Layla has MAJOR big dog fear which then turns into aggression if they are too "friendly" (energetic)- although- interestingly, she is not afraid of her friends at the sitters (2 labs and a labradoodle). Anyways... So Layla's sitter's daughter is a dog behaviourist and we had our first session today. We went to a large park out of town which was CRAZY busy today because the weather was SO great. So we went (my anxiety through the roof- I hate when she snaps at other dogs and i'm always afraid another dog will snap back) for a walk in the park- about an hour... and Layla met a lot of very nice small-medium size dogs.. PLUS a yorkie
We tried to say hi to a large dog who was next to dead (ok.. just walked REALLY slow) but she was too scared and ran away.(Layla that is...).. but i was SO proud of her for being good and not snapping! Sheena (the behvaiourist) is GREAT at reading dog's body language and could tell right away whether the dog was going to be nice to Layla so she knew the right ones to pick!
We are trying to get Layla built up to meeting nice large dogs so she doens't assume every large dog is like my uncle's (a choc lab who basically hounds layla the second we get in their house... hence the start of the aggression... ) and i'm feeling SO good about it...i just had to share.
However, the walk was so long it started to bother her bad LP leg
we'll be taking a few days off from walking!!
Thanks for letting me share