Real dogs. No perfect ending required.
Taz came to us after being picked up by the ranger for chasing sheep. She was a Bull Arab with plenty of drive and very little confidence around other dogs. The dog park wasn’t somewhere she could enjoy. Even walking past it was hard work.
So we started outside the fence. One lap. Sometimes two. If another dog rushed the fence and Taz stiffened, we’d make a bit more space. When she softened again, we’d keep walking.
I spent more time watching Taz than the other dogs. You could tell when she was starting to feel overwhelmed. Her breathing changed. She’d stop sniffing. Her whole body became focused on whatever had caught her attention.
That’s not the time to ask for clever things. We waited until she came back to us. Some days that happened quickly. Some days it didn’t.
Over the months the changes were tiny. She’d look at another dog, then go back to sniffing. She’d recover faster. She’d walk past the gate without holding her breath. None of those moments looked very exciting, but they all mattered.
Today Taz does off-lead agility. She works around other dogs, waits her turn and genuinely enjoys herself. If you only met her now, you’d never know we started with quiet laps around the outside of a fence.
The tiny recoveries were the training.
