Blooming Confidence

For those of you who have been following our blog since the beginning, you know what a scared pup Athena was when we first brought her home.  We were sure that she must have been locked in a closet for her first year of life, because she was afraid of just about everything.  Garbage cans, sprinklers, orange construction signs, skateboards, bicycles, vacuums, cameras, people, etc.  Thankfully, we've been able to overcome many of these fears through positive reinforcement and by exposing Athena to lots of new experiences.

Even though she has come so far, Athena still has her nervous moments and we continue to help her to overcome her fears everyday.  However, recently we've noticed that Athena has had an extremely large boost of confidence.

Bench practice:

For months and months we've been trying to get Athena to jump up onto a park bench.  She-would-not-do-it for the life of her.  Even with the tastiest of cheeses, Athena would back up at the sight of a park bench (she has no fear of jumping on our bed though...).  But, just last week we had a breakthrough.  While walking through the park, I asked Athena to "up" onto the park bench.  SHE DID IT!  And then she continued to do it over, and over, and over and will now gladly get up onto the park bench each time we are at the park (she will even do "down" and "touch" while sitting on the bench).

Roll over:

Has anyone out there struggled to teach "roll over" to their dog?  My goodness, I thought Athena would never get it.  We'd been trying to practice with her for months, but she would just whip her head around trying to grab the treat from my hand instead of following my hand onto her back.  I was completely shocked when Athena actually rolled over for the first time a couple of weeks ago!  Now we practice "roll over" in our training sessions and she continues to make me laugh every single time she does her floppity roll.

Walking on the wall:

Each time we walk with Respectabulls, there's a particular part of our walking route that has a short wall that many of the dogs like to jump up and walk on (see photo below).  Although we've tried time and time again to get Athena to "up" onto the ledge, she was always too afraid.  Much to our surprise, as we were walking during the last Respectabulls walk, Athena just jumped right on up there!  She had no cues from us and just decided that if the other dogs were doing it, she was going to do it too!

Swamp swimming:

If you read our post earlier this week, then you know all about Athena's fun swim in the swamp last weekend.  The girl who is afraid of everything jumped right into a swamp like it was her own personal swimming pool.  I'm still baffled as to why Athena even went into the muddy water, because she is definitely not a girl who likes to get dirty (or maybe that's just her mom...).

Flyballin':

As much as I was excited for Athena to get started in flyball, there was a part of me that assumed she would be too nervous to actually jump over the hurdles.  Of course, Athena proved me wrong on the very first night of flyball training when she jumped over the hurdles multiple times.  As we've progressed in flyball, Athena just keeps improving and she continues to show her confidence every week.

I'm still trying to figure out what it is that has made Athena blossom into such a confident dog recently.  Maybe she has finally realized that she's here to stay, or maybe all of our training and persistence has started to pay off.  I do think that Athena's confidence comes from a variety of things, but I think that flyball has been the biggest factor in building her up.  One of our main goals for starting flyball was to help Athena to gain more confidence and I dare say that I think it's working!

Pulling and Snorting Wins the Race

This past weekend was a very busy one for us.  We went holiday shopping and took pictures with Santa, completed our beginning C.L.A.S.S. training, and joined RespectaBulls for a December group walk.

Ready for the rain on our RespectaBulls walk

Since Athena still gets very excited in the presence of other dogs, we have used the RepectaBulls walks as a way for her to learn that her whining and pulling are not going to earn her the privilege to meet and play with other dogs.  The pre- and post- walk have also served as a great controlled training environment where we can practice all of Athena's commands in the presence of one of the toughest distractions: other dogs.

Athena gets a lick of her Leanlix treat while training at our RespectaBulls walk

Another issue that we are dealing with during the walks is Athena's leash pulling.  We really don't have an issue taking Athena on walks around the neighborhood.  She's actually a fairly polite walker when we use her Gentle Leader.  However, as soon as the RespectaBulls walk begins, Athena thinks it's time to race.  She pulls and snorts (the Gentle Leader causes some major snorting action!) as she tries to race to the front of the pack.

Athena's Motto: 

Slow & Steady Wins the Race 

Pulling & Snorting Wins the Race

Even the Gentle Leader is no match for Athena's pulling.  Therefore, we have found this piece of equipment to be useless during pack walks.  Because of this, we have started to explore other walking equipment that may help Athena to stop her pulling.

Move it mom, we are almost in the lead!

As much success that we have had with the Gentle Leader, we have decided to try the Holt Walking Collar as an alternative.  It was suggested to us by multiple RespectaBulls members because unlike the Gentle Leader, the Holt only applies pressure to the dog when they are pulling rather than applying pressure the entire time they wear the collar.

Sookie modeling her bright pink Holt Walking Collar

The Holt Walking Collar arrived in the mail yesterday, so we will be giving it a try over the next few weeks.  We will give you a comparison between it and the Gentle Leader soon.  What walking equipment have you tried to eliminate your dog's pulling?  Have you ever used the Gentle Leader or Holt Walking Collar?

*So far we've tried the Easy Walk Harness (it causes hot spots), the Gentle Leader (it causes pulling and snorting on group walks), and we will soon be testing out the Holt Walking Collar*

Walking with RespectaBulls

About a month ago when Emily from Our Waldo Bungie visited Portland, I was so excited to also meet up with Sarah from Married with Dawgs.  During a very long lunch, we talked about all things dog including the Portland Pit Bull Parade which Athena, B, and I have attended twice (see here and here). Sarah told me about a relatively new dog walking group that she planned to join with her dog Hurley.

The group is called RespectaBulls and it is a no dog greeting group that works much like the dog walking groups that we admire like Chicago SociaBulls, KC Pittie Pack, and HikeABull.  RespectaBulls walks once a month in the Portland and Vancouver areas to provide a positive and supportive environment for handlers to work with their dogs.

Yesterday we joined RepectaBulls for our first walk.  As much as we love the Portland Pit Bull Parade, I felt that RepectaBulls was a much calmer environment (less than 15 dogs per walk) where Athena got to work on no dog greetings and keeping her distance from other dogs.  I think that this type of a setting will be an excellent addition to Athena's overall training.

Aside from the super cute dogs (all of whom were pitties except for one!), the owners in the group were so friendly and welcoming.  I love that many of the owners and dogs are reoccurring walkers from month to month which makes for a very supportive community.

A few of the dogs on the walk are up for adoption through the West Columbia Gorge 'No Kill' Humane Society in Washougal, WA.  Seen below in his fancy purple fleece vest (made by RespectaBulls group leader Amanda) is Barkley.  He's a two year old pittie awaiting his forever home while living in a foster home.  As you can see, he looooovvveeed the puppies!

Also up for adoption through WCGHS are Cutty (left) and Walter (right).  These handsome guys would be an amazing addition to any family!

During the walk, Athena pulled and pulled until we finally figured out that her sweet spot is walking side by side with the other dogs.  She is not fond of walking behind everyone!

We even worked in a little bit of training before the walk began.  Though, Athena made sure that she always had her eyes on her doggy friends so as not to miss out on any of the fun!

We really enjoyed walking with RespectaBulls and think that Athena enjoyed it too.  Hopefully these walks in addition to walks with the Portland Pit Bull Parade will become a part of our monthly routine!