Making Progress

Sometimes you see every little bit of progress and other times it kind of sneaks up on you. 

I realized today that some progress snuck up on us so quietly that I didn't even notice it when it happened.  Last night at nosework, we were parked next to another car with a dog in it.  Because of the heat everyone had their windows open.  The dog in the car next to us barked at Gimme when she was getting out of her crate and having her harness put on.  Gimme was whining in eager anticipation of playing nosework, but paid no attention to the barker next door.

Then after class when I returned to my car, I saw Susan giving her big Lab Tucker a potty break in the grass right next to the car.  I stood there talking to Susan for awhile.  I don't know if Gimme noticed them before I walked up, but she was watching me when we were talking and couldn't have missed seeing Tucker.  Again, no barking. 

In the past she's been very verbal about things going on outside the car - so this is really huge progress for her.  No telling how long ago she got over it... since I didn't even notice it while it was happening. 

Today we walked on the fort and met a lady with a lovely Palomino.  She was interested in Gimme, so we talked for quite awhile.  Gimme wasn't worried about the horse, but a couple of times "faked it" trying to get me to train her or pay with more peanut butter.  Have I mentioned how she is always working the angles?

After our walk, we went down to Capitol Lake Park.  That's the place where I was going last year.  I quit after a month or so because it seemed that Gimme's vigilance to everything was going up, instead of getting better.  Tonight my plan was to find a good spot where we'd be able to play look-at-that to dogs walking by.  Our timing was really just perfect.  We'd work on a dog walking by and then usually have a couple minutes before the next one. 

Gimme did very well overall.  After the first couple of dogs, in between them she was trying to get me to do other training with her - so we played eye contact game and did short sequences of simple behaviors.  One couple that walked by actually stopped and sat down in the grass with their dog about 40 feet from us.  Thirty to forty feet is the threshold spacing where Gimme is able to play look-at-that correctly.  Even though they set up right on our threshold, once Gimme was done watching that dog, she really didn't pay any more attention to it for the rest of the time there.

This is big progress from where we left off last year.  Gimme has come a long way since we were last there, so that is nice to see.  I hope to get down there twice a week for the summer.