Shana's Family Boston Vacation and Training Plan (Part 1 of Series)

On Sundays, I am going to try to blog and post (on our Facebook page) Shana's training progress.  Normally I am training Shana because:

• Shana comes from working lines, and her personality is that of a dog that wants to be busy.
• Because it is fun.
• To have Shana feel as comfortable as possible when there are strange dogs in the house.   If you click on "training journal" in the blog categories on the right, you can see some history about Shana, who is now 10 years old and acts like a 5 year old!​​

This fall though, we are taking a trip to Boston, and staying in a very fun dog friendly hotel across from Fenway Park.   Shana has only been to a city a few times in her life.   City distractions are very different than the distractions she sees in a small town (and some of those still can scare her or put her on defense drive).  So now I have a specific goal that I am training for.   

My goal is for Shana to be more comfortable in the city environment before we go on vacation with her this fall.   I have traveled to dog seminars with Shana before, but this is going to be quite different.  The parts of that training plan are as follows:

1. Reduce demand barking
2. Increase her comfort level around strange dogs while walking on a city sidewalk
3. Have her comfortable in different environments that we do not usually walk in
4. Shana gets anxious with Robert and I together.   I think she feels it is her job to keep us rounded up and safe.   I want her to feel comfortable and not anxious when we all walk together or if she can't see one of us while we are out for a short while (like if one of us pops into a store or something).
5. To reduce her reactivity when eating out.

In preparing Shana for this, I will not be STARTING in the city.   The picture on this article is me jogging with Shana at a local park on a leash called a transitional leash.   The transitional leash is very helpful for when I am working on calm behavior for a few reasons.   Shana also happens to do better when moving then with sitting still (although I will be working on that as well).     We will be using our parks in town at first, the dog friendly mall near us, and stores like Petco when we go to pick up supplies.   

The goal when we were jogging the other day was to just get Shana feeling more comfortable with dogs at a distance right now, while doing a leashed job (being with me while I exercise and not making that difficult).  Shana was also not in a heel during this, but I will utilize that at points.   The way I work with this tool, the transitional leash, is largely without commands but with an expectation (not to pull me down, trip me, or go into a barking melt down).   Shana did better than expected.   My husband, Robert, came with us but did his own thing.   That was really challenging for Shana not to be able to locate him at times.   This is one of the first steps I have been taking to get Shana ready for a Boston vacation.

​Please follow us on this training journey.   Boston is going to be a blast for all of us!