Yesterday I had another session with Dora the French Bulldog.
I started working with Dora a couple of months ago to improve her reactive behaviour around other dogs.
She used to bark and lunge when she would see them at a good distance from her and would become quite stressed because of them.
Over this few months, we worked on improving her daily routine with specific activities, lead handing skills, reinforcement of more appropriate behaviours at a distance and avoiding encounters during this stage of the process.
Yesterday, for the first time in our sessions, we started to introduce social encounters and I could not be more happy with the results.
In one hour, we probably saw and met about 8 dogs, repeating interactions with some of them and Dora was able to interact with, move away and avoid certain dogs by her own choice.
She did react at one dog at the beginning of the session, but soon she was able to regulate herself with the help of her humans who made use of appropriate body movements and lead handling skills.
In this video, you can watch Dora walking by another 2 dogs, and managing the situation like a lady.
No barks, no lunges, no pressure, simply passing by without any issue.
Now it only takes practice, so that Dora will be able to develop her social skills further.
Thank you,
Dog Behaviourist Ricardo Ministro
connectedbehaviourcom.wordpress.com 