Day 5 -- Out and About

Being a Service Dog is so much more than a well behaved pet. Dogs have to inhibit a lot of their natural behaviors when out in public; sniffing, itching, barking, visiting people/dogs, eating off the floor, investigating the environment, etc.

Even if he is use to paying attention when there are other dogs around, it's much different when the dogs are new to him or in a new environment.

We, of course, practice a lot of his needed skills at home but we also need to be prepared for the increase difficulty level once we go out into public.

As much as possible, we condition him to sitting nicely at our sides. We don't want him wandering around or getting in people's way. He needs to be as invisible as possible when out in public (is this even possible when he's so cute???).

When we sit, he needs to be in a down right by my side, tucked in as much as possible. If we expect this behavior from him from the start, it makes our job so much easier with him in the future. Then we don't have to go back and correct a behavior later on. It's much easier to teach a behavior from the start then to go back and correct a skill that is done improperly.

We'll work on some self-control exercises before we leave too. He'll be excited to see all the new people in the new environment so I want to make sure he's keeping his rear on the ground.

At the vets it's a great place to work on attention and staying seated next to me.

He was doing really well until a gentleman sat down near us with a loud cat in a carrier.

That distraction was a bit much for him so we quickly moved farther away from the kitty. Ahhh...now he can focus. He did really well. We ended up being there longer than I expected so we were starting to run out of the high value treats. The little stars weren't cutting it in this environment. But, I also knew we were at the vet so I used some of their treats. They weren't high value treats but sometimes just a change from what you have on you does the trick. He did well for such a high distraction environment. It was work on my end but, the more work we do now, the easier it will be later on.