Rehab Day 12

Day 12...I had a good rest last night, so this morning I woke up full of energy and strenght! I decided to take them, for the first time in almost two weeks of their pack structure training program, to one of the biggest and busiest dog park, here in North London area.  We started off with 30 minutes walk around the block, which helps to bring the level of excitement in the dogs down. Excitement many times leads to loss of control and therefore escalates into aggression. So it's very imporatnt to have full control over the dogs excited state of mind. This could be achieved through a structured walk with the handler! On this short walk, the dogs also get the time to empty themselfs, so once put in the vehicle they will be calmer during the journey!

Both did great in the car, not a single signs of tension or aggression! Very well done, boys! The walk at the park was rather challenging for both, me and the dogs! We met lots of dogs along the way, and none of my two males have shown any aggression towards them at all. For now, I don't allow them to interact with any strange dogs! When dogs start to aproach us, I keep walking, never stop to give them the opportunity to greet my dogs. This usually makes the dogs pass by, or come from behind and take a sniff at the rear! Most dogs won't mind being checked from behind. In dominant and aggressive dogs it usually creates tension followed by an attack on the other dog. However, as long as you keep on moving, you blocking the dogs mind from going forward into a flight mode! With dog aggressive dogs the worse thing to do, it's allow it to make straight face to face contact with another dog, or letting another dog to sniff at his rear, while both dogs being static. It only takes seconds, for your dog to get fixated on the other and before you notice it, it's already too late! Any form of correction from this point on, it's pretty much useless. Correcting the dog once the fight it's over, doesn't teach the dog not to fight in the future, instead it's making him believe, that he didn't fight hard enough. That's the reason for why, I'm avoiding this type of contact with my dogs, for now!

Apart from the long walk, I did allowed them to swim, which is another off leash activity this week! During the play, they were not praised! After swimming they also played some frisbee games and once finished, they were let to rest and then muzzled, put on lead and walked back to the car! Journey home was very quiet! Both were sleeping!

Dinner time was great once again..and because, they were on such a good behaviour today, I gave them raw bones reward after dinner. I watched them closely, while they were eating it. To my surprise, they finished them in peace! Now that's a big change in them, being able to eat a piece of bone together!


P. S. So far, I'm very happy with their overall progress they achieved, in just under 2 weeks...:))))