Bittersweet Sunday

This past Sunday, Babe went to her new home. It was a very emotional day for me, since I had grown very attached to her. I feel empathy for anyone who’s ever fostered a young animal and can’t begin to imagine what it’s like fostering children and then having to see them leave, I’m honestly not sure I could handle that. Having a foster puppy in my home for three weeks was a big enough heart break when she left! But Babe was adopted by some pretty great people and I have the privilege to continue being her life, watching her grow and aiding in her training.

So now it’s time to refocus my attention onto my own “kids” again. Emma has become a dog-tolerant dog and I want to work on her dog approach issues. Although she has great bite inhibition and has never caused physical harm to another dog, she looks awful pinning another dog down whilst growling. If she were a Labrador Retriever people would most likely laugh or shrug if off, but because she’s an American Pit Bull, people freak out and call her all sorts of names I care not to repeat. Another behavior that Emma could use some work on is her door greeting with guests. She’s just so enthusiastic to see people, she just can’t contain herself. Unfortunately not everyone wants to greet her back in the same fashion. We’ve worked on fetching a toy when people come over, which is working about 75% of time. She will run and grab a toy and zoom around the room with it versus jumping on the guests. But I’d like to teach her a reliable Down-Stay. So I just ordered the MannersMinder, formerly known as the Treat & Train to start Emma’s training. Chance will benefit from this too, as he to likes to run up to guests, but at least he sits politely and doesn’t jump on them 🙂

I’ve also ordered some Buddy System leashes to use for my next round of dog classes. I look forward to having people use these leashes with their dogs and not having them unknowingly pulling on their companions. I used to use the Ruffwear Roamer Leash for class, but found the bungie to be to flexible for letting unruly dogs roam farther than I wanted, not to mention the handle doesn’t expand far enough for my more girthy client’s waists. I do really like the Roamer leash, just not for unskilled handlers and their dogs.

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