Yesterday we went to the pet store again with his halter. He was grand. I only had to back up two or three times, and those were just getting ahead, not pulling. He’s down to one little hop when greeting people who are leaning over him
and actually accepts the idea that no, they don’t, but they’d still like to talk to him.
I LOVE the way he goes through life with a wag for every single person he lays eyes on
The only thing he’s ever met that he doesn’t love is the fly swatter with which I’m telling him to leave old Stitch alone because she’s started pooping in the house so she won’t have to walk past him and his
enthusiasm.
Then we went over to the sidewalk outside Safeway and after a minute I took the halter off. Nobody offered to stop and pet him but we had a lot of close encounters and he was wonderful. He’s got both ideas down pat – see somebody coming, wag, and look at me to get a treat, and see somebody coming, wag, and keep staring at them to get a treat. Mostly he picks looking back at me.
NOTHING bothers him. We were near a construction site with big machinery clanking. No big deal. Grocery carts whizzing by. Cars. Horns. Nothing. He’s doing his look-at-people-get-a-treat thing.
Once he’s in full flight after a feral cat, I can’t usually call him off, but other than that, his resistance to distraction is exciting. That’ll come too. Sometimes I CAN call him off, and he’ll turn away and forget them if I catch him between spotting them and running.
This morning I did some shaping with him for my Fenzi shaping class. Clever baby.
His name might not be Spider. Sigh. I’ve called him Serra a couple of times by accident in the last few days.