While Viva and I spend a good amount of time at Seward Park, I do mix in other parks where we can do some behavior modification work. One of those parks is Martin Luther King JR Memorial
It's across the street from the Amy Yee Tennis Center. Here's a past post about the center
We arrive and off Viva goes to see if there are any squirrels!
Pretty, pretty trees in bloom
I find a couple fungi
This is nice park with great sightlines and very few dogs.
Viva heads down the hill as I try to snap a few more pictures of the flowers.
This park has the design of an amphitheater.
We like to walk the long concrete walls.
We find a snail
"What is it?"
Viva quickly loses interest in the snail and off it goes.
Time to move on
A nice view of this section and downtown Seattle is off to the right.
Each time we come to this park we see a few pedestrians down at the bottom of the park. We often sit on a wall like this and watch the pedestrians walk by way off in the distance. When we see a pedestrian Viva is given a high value food reward. Over the months, we have created the association of seeing people = receiving a high value food reward and this is a good experience.
After the pedestrians move on we have fun at the park.
Like running up the hill!
And then running down the stairs.
Here we are playing a game of "find it" on the fountain wall.
Time to go!
Having fun, taking training breaks and making games part of our training plan is a big must do. We can't "train, train, train" and we shouldn't. The games give us a break in between the behavior modification. Behavior modification sessions should be brief so that the dog doesn't get flooded and overwhelmed.
After some games we head to the next section to work on our behavior modification plan.
The mom's across the street just met a carpool so we watched the kids and Viva was rewarded for her great work when hearing and seeing the kids. Kids make Viva nervous and when she first came to us she would bark and lunge at them even from a distance. We've worked through a lot of that behavior and Viva is doing well when seeing kids off in the distance.
We use this street to work on leash walking and we occasionally see people walking their dog across the five lane street.
We will do some leash work and then Viva has time to snuffle around in the grass.
Back to working on leash skills.
Then more snuffling
We start heading back to the car
We stop to watch the people in the parking lot.
Then. off we go and time to head home!
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