3/3/22 Notes about Evie’s training:

The mouthing is getting better, by degrees… she still reverts to this behavior (called an Extinction Burst), and this reversion tends to be more frustration-fueled… but we’re getting there.  (Honestly, it’s 8 days today that I’ve had her here… she’s made AMAZING progress – it just really hurts, even the minimal amount of mouthing now – I’m being a WHINER).  So, we continue to work on this, and it’s getting better.

On that note (the mouthing note), this behavior is *usually* only presenting NOW when I’m fiddling with Evie’s collar… either hooking or unhooking her from a leash or tether.  So, starting today, I’m going to institute exercises designed to lessen her stress/frustration about collar grabs.  The average owner tends to use a collar as a ‘handle’, and so the CDC has determined that 40% of BITES are directly related to collar grabs.  It won’t hurt to build in these exercises, so I’m going to.

Yesterday, my Hubby brought home a load of split firewood in his white dump-truck… Evie and I happened to be outside, working on-leash.  When he engaged the hydraulics to dump the load in the yard, Evie FREAKED OUT, eyes rolling, lunging backward against the leash, twisting away.  I got her to the porch, and she calmed… and I learned that she can’t get out of the front-hook harness, even when she tries Really Hard.  So, bad  AND good learned.

We’re continuing to work on the car exercises… my main goal is to be able to take her to the Mall and walk around where I can assess her seeing strangers, and her reaction to them.  I’ve always done that with my own dogs, and Evie is probably going to need that practice.  So, it’s important that she be good about riding in the car, and not only for placement purposes – although I guess it wouldn’t be good if her potential adopters came to get her, and she wouldn’t get in their car. <g>