Lanie

Another late in the day shelter arrival for me and  and, when I asked for suggestions about which dog could REALLY use a second outing, Lanie was voted, "most in need of one".  I glanced through her profile:  Door dasher, pulls on leash, second time in shelter as a stray with no one claiming her...  On the plus side, she sure is cute!  Lanie is a young (about a year and a half) terrier pit bull mix and was bouncing up and down eager to meet me at her back door.  Surprisingly it took just a few minutes for her to quiet and back away from the door when I entered her kennel.  She sat on command so that I could get her harnessed. 

As soon as we left her kennel the pulling began; at the front desk I had one of the staff check her harness; she was pulling so hard it looked as though it might come off.  I closed my eyes for a quick prayer that the exercise yard would be vacant; if ever a dog needed to burn off energy, it was Lanie.  Prayer answered, yard vacant, in we go.

Lanie began dashing round and round the perimeter, stopping only to whimper and whine for any dog she spotted, near or far.  She absolutely loves other dogs.  Just a note, on our return to the shelter she even behaved affectionately toward  dogs who showed aggression toward her.  It made me dizzy  just watching her zip around and I did not like the fact that she was ignoring me.  Fetch did the trick, she is pretty good at it and it got her to pay more attention to me, not perfect but improved.  Then I decided to force the issue. I stood in the middle of the yard so that I could not be ignored; she finally stopped dashing around came over for pets and looked at me. I rewarded her with treats and we began our walk.

I decided that getting her out into the open desert and away from the stimulus of other dogs would be a good next move.  The leash pulling resumed with a vengeance. For about the next 15 minutes, I blew it.  I just let her pull and marveled that the training harness made it not too uncomfortable for me. It took me until we got to the halfway point and turned back to realize what a disservice I was doing her.  Allowing her to pull and ignore me was certainly NOT adding to her adopt-ability.

She pulled, I came to a stop.  We stood there until she turned around, looked at me and proceeded slowly.  Every time the leash tightened and she pulled, I stopped.  I'd like to say that this fixed everything; it did not, but it made a difference.  I walked very slowly, she walked much more upright with intermittent tension in the leash but not at all like our outbound trek.  She looked back at me often and earned lots of treats for this.  As we approached the shelter I saw her begin to tense up, I kept talking to her but it was hard to keep her attention.  Once inside I shortened her leash, she was excited but not pulling excessively.  A family with children were just leaving the kennel area and I made her sit, stay and look at me - she aced it!

Considering that Lanie is a high energy young dog, with so many stressful transitions in her recent past and the day to day stress of general shelter life, she made an amazing amount of progress in just an hour.  Let's hope she finds a home of her own soon and it would be wonderful if it included another dog.