25/04/2022
Meet Teddy!
Teddy's owner contacted me worried about Ted's reaction to children, we arranged a one-to-one appointment to see the behaviour in action.
At the local park we walked Ted past some children at a safe distance and sure enough Ted lunged and barked at them.
Looking at Ted's body language it was clear that his behaviour was due to him being nervous of loud children; who have a tendency to have unpredictable body movements. It doesn't help when Ted looks just like Waffle the Wonder dog !!!!
After talking to Ted's owner it was clear he had never been socialised around children before. So it was time for action stations! Firstly, we went through how to correctly control Ted on the lead; giving him the confidence in his handler that the situation is under control.
Next, we worked on re-training Ted's focus to be on his handler whenever children are around, we did this through a joint method of small corrections through the lead when Ted became focused on the child and a tasty reward when he focused instead on his owner.
Now we have Ted ignoring children, we can begin a careful process of creating a positive association of seeing a child = reward instead of a reason to be nervous.
Ted's owner did really well with this and we even managed to walk around a busy skate and play park with no negative reactions from Ted.
Keep up the good work!!!
