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.

Mmm... new stuff!

Two new things arrived in the post today. A scrummy new collar from Lupine, the Combo collar in a nice camo pattern called Bone Hunter. His leather martingale had pinched his fur out on his lower neck. The nice thing about it is that it has two D rings, so it can be put on as a standard collar, or attached in the martingale function. Lupine also guarantee the collar so if it breaks or gets chewed they'll replace it. Not had chance to try it on him yet as he's gone into kennels for a few days. He was really happy to see the guys at kennels again, so that was great. Still hard leaving him there though.

Second thing to drop through the door is the DVD by Leslie Nelson called 'Really Reliable Recall' bought from Canine Concepts. Great delivery service btw! I've heard great things about it, so will give that some viewing tonight. One thing I miss from not being in class anymore is seeing how other people do stuff timing wise.

New harness

Wow! That has to be the fastest delivery of a quality item I've had in a while. Ordered a brown fleecy harness from Dog Games in size 4 one afternoon and it arrives the next day. It's lovely soft fleece and I really like the fact it unclips on both sides, so need to thread paws through, which makes getting it on a wriggling puppy much easier. So far, on the two outings we've had in it, it seems to have improved the pulling. At least he's not half strangling himself to death enroute to wherever he thinks it's reeeeeeeeeally important we get to NOW!

People have often commented on his collar and lead when we're out. They're from Accolade Leathercraft. I got the platted 3/4" flat lead and a 1" plain flat collar, both in brown leather. They've worn in really well and the colour is lovely. I'm not getting Grey a correction collar or harness and am aiming to try to train him not to pull rather than use equipment that would restrict his movement.