More walking backwards

I'm still working hard at lead training. I've found that walking backwards is still a great help when he's really starting to freak out and get over stimulated by the environment. I've also gone back to working him more on the gencon. He's less reactive to traffic on the gencon. I can't seem to get him to relax on it though. It's like I have to do as much work on that as flat collar training. if I have him on a short leash on the gencon he never ever lets up pulling into it. No wonder he hates it. So I have to do lots and lots of reinforcement now to get him to stop pulling on that and making it unpleasant for himself. Kind of makes it hard to have that as my from A-B tool. I wonder if I'm doing something wrong.

He does seem stressed when I put it on him. Even though it's put on with food. He grinds his teeth for the first part of the walk. By the time we are homeward bound he's ok.

We went back to the park this morning. Had a run around then more walking backwards in the center with him following me. He lunged at a line of mounted posties which was a shame as he'd been really good outside the sorting office the day before. But I think the difference was that he was already very excited at the presence of other dogs round the perimeter of the park and that he was on the lead and couldn't go and say hello. I managed to calm him down, put on the gencon and walk nicely home.

This afternoon we headed out on foot again. I decided not to take him in the car to see if we could lower his energy levels that way. It seems to make a difference. We went to the beach at the lido, walked along to the harbour and through the old town. I'd picked up lots of nice bones today at the butchers so he spent a long while chewing bones and farting under my desk. Lovely. Might be a hangover from being wormed yesterday. Who knows, but it's kept him busy.

Other bits of training was more 'up up' and 'off' yesterday.

New collar new day

I knew I was speaking of success before I should have done regarding the halti and the new walking technique. After two days, Grey started struggling against the Halti for the whole walk. He would lean into it and made snuffling sounds with his breathing, so generally a struggle and it was uncomfortable on my arm. That and much throwing himself on the floor in a toddler protest and trying to rub it off on my trousers. He really hated it and would run and hide in his bed when I got it out, even if it meant going for a walk and was offered with a piece of sausage.

So over the weekend it was suggested I look at two more collars. The first the Gencon headcollar, which works by contracting the whole head and at the back of the head, similar to the TTouch calming bands. My friend kindly lent me hers so we did a swapsie and I gave the Halti back. He struggled a bit when it was put on like a pony with a new bridle. But after his initial protests he settled into it and really responded. I need to manage him more proactively as well, by lifting his head from scenting and stopping him lying on the floor. So we managed a while walking round the park and then through the high street with a well behaved more with me Grey that wasn't fighting the collar. It also doesn't ride up in his eyes. We'll see how he goes from here on if it continues.

We also bumped into Obi four times on the walk. Which was lovely and interesting because I got to see how different they are. Ok there's a big age gap with Obi being six weeks younger. But even at that age, Grey was a more determined to do his own thing on the lead character than Obi seems to be. Still so strange to see another one at the same time as Grey!


The other headcollar I had been recommended was the Dogmatic. It works like the Halti, but it doesn't ride up in the eyes and is good for large strong dogs. Hopefully we won't need it if training goes ok on the Gencon. If I do get one, I've been advised to get either the synthetic leather or the cotton one because the original leather versions need a lot of softening up.