Puppehs in the big city!

Wash and Kat went with me to Toronto yesterday. Kat has been out and about (being my personal puppy) more than Wash has. Kat took down town Toronto in stride. All the people, streetcars, dogs noise was all for her personal amusment. Wash was less thrilled. The people were fine cars and street cars were not.

Now for those of you not in the know.. Toronto is a big city. A very big city. The heart of Toronto has 2.5 million people, and the GTA (greater toronto area) has over 5 million. Its the fifth largest municipality in North America. So when you are a little JRT puppy for the country its understandably a little overwhelming.

However treats made it all better. Now there are those who would say that feeding treats to a nervous pup will reward him for being nervous. But that would only be the case if being nervous was a conscious controllable state. Its not, Wash didnt decide "hey lets be scared of those cars" he just was. And when you started paring cars with nummy treats. Cars became a good thing, not being nervous.

Kat on the other hand had the opposite problem. It was all WOW! OMG! lookit that! Squeal like stuck pig. Pull pull, gack, pull. WOAAAAH Bark bark bark! She LOVED Toronto. I happened to have Dekkas head halter in my car that I use for close trial environs. I put in on Kat knowing it wasnt likey to shut her down much (she is pretty irrepressible). After about 2 min of trying to pull it off she pretty much forgot it was there and was back to OMG! But now when she would fixate on something I could turn her head and get her focus back, albeit for a very short time.

I am not a huge fan of head halters but this was a good case of what sort of dog they are good for. Hmmm a future post shall be on head halters I think :)

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