K & her harness - Part 1

Given D and Catty are not into playing with K, I decided to see about getting her harnessed up and out for walk.  I find that getting out for a walk is a huge stress reliever for dogs.  I started working on introducing the harness to K last Sunday.

 

This first video you can see my mistake of leaning in too quickly with no dogs around.  Watch K move - this is very typical of K, she gives clear signs when she's uncomfortable and if you move too quickly into her space.

 

Lucky for me K is forgiving and this was about 2 minutes later. Time enough for me to get Catty and D'light interested in helping me and K out with the harness.

 

K is interesting - you can see she does a stress yawn. Then she will also do this stretch which I think is a way she relieves the environmental pressure on her.  This was a big deal for her to engage this much with me.  She's a really brave little girl!  And many thanks to D'light and Catty for being so helpful.

This is about 15 seconds later... notice her softer movements, more play in her movements.  Funny girl bringing me the harness. She checks in with Catty and them moves much closer to me.

My husband was at work so, I had no one to video putting the harness on.  However, what I did was take it very slow and gently placed the harness over her head.  Making sure not to put my hands over her head, rather keep them to the sides of her head.  We took a couple seconds break to see if she was ok to move on with me clipping the harness.  She was looking ok so, I clipped the harness - giving her a high value treat (Ziwi Peak) after the harness was secure. 

 

When you are having to do something with or to a dog that is uncomfortable to them (putting on a harness, putting them in the crate, nail trim, vetting) the timing of the treat is important.  You want the treat always to come AFTER the uncomfortable event, not before.  If you treat before, they dog associates "Oh something bad is coming because I'm getting this treat".

 

Look who's a happy girl (besides Catty) AND  K makes her own choice to take a treat from my hand!



Catty says "I like you K, treats come when I'm around you..."

All harnessed up and ready to go - stay tuned tomorrow to see how the walk goes!