We've been quiet for a while. The snow is falling and the icy roads do not make the dog walking any easier. A mixed bag of experiences over the last few weeks. Either not meeting any dogs or, meeting all the wrong ones. I have started some hypnotherapy sessions to help me manage my anxiety in relation to walking Sonny. If I can't take my own capacity to trigger him out of the equation he does not have much chance of rehabilitation.
I've only had one session so far so it's early days. I'm supposed to visual a confident me walking my dog, it's extremely hard to do but I'm working on it. In addition I'm supposed to tap various areas which apparently rebalances the meridians, I do find the effect calming but wonder if it works by distraction. Maybe I could get someone to kick me every time I see another dog, would the effect be the same? Anyway, if you see a mad woman tapping herself whilst walking along with a rather confused looking dog, it's probably me!
This weekend we were away so consequently had to walk Sonny in a different area, I dealt with this by separating myself from him and walking our other dog ahead of him if we encountered other dogs. This helps him distract onto where I am rather than the dog he is about to encounter. He did really well and even managed to pass a collie and 4 kids at close proximity, it just goes to show the more confident the handler the better he is. This is my mission to get to the point where I feel able to face these situations with him rather than avoiding them and giving that responsibility to other people but at least I got to see that he could do it,
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