Today I brought my assistants Cito and Sloan with me, which means Sloan handled Cito and I took out Shelby. She didn’t fight me as much as she did a couple of days ago but I still had to give her a couple of tugs to move her forward. I walked her to the grassy area where Cito was waiting on her. Well, he really wasn’t that interested in her. Instead, he wanted to sniff and pee everywhere. Shelby is a very dog-friendly girl. She checked out Cito and even followed him a couple of steps. Cito looked a little bit confused when he couldn’t see the fourth leg. He sniffed her behind and then … like a typical male … he wanted to hump her. Now, we know that when a dog wants to hump another dog that it has nothing to do with sex but rather with dominance. On the other side, as Sloan said, “Cito doesn’t need to hump a disabled dog.”
Sloan and Cito walked in front of Shelby and me all the way to a telephone pole which was a 30-yard walk. Every time she moved forward I rewarded her with treats, when she stopped, I didn’t say much but rather gave her another tug. I could see that she was afraid of the cars passing by but that was part of her rehabilitation program as well.
Training Shelby to overcome her fears will require a lot of patience from my side but I am okay with that; it is something that I have to learn in my life anyway.
