Back to work.

On my way to work today. Not been since not last Thursday, but the Thursday before. My shifts are Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday. I have a doctor appointment on Thursday and going to Edinburgh to get Jack back. You would think I can take him to work... But no, it will cost me half price and he isn't good with larger dogs. So I'm going to work with him using a technique called counter conditioning. Counter conditioning is basically, making a negative situation for the dog a positive one. So I'm at the park Jack sees a bigger dog say a husky for arguments sake. He gets scared and starts barking, that's basically him saying I'm scared right now but I'm not affraid to throw a punch at you, the reason? Trauma. Even if he hasn't met a bigger dog like the husky he still finds the association with larger dogs scary because bigger dogs before have tried to hurt him.   So what do we do in this situation? Well we keep jack on a long leash. We take him to a busy park and when he starts noticing the other bigger dogs we click and reward, we praise and feed highly, then we ask the dog for the lay down or sit position, when he starts looking at the dog then looks at me I click and reward, we reward attention to the human. This will go on for say 2 months. We are teaching a behaviour here and letting Jack know this situation is not bad and it's a good thing to be around bigger dogs. Without any force or shock collars of course. So I'm on my way to work listening to spotify. It's rainy shit! I can't wait to see Nancy and George my bosses they will be so happy with the result ! They are big SNP supporters and there are so many SNP signs around the dog kennels. Let the fun day begin