Burrito Wrangling #12

Burrito Wrangling Update # 12: I took Murph on a short 0.8m lunch walk, and brought along bits of this tripe-kielbasa thing I found on Amazon. Let me just say that tripe + operant conditioning (+R training) = magic. Yet again, @blackcanine (Train Without Pain) has demonstrated to me that she is a BRILLIANT trainer. In the past all of the attempts to teach Murph to be calm under stressful situations failed miserably; often just leaving the house puts Murph over threshold. In real life, there isn't always a way to gradually introduce a dog to their anxiety-triggers when life itself can be a trigger. As I've mentioned before, Murph is on a decent (not the max) dose of Prozac. It has worked wonders to help him retain control of his emotions but it's the training on top of the drugs that do the trick (even with the Prozac, Murph still goes into his uncontrollable pig-monster rage, he just calms down more easily). So back to the walk, every time Murph heard barking, he was given a tripe treat. By the time we reached the red zone he was more relaxed and DID NOT BARK ONCE!!! He even turned to face me and sat down when I asked. I can't even convey how insane this is... He was sitting, facing away from a dog barking obscenities at him (behind a fence) from 10ft away!! He normally acts rabid (pulling, frothing, Cujo sounds...) +R > other #burritowrangling