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Advocating for homeless pets and the prevention of pet overpopulation by spaying/neutering

Thursday, May 28, 2015

Training a terrier - (I do believe) it is possible

Patience, patience, patience ... We're making slow but steady progress with Khloe by continually praising and/or rewarding her for good behavior and for making eye contact with us as we're working on teaching her "watch me." Those rare instances when I am able to divert her attention back on me during her "hyper-reactive" behaviors feel like such a huge accomplishment. Khloe has a number of triggers that send her into crazy, lunging, barking terrier mode - a passing vehicle, or pretty much anything with wheels, is one of the biggies. One day I decided to take Khloe out to sit near the road with me, and with a pocketful of treats we'd work on sit, down, and "watch me" when a vehicle passed. This went well until a motorcycle passed ... I got her calmed down again for a few more vehicles and then, what the ... ? I couldn't believe my eyes. What I initially thought was a police officer pulling a driver over was actually a police officer just driving very slowly and escorting--wait for it--a small group of runners, followed by an ambulance and flanked by a motorcycle, and I think there was also a bicycle in the mix, too. Plus traffic was backed up behind this group--more motorcycles, of course, which were allowed to pass the runners and caused traffic to slow in the opposite direction almost in front of us ... trucks, one with a boat trailer. All I could do was laugh my ass off while I waved to the nice police officer and held tightly to my crazy, lunging, barking terrier's harness. Little did I know we would have a front row seat for the "trigger parade." :)

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