Discuss anything here. If animals could talk, which species would be the rudest?

We're going live in under an hour. Looking forward to deep diving on reactivity with you all!

I’ve realised that Cybi has become a seriously reliable and almost totally neutral to other dogs when off lead which is quite a realisation and such a nice place to be as I never thought we’d get here. His absolute kryptonite used to be people kicking balls but on our walk yesterday, rugby-ball-kicking-man who I sometimes see on the pitch with his bag of 10 balls was there and he didn’t even look at him while he booted ball after ball over the posts. He LOVES being sent around rugby posts which is a really nice way of getting some energy out of him 😅 so we’ve been working on building the distance and also on where I stand to send him, I tried standing between him and the post and was quite surprised he did it really well. He then recalled to heel really nicely when I saw another dog and crossed into another field through quite a narrow bit. We were messing around doing some send aways and emergency downs and I was trying to get a pic of him running full pelt when I noticed him visually lock onto something behind me and full send run past me, as I turned I saw an extremely rude spaniel approaching us - not sure if it was aggressive or just plain rude. Cue yelping and squealing as Cybi corrected and very efficiently sent it on its way, I’ll be honest I panicked and wasn’t sure he’d call off but the first time I recalled he span 180° and came straight back in front of me in a sit looking extremely pleased with himself. I put him in a down and clipped his lead back on while the owner attempted to get their dog back and then we walked off in the direction we had been going initially, I gave him his ball to carry as I thought it might help him to concentrate on something else for a bit and to reward him 😂 It was pretty crazy to see his switch off immediately afterwards. He didn’t stare out other dogs after, he went back off lead quickly afterwards and was still engaged and behaved totally normally afterwards, I was so proud of him. I remember speaking to @Nick Benger during the early training days about Cybi not having dog friends, and I was worried he wouldn’t have social skills for these situations and we spoke quite a lot back then about neutral experiences being more important than risking bad ones. We’ve very much stuck to this tactic and have been building value in the handler, working on ignoring other dogs, etc. He has had one or two experiences with reactive dogs coming up to him but I really believe that working so hard on the things we’ve done - as well as some top quality puppy experiences at the stud and stability being in his genetics - we did the right thing. Really pleased with how fair his correction was, his call off, and his behaviour afterwards and it’s nice that it passed the real life test.

We've been upping the distraction training with her food. I roped my neices into helping me, jumping around and clapping and calling her, holding a bowl of food etc. I switch between asking for sit fronts (hard for her after patterning the contact heel/ focus switching) and middle with looking at me. I needed a lure for the first sit front this evening as she was really confused, bless her. This morning we met my neighbour again with his dog. Aster came to middle and it was solid the whole time. The spaniel came close and Aster looked but didn't react which was amazing. He then came really close (neighbour really can't control him very well😂) and went around the back which did trigger her to react and she tried to break her middle which was interesting. I should have pivoted around probably so she could see Rufus but not break position. I saw that too late though but I'm learning 💪I'm so pleased with how it's going. I'll go out tomorrow to the park to get some neutrality training in. I took this afternoon off to have a riding lesson with my brilliant Légèreté instructor Kate (whom I'm rather hoping will join this group at some point!). I haven't had a lesson with her in years but we picked up right where we left off. Kashi was a complete angel as always 💗

We went to the park today to carry on with our reactivity training 💪 Aster was very good. There was quite a lot going on, including a group of knobs running their dogs off lead which I wouldn't have an issue with if they actually watched what their dogs were doing and could recall them 🙄 we had the ultimate test with a golden retriever coming lumbering over - we walked away but in middle and she did really well to be fair. Trouble is we were kind of stuck then on that side of the park because they were really hogging the middle section 🤦‍♀️I came across one lady doing a really lovely job of training her puppy to loose lead walk with lots of engagement. That was so nice to see. Not so nice to see her let any old dog come running over to it 🙈 i could see it was quite uncomfortable but there we go. She was in the car park as i was pulling out to leave and I couldn't resist just telling her what a nice job she was doing training her dog. I gave this group a plug too but i think she probably thought i was a bit weird😂 you come across so few thoughtful dog owners i genuinely get excited if i meet one! Anyhow, it was quite a lot for Aster. I'm hoping if we can do enough of this she will start to open up a bit and want to play / train with a bit more enthusiasm. She is quite aloof when she's under stress but I'm also thinking her leg could be playing a part too. It's a heck of a lot better than it was but I'm still not convinced she's right behind. I have booked the physio for Monday.