We ended up at Bartz field where we parked the car across the street so dogs wouldn't walk right next to her side of the vehicle. We were there for 30 seconds when A black lab walked right by the passenger side of the car ... And Rhiya didn't bark or anything!!!! The second she noticed the dog, I treated her and kept treating her until the dog was out of view. I was so proud.
Next we saw about 3-4 big dogs in the distance, and she noticed them and would look away. I tried to treat her while she was looking at them in hopes of her associating the treats with the dogs. She didn't bark at all. Then we saw two little dogs (maybe chihuahuas) and she seemed to get a bit more alert when she saw them... So I started feeding her The treats while she was looking at them, and talking softly to her saying "Good girl!" A lot. She didn't bark or anything. We were there about 20 min and then I ran out of treats so we ended on a good note and headed for home!
I'm so proud of my girl! It's a long process but we'll get there. The goal is to at least get her to not feel so nervous and threatened about other dogs we may see. She doesn't ever have to be the dog that loves going to the dog park, but she does need to know how to act polite if we come a crosse a dog on our walks! Tomorrow we'll go looking for a 3rd spot to trigger watch. We need to find 3-4 spots and randomly rotate them and the time of day we visit them so that she doesn't associate the place with the treats, just the dogs that we see with the treats. Well that's all for tonight. Check back later for more updates now that things have started to settle down at our house again.
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