Level 2 update

With the incredible feat of passing L2 Relax we moved on to Communication our last task in Level 2!

I got Reyna's dinner out, lured her between myself and a wall and stepped towards her, she swung out of my way to the left before I finished my first step...hmmm...I tried it again without a block...same thing, perfect.

Okay this is weird, I've never worked on this before...I'll stump her this time...I have her sit in front of me facing my left side...take a step forward, she swings all the way around into heel position...WOW

So we just tested our way cold through most of L2 Communication!

I still need to get her to back up stairs and untangle a leash from around her own leg then we are done...not just done with Communication but done with Level 2 HOLY SMOKES I can barely believe it

And speaking of things I can barely believe I took her to our local dog park to work on remaining calm while other dogs play within earshot. It was pretty quiet, no other dogs, until a guy pulls up and lets his dog out of the car without a leash. The dog comes straight for us, I pulled Reyna behind me, he stopped and the owner regained control.

Reyna was understandably amped, but she never barked at the dog even when he was less that three feet from us. I walked us away to put some distance between her and the other dog. I took a deep breath (her prep cue for relax), she looked at me, I took another one, she sat,another one, she laid down, then I said " can you cool it?" and she DID. I didn't wait for duration I immediately released and rewarded! Total time from dog rushing to her relaxing...two minutes...that is unreal!

Then we walked towards the dog park area and did some look at that with the dog in the park getting all the way up to the fence line. She even watched him chase a tennis ball! She locked in the first time so I walked her away before she could escalate, but after a few reps she was able to watch the dog chase the ball and look back at me. At one point we were about 30 ft from the dog park, she could see the dog playing, I said her name, she looked at me..."cool it please" and she relaxed into the flopped down, no prep breaths or anything! I definitely want to go back out and start working relax at the dog park more for duration, but WOW she was upper focused, willing to play tug, did her LL, didn't react to anything and even did some off leash work. She is really coming along nicely!