Progress after a year

Training is a long and arduous process for both of us but it's nice to see the improvement and how quickly he bounces back into normal after a routine switch up. For example, he's now really good with his "on your spot" and I can get him to stay there a lot longer. A few days ago, I had him go on his spot and then I filled up his bowl (on the other side of the room) and put it down and he didn't move a muscle until I released him, it was awesome!

Though I have always known that it's important to make paying attention to me fun and rewarding, I have gone through phases this year of being lazy and not working hard enough to make sure that there's more rewards for behaving than confusing resistance on the leash or active corrections. I got a new treat pouch a couple months ago and I've been prioritizing having a few tasty treats on every walk instead of brushing it off as a minor part of training. I've learned that having exciting rewards isn't optional, it's a requirement. Only when his behaviour is almost consistent can I start working away from using treats again.

I feel good about our progress in the loose leash walking department. I just have to remember to react quickly and reasonably, which I'm getting better at with experience. If he's really geared up about a dog and yanking forward, it's best to switch directions, switch sides that he's walking on, and/or ask him to sit to pull him out of the mindset and back into focusing. My mistakes here was sometimes letting him pull to go dramatically mark something or assuming the prong would clue him in on it's own (refer to my previous post about "balance"). Prong collars aren't supposed to be passive tools, I was just too nervous to use it properly. When he's that geared up, he doesn't give any fucks about what's going on with the collar and just wants to pull through it. I need to be mindful about collar corrections and their timing. Keeping it quick and adjusting to the level of distraction/potential reaction instead of letting it be a gradual tightening is so important.  Also, again, important to have tasty, delicious treats to reward him if he reacts appropriately or if he calms down and settles into regular pace again quickly.

I learned as well that expecting him to walk loose leash/in a nice heel in an exciting place is unrealistic as heck. His dog reactivity is pretty specific to sidewalk/city walks. On hikes, he's been totally fine these days (he even played with TWO intact males at High Park a couple weeks ago and the worst thing he did was attempt to mount them a couple of times).

I'm planning to buy him this really nice harness I found online that has front webbing instead of piddly little straps and two options for clipping - one at the back and one at the front (to dissuade from pulling), so yes, a no-pull harness, but again, not going to rely on it to "train" him. I think it will be a good tool for hikes to keep him from ruining my arm or his neck but kind of let him be free-er. I don't plan to use it for our regular city walks because he really doesn't respond to anything other than the prong if he gets reactive, but I think it'll be a great option to keep his neck safe on adventures where he's stoked and can't help but pull and there's an extremely low risk of reactivity. I also think it could be good for pack walks as I've never seen him react to another dog while he's walking with a dog pal, and it's definitely hard for him to walk nicely if the other dog isn't doing the same, understandably.

I'm feeling much better about my choices as a dog handler these days, but for a long time I was really anxious about people commenting or criticizing me, especially with the recent temporary prong ban, because I didn't have the experience or knowledge base to defend my decisions. When I was in Kingston visiting my sister this past weekend, I noticed that almost every large dog had a prong collar and they were all happy and behaved. It was very validating. It's definitely less common to see prong collars in the downtown core of Toronto where everyone is obsessed with positive-only training and fad tools like the no-pull harness.

My confidence as a handler have improved immensely in the recent months - might be partially due to the anti-depressants I'm now on, ha, and partially because of feeling more comfortable with my skills. This confidence plays a huge part in how he behaves, of course, because he can rest easy that someone knows what the heck is going on.