Bella's Park Scare

I went to a new park recently with Bella. It’s not a park we’ve been to before but it was lovely and quiet, with no one around, so it seemed like a good spot. 

I got Bella out of the car, she trotted happily along the footpath having some sniffies along the way, and then we got to the entrance of the park. She’s immediately drawn towards the entrance post and spends at least a minute or two sniffing it, gathering information and assessing who has been there before her. 

During this time I watched her body language change dramatically. The more information that went in her nose, the more her tail dropped. By the time she’s finished sniffing, her tail is tucked as far under as possible between her legs. Ears are backwards, her body is beginning to shake, a squeaky high pitch vocal is coming out intermittently, and she is refusing to step any further afoot into the park. 

So what can I do?
There are a few options.

Option 1: Leave. Go back to the car, drive somewhere else where she does feel safe or just go home. 
This is a valid option, and one I probably would have chosen if the park was super busy or if there were a lot of unpredictable variables about. The time that we visited, however, was super quiet, it wasn’t a prime walking time. I could see any potential oncoming variables quite far away in all directions. I knew that we were safe. Bella, however, needed some convincing. 

Option 2: Persist with my original plan and explore the entire park. 
This is not a viable option for me, because it would involve, 
a) overriding my dog's emotions and ignoring what she is trying to tell me, 
b) physically forcing her to walk as she was firmly planted at the entrance,
c) building resentment and diminishing her trust in me.

Option 3: Work through it. 
As I mentioned before, I assessed the environment, it was safe, I was fairly confident that nothing bad was going to happen. I know Bella, I know what makes her tick. I trusted that I would be able to bring her back from this state and work through her worry. Option 3 was the right call today, but it may not be tomorrow.

So how do I work Bella through her worry? Well, I do exactly that; I work her. Bella has quite the repertoire of well rehearsed tricks and she loves doing them. While she remained firmly planted insisting that the only right way to go is back to the car, I asked her instead for a hand touch.

Initially she looked at me with her ‘Are you crazy?! No! Let's go!’ face. But I kept my hand presented and allowed her some time to think. 

She’s on a lead. She’s planted. I’m planted next to her. She can’t go the way wants to go, but my hand is right there so she may as well touch it. So sure enough, she does. I rewarded her very generously. 

She’s still quite worried so this makes her quite hesitant to take treats, but she takes a couple. I asked for a hand touch again, which she did and I reward. I’m not coercing her any further into the park, I am simply asking her to do something else other than overthink in her worry.

Bella started offering hand touches readily so I carried on in a quick fire style with fast touches and fast rewarding. I started to add some distance to my hand, a couple steps away from the entrance, then a couple steps back towards it, to the side of it and so on.  This created a willing movement around the entrance and Bella is no longer firmly planted. 

I threw a couple treats on the grass to see how interested she was in searching for them, the answer was not very. So we went back to hand touches. From here, I started asking for some of her other tricks.
Speak, yes she could. Shake. Got that. Touch again. Yep. Middle. Yes. Side sit, round, touch again and we’re away. 

I started asking for some hand touches while walking into the park. She wass successful. Now while we walk, I keep asking her for her tricks. Touch, speak, round, middle, catch the treat. Before I know it we’re on a field, just. But yay! I threw a treat for her to chase and she’s happy to. A game begins. Chase the treat, come back to me and do a trick.

Bella showing off her speak!

A few points to note:

• Chasing treats triggers that prey drive instinct, which is innately rewarding.
• The tricks we have are solid, historically very rewarding, and often involve some form of movement that is enjoyable also. 
• In working her, her worry was pushed aside from the forefront of her brain, to make way for the excitement of the tasks.
• The tasks had to be very simple to begin with, otherwise I would’ve added additional stress to her existing worry. 

At this point, her body language was much more relaxed; tail is midway, ears perked up, no more shaking or whining. I was happy that she’s happier. Now that she was in a good state, I wanted to finish there. We worked the whole way back, doing tricks, keeping that focus, rewarding in an exciting way right up until we reached the car. We walked past that scary smelly post without a second thought, I wasn’t dragged back to the car, she was with me the whole way. 

In total the walk lasted around 20-25 minutes. This doesn’t seem long, but it was a very hard walk mentally for Bella. She was thinking the entire time, and afterwards she went straight to bed and slept for 4 hours.

Points to take away:

• Pick your moments - sometimes it's best to leave, but sometimes it can be good to stay and work through it.
• Mental work is very tiring.
• If there is something you don’t want your dog to do, think about what you want them to do instead. This applies to most things training wise, but in this scenario I don’t want Bella to worry, so I ask for some easy tricks instead.
• Dogs communicate mostly through their body language; if we don’t pay attention to and acknowledge any changes, we aren’t truly listening to them.
• Making decisions based on what is best is better than making decisions based on what is convenient.

There is a fine line between overriding a dog's emotions and working through them. At that moment I acknowledged that she was worried, and I understood why she may be worried; it was a new place, obviously it has a lot of canine visitors, and that can be quite unnerving. 

At the moment I made a judgement call; there was no one around, it wasn’t a peak hour walking time, this place is safe.

How far did we actually walk? Not very.

Did I change her mind about this park? We had an overall positive experience, but no, not yet at least. We would need multiple of these good experiences to really build up her confidence, but today was absolutely a great start.

Authored by Brooke Rapira
Dog Sport Instructor and Prime Pups Educator
Edited by Sarah Endres