Zero steps forward, two steps back?

Two blogs three days apart rarely happens these days, but I want to relate what happened this morning and analyse it a little, to show why setbacks should not be allowed to get you down.

For various health reasons, I have not been able to walk Finn regularly for a while. In fact for the last month, my husband has been responsible for the walking duties, supplemented with enrichment at home with me to help make up for the shortfall. I am much better and so back in the saddle, so to speak, and took him out this morning.

As our regular walks do, we went out a little after 4.30 a.m. while it was still very dark and cold. I was expecting Finn to be keen and maybe forget some of his loose lead walking manners as it had been a while. Yes, we did head out of our gate at home at a fair speed, but he settled down to walk beautifully within seconds, having a lovely time stopping here and there for a sniff and to catch up on what is going on in the local canine community via the 'noticeboard' (lamp post 😄). There was one incident of lunging a few minutes in as a cat ran across the road in the light from one of the street lamps and Finn got a bit excitable and tried to take off, but he was easily distracted by crossing the road in the opposite direction and a few tasty liver treats.

We walked one of our normal loops through the village and out to the local fields where he had a great time off lead. We did a little recall practice, including the dog whistle that means come NOW. He did and got a jackpot of treats before bombing off to investigate where the bunnies hang out in the summer. The rabbits were being sensible and staying in their warm warrens I suspect as Finn was soon back with me and waiting at the spot where we leave the fields for me to put the lead back on. We completed the very short stretch of bridlepath back to the road. He goes on the lead for this part as he can find the car lights on the road crossing his field of vision exciting and becomes temporarily deaf as he races towards the road, so for safety I use management at that point and just don't take the risk. It didn't really matter today as no cars went past while we were walking up the path, but better safe than sorry.

We had just started walking back along the part of the village road that only has a pavement one side. There is a verge opposite for some of it, but only the part closer to home. I saw the head torch of the person who walks down through the village every morning to go to work. I had to decide quickly whether to turn back and go back down the bridlepath a little way and throw Finn some sprinkled treats or hurry forward a bit and take refuge in a field gateway. I chose the gateway as it was closer and we hustled into there. I offered a handful of treats, and Finn alternated between trying to stare through the hedge and taking treats.

The walker went past and we set off again. As he always does in these situations, he was very on his toes and pulling a little to get to backtrail her scent. After a couple of minutes he was back loose lead walking again and we carried on.

A bit further on we were walking a stretch with some street lighting. As we passed into a darker patch, we saw the jogger we often see, with LED lights on her legs that obviously move quite quickly and are very eye-catching. Finn saw them and pulled a bit but nothing too bad. Then the jogger crossed the road into the car park of the pub on the other side of the road and disappeared behind a car.

Oh dear.

Keep in mind that this takes place just after 5.30 a.m. in a rural village. It is dark, everyone sensible is still asleep and I'm holding a leash attached to a growling, barking, lunging dog. I got a better grip on the lead and basically had to drag Finn around the corner, where he kept slamming on the brakes and looking back behind him suspiciously all the way home.

As we got back under way I was running through a whole slew of emotional responses. I was angry that the walk had been ruined by his reaction, embarrassed at having made that much noise so early in the morning when people were trying to sleep, and upset that my first walk with Finn in ages went so badly.

I am an old hand now at this having a reactive dog, and wrangled the emotional responses back into their appropriate boxes while walking, deciding to sit down and think the walk through when I got home. I have now done that, looked at all of the factors in the walk and can analyse what happened.

The first point is that the reaction was not as bad as it could have been. Yes, there was a bit of lunging, quite a bit of growling but only three or four relatively low-pitched barks. It took a couple of tugs to get him moving but, other than stopping to look back in case the mysterious disappearing jogger was following us, he walked with me. He was loose lead walking again quite quickly after his reaction, so his recovery time from reactions is in fact excellent. Yes, any reaction is always disappointing, but there is plenty there to make me realise that the event was nowhere near as bad as it seemed at that second.

Why did he react when we have seen that jogger a number of times in the past and, while he has always found it exciting, it has been a long time since he's reacted? Well, I think there are a number of factors involved in that. As I said, this is the first time in a while that I've walked Finn, so there was novelty about today, with an attached excitement level to that before we even really got started. There was quite a brisk, cold, blustery wind this morning which always makes him jumpy and more likely to spook at things. This morning he actually jumped at a couple of cars coming past through leaves, and he has barely registered the existence of cars passing us for months.

I made the wrong choice with the first encounter with the walker, so that is on me. I should have turned back to the bridlepath as I just could not get enough distance to keep him calm in the gateway. Between the wind and the bad decision making on my part with the first walker (and possibly the excitement of the cat early in the walk but I am unsure if that was really a factor) Finn became trigger stacked on seeing the jogger.

Lessons learned from this morning: I have to make better decisions when potential triggers are sighted. Unless there is no other option, always go to somewhere I can create distance. Ideally I need to make sure I am never in a situation where there is no other option. With where I live, there are no routes that have pavements on both sides of the road the whole way round. Some smaller roads do not have pavements at all (I wear hi-viz and Finn wears a couple of clip on bike rear lights on his harness so I can see him in the fields when he's loose and turn on if we are walking off of pavements). Whichever route I take, I am likely to encounter some part of the walk where my distance options are limited. For now, I shall change our walking time a little as, if we had left ten minutes later, we would have missed both the walker and the jogger.

Yes, I spent a few minutes today feeling upset and disappointed in my dog because he has reacted. It is not just his reaction time that has improved, however. The amount of time I spend feeling those negative emotions, particularly towards Finn (as can be thoroughly understood in the beginning, before we gain an understanding of what is going on with our fearful dogs) is now minute in comparison to when we started on this journey.

Take heart - there will be days when things go wrong and it seems as if all of your progress has vanished in an instant. It really hasn't. Take a few minutes and think things through, identify what was different about this walk, this day, even the couple of days beforehand, and I am sure you will be able to identify some factors that will have conspired together to make your dog say 'Enough!' Relax for a while, treat both of you to something nice and let that cortisol disappear from both of you.

Finn has now assumed the relaxed position!