Training Addie: Session #11 and a fight at the park

Yesterday's lesson was held at the Fort Woof dog park.

We were running a little late leaving the house so I loaded the pups into the Blazer while my husband finished getting ready. When he walks out of the house he stops and looks at what I am wearing, we are wearing almost the same outfits colors and all. Orange polo shirt, olive green shorts, I’m in my olive green Capri pants. We both laughed. I never wanted to be one of those couples that dress alike but I guess it would have to do for this lesson.

When we arrived at the dog park and there were quite a few dogs there. Addie’s lesson started straight away while Lucie made her rounds visiting everyone. Lucie truly is the sweetest dog. She is so gentle with everyone regardless of their age or size.

Addie had a good lesson. Matt worked her on sit, down, heel and stay. The issue that still needs to be improved upon is her attention on the handler during training. Regardless if it is me or Matt, she is still too interested in everything going on around her to watch either of us consistently during training with distractions. I have tried food to improve this with distractions around but it is not interesting enough to her. We will continue to work with her until we have her full attention.

During this lesson we experienced our first dog fight at the park. Matt was heeling with Addie and first we hear the growling, then we see at about 20 to 30 feet away three dogs going at it. This instantly draws over about 10 additional dogs that surround the fighting ones. The owner of the dog that started it goes over with this long toy used to throw balls and uses it to poke at her dog a few times. That did nothing. The fight was starting to get very intense and Matt signals for me to come and take Addie so he can go help. While he was heading over there one of the owners tries to pull their dog away by the collar which has its jaw locked on another other dog’s neck. This act makes the fight much worse and the dog has now pinned the other dog to the ground and it is screaming in pain. By the time Matt got over there, which was a matter of seconds, the fight ended. So, what do you think the owners of the three dogs did? Nothing. No dogs were disciplined for their actions and none were removed from the park or at least given a time-out away from the other dogs until they calmed down.

I don’t agree with this at all. If you are at a dog park and your dog starts a knock-down, drag out fight you need to discipline the dog AND remove it from the park for that day or give it a time-out away from other dogs so it can calm down. The good thing is neither Addie nor Lucie were interested in this fight. Lucie came right by my side when it started, then she was near my husband when I was with Addie. I hope it is a long time before we witness a fight at the park again.

Lucie did enjoy prancing around the park and rolling around. Check her out, doing what she loves!