Koobee gets a lesson

...er, more like Julie and Mark get a lesson in teaching her how to stay calm on her leash around other dogs! Kirsta of Hugabull was kind enough to meet us this past Sunday morning for a lesson in the park, despite her newly broken ankle. She brought darling Rhino, and I seriously considered asking if she wanted to trade. He's SOO irresistable. But seriously, Koobee is a sweet and adorable dog too. Kirsta, if you're reading this, I'm joking. and if Rhino goes missing in the night, you just need to call and I'll apologize and bring him back. Ahem.

So Koobee is a darling petite pit bull that we are fostering from Bully Buddies at the moment. She is very dark brown with a little bit of white at her throat, and is one of those wiggle-bum cuddle-monster type of dogs. Her problem that we are working on now is this darned leash aggression - she is so stressed to see another dog when we are out on walks! Until now she has been pulling on her leash, trying to go to the other dog and, if we get close enough, she'll start to growl.

What we've learned is that this behaviour is likely the end product of bad conditioning in her previous life. She is such a social dog, it was probably frustrating for her to never be able to go see other dogs when she was being walked, and over time she came to associate that frustrated feeling with simply seeing the other dogs. Now we have to correct this behaviour - but this is not an extreme case, and she is eager to please. I'm sure we can fix this if she doesn't get adopted first.

Kirsta met us at Banfield Park and worked with Koobee for over an hour. We put her new Halti on her and walked her past Rhino - not too close, but as close as we could gauge that she was still comfortable. We had her focus on us by doing tricks and getting LOTS of treats. As we continue this training, she will come to associate seeing other dogs with getting treats!! the frustrating part for me is that she is so good with other dogs, and I know that this issue is hindering her adoption potential.

Kirsta gave us lots of other helpful advice and over the course of an hour Koobee visibly calmed down in the presence of Rhino. Not enough so he could come give her a sniff, but she made good progress. We're going to continue and then maybe meet with Kirsta in a couple of weeks if we still have Koobee.

In the few weeks that we've already had her, she's shown visible progress in her treatment of barking dogs behind fences. She used to do that focused, pulling on the leash, all tensed up sorta thing, but now she completely ignores dogs that bark at her from behind fences. Probably because we pass two every single morning on our walk.

Anyway thanks for reading our first post. We'll try our best to keep you updated on all the animals we foster.