pits on Parade

I've really been enjoying my volunteer time at the animal shelter and have gone there three times in less than a week. In fact, I hope Cabana's blog doesn't get too overrun by photos from my visits there. So I will post these and then, it will be back to the regularly scheduled labby programming!!


On Saturday, six volunteers (all happened to be women) took six pitbulls for a pack walk. I don't know if you can really call it a pack walk, because we had to walk them all kind of far apart to keep them from getting overly excited. Most of the dogs are actually very friendly with other dogs, but there's no fenced area (a huge deficit for the shelter) to let them off leash. (Only five are pictured because I'm out in front, taking the photo.)

I was walking Paco, whose big ol' head you can see in the foreground of this photo. In front of Paco is a sweet dog who recently had a litter of puppies. The people kept the puppies, presumably to sell, and dumped the mama. Nice.

Today, I spent a couple hours with this adorable white pitbull, Francie. When I first walked into her kennel, she grabbed the leash I was holding in her mouth and tried to play tug with me. So I dropped the leash to let her know I didn't want to engage her in that game. She then dropped her end of the leash and starting jumping wildly all over me instead.

I thought, hmmm, do I really want to pick this dog to take for a walk? But I ended up falling in love with her. After getting her out of the noisy kennels (where all the dogs are barking like crazy), she calmed down and was the sweetest thing ever.

We walked for about 30 minutes, and whenever Francie would pull, I'd just stop walking. She'd circle back to stand closer to me, and then she'd walk with a beautifully loose j-shaped leash! That's certainly not something I can take credit for--someone else had obviously worked with her a lot (Francie was a stray). But one thing I noticed is that she kept veering into my walking lane. I was walking her on my left side because that's how I always walk Cabana. Finally, duh, I tried walking her on my right side, and voila--no more veering! I guess Francie had been taught to walk on the right! It's amazing how you can tell what a dog knows and doesn't know. Hopefully, next time, I'll be a bit quicker on picking up those subtle (and not so subtle) cues.

Update: Kelti, the yellow lab from my previous post, was adopted on Saturday. Hooray!

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New Equipment & Practices

In the front of this photo is our new snazzy red 26' Flexi leash, made for dogs twice Cabana's size. Our old retractable leash was not a Flexi, and the mechanism was not nearly as smooth or fast. In my opinion, the Flexi is worth every penny (only $26 on eBay). The tangled red tape/lead is the tape from the old retractable leash that broke. I still get use out of it by attaching it to Cabana's collar and letting it just drag along behind her. It gives us extra yardage, plus since it's old anyway, I don't mind if it gets all wet and muddy.

And my new mucker boots! After months of slogging through wet dog park grass in my sneakers and coming home with squishy brown socks, I finally bought these rain boots. The pink circles may be slightly garish, but they just make me so happy. C'mon, rain, I'm ready for you!

After reading this article about leash walking on Dog Star Daily, I realized how important it is to allow Cabana to "check out the world at her own pace". When Cabana was a puppy-in-training, I didn't have the confidence to just "let her be a dog". Like someone trying a new recipe, painstakingly measuring each ingredient, or a young painter with a new paint-by-number set, I compulsively tried to follow the GDB guidelines. My #1 goal was for Cabana to walk next to me in the perfect position, without sniffing or veering, ignoring all distractions.

But don't get me wrong, I love the GDB structure and guidelines! I believe those guidelines helped us raise a balanced, healthy, polite dog--one that doesn't bark excessively, isn't possessive of toys or food, doesn't lick or sniff inappropriately, and potties on command. Cabana gets an A+ in all those areas.

Well, we never did get the walking on leash exactly right, for a guide dog in training anyway. So I've had a hard time letting those rules go. I was still clinging to that old goal. And I didn't want what progress we had achieved deteriorate--but still, I wanted to give her more freedom and fun on our walks.

I think we've finally come to a good compromise. Using the Flexi leash, we start the first half of our walk with Cabana in a heel position, keeping the leash braked short. I still use kibble to help Cabana walk without pulling and as a reward for ignoring passersby. Then, when we reach grassy open areas, I let go of the brake and let her sniff like crazy, walk through grass and puddles, meander about, get way ahead of me or way behind. She LOVES it. It's a great time to practice recall, too--which Cabana is doing MUCH better at (thanks, Ro, for the Iams Biscuit info; it's been HIGHLY motivating to Cabana).

When other people/dogs are approaching, though, I tell Cabana to "stay with me" as I bring her back into a heel position. I only too clearly remember how difficult and detrimental it was to pass other dogs that weren't being properly controlled by their owners. After the people have passed, I tell Cabana, "go sniff" or "go play", and she happily goes back to her explorations.

I'd love to know what others of you with career change dogs do regarding leash walking. How much of their previous training do you hang onto?

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