On Monday the shelter is closed and that gave me some time to get some last minute grocery shopping for XMAS done. Had already done the major part, but there are always those minor things you keep on forgetting and since we have 2 vacation days out here where all stores are closed, that can be a royal pain.
But today I headed back to the shelter to work more with Gina. Like the previous days Gina was very excited to see me. Jumped up on me and rubbed herself against me. With a couple of goodies I had put the harness on her in no time. I expected the muzzle to get fairly smooth as well. But that's where I was mistaken. Not this time. Today Gina really didn't want to have that muzzle on her at all. She moved her head away and if that didn't do the trick she put her chaps up. So the only thing you can do is to deescalate the situation and let her calm down. That must have gone on for about 15 minutes our so. Then when I just though she is going to let it happen...she just snapped at my hand. Nothing really happened. You couldn't even see an indent. So I let her calm down. And petted her instead. That helped in calming her down and she did enjoy the attention. And so I tried again. And Gina was not happy about that and snapped at me again. Again nothing really happened. Just shows you that she has learned how to make the muzzle go away. But she does show considerable restraint. This time I just sat with her for quite some time and gave her lots of attention and some high quality goodies as well. And suddenly, although I didn't do anything different as before, she finally let me put the muzzle on her. Of course you could tell that she wasn't exactly thrilled about it, but she did let it happen. 30 minutes putting on something as simple as a muzzle. I guess I really have my work cut out and it did remind me how much work I used to do with Daisy when I got her from the shelter. I've just gotten used to a fairly well rehabilitated dog.
Gina and I went then to the training enclosure to work on same basic commands. And of course she got goodies through the muzzle. Then we moved outside the facility to some work in the field. The area had considerably dried up and we did do some good work in the field. For most parts she is fairly easy on the leash, although she still needs some training on the short leash. The thing that will take time to address is her reaction especially towards bigger dogs. Daisy was pretty much the same way and it really takes time.
After 2 hours I put Gina back into the kennel, gave here a couple of goodies before heading back home.
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