So, on Sunday afternoon I got to go with the hubs and the pooch to the dog park! It was a beautiful afternoon and there were 5 - 8 dogs there, and I found out the following: 1) Simba does love to play with other dogs, and he seems to play appropriately - not too pushy, etc. 2) He is not too intimidated by other dogs who DO play inappropriately 3) he loves to greet the people but he never tried to jump up on them 4) He really loves to sniff, more so than the other dogs 5) when we were off-leash and heading towards the area of the park that was unpopulated, he would run ahead but always check back, stopping to see if we were coming, and then go ahead 6) however, when we walked BACK towards the area where the dogs and people were mainly concentrated, we decided to test him. We sat down on a bench, wondering if how long it would take for him to notice we weren't around, and if he would come back or not. He failed the test. : he got greeting the people and dogs and we finally gave up on waiting and started towards him. I also tried to call him back, but nope, as I suspected, he is deaf to that. So, all in all, it was interesting! I was heartened that he does have some sense of keeping close to us if the other distractions are minimized (or absent!), at least. And it was fun to see him having a good time playing with the other dogs. It's a great place to go - the really nice thing is that it is all fenced ... Will come in really handy as the Total Recall program progresses....Helen, I was wishing that you had somewhere similar to go to test Charlie on his recall....
Re: Lessons from the dog park It sounds like he did really well!! A dog that is trustworthy, sociable and polite at a dog park is a good doggie indeed
Re: Lessons from the dog park Yes it's really great isn't it when they do things nicely as you would want them to.
Re: Lessons from the dog park I think that sounds great - a huge amount of positives there! Well done Simba, I reckon he sounds like a lovely dog to meet in a dog park.
Re: Lessons from the dog park Well done! Sounds similar to Lilly. "The recall with distraction" is our hurdle. I bet you are pretty pleased - you should be anyway!
Re: Lessons from the dog park Oh Lisa that must have made you feel great,isn't he doing well?youve got really good foundations to start in there,I love that he didn't jump up too because I know you really worked on that from the start. Well done x
Re: Lessons from the dog park Well can't be too smug about the no-jumping....planted his big paws on a passing lady's chest as we went by her yesterday.... He was maybe a bit hyped up....I was actually trying to jog while walking him, to try to exercise both him and me at the same time....ack the things I do for this dog.... : ...I hate running....
Re: Lessons from the dog park Wow Lisa that is amazing you must be so thrilled with Simba. I wish we had somewhere like that too, it would be perfect to practise, too many open wide spaces here Helen xx
