Compostable Kate

Once again, I had to contend with a lead-less dog in New Farm. But even better*, this was an unattended , lead-less dog, sitting just outside Coles. My assistance dog Dexter and I had to walk past it  to get to the shop, and it wasn't until it looked around, saw Dexter, got up and approached that we realised it wasn't on a bloody lead. It had a collar, but no tags of any description. A lady passing by at the same time was equally alarmed that the dog was off lead, and free to approach my dog; she wasn't game to approach the dog itself, though, and I don't really blame her. It was a male Golden Retriever, a breed that enjoys a reputation of being gentle and friendly, but that's no guarantee that it wouldn't be aggressive.... Fortunately, Dexter is super-cool about meeting strange dogs, even ones who stand over him like this one did. Dexter always responds by trying to play, and by running round like a lunatic. Not exactly appropriate when he's wearing hi...

I have been doing a lot of extra training with Dexter lately - something I should have been doing all along, really. We failed our Public Access test (very shameful) and are working hard to be able to pass it again in a couple of weeks. We have to wait a month before we can do it again. We failed because Dexter ate some food, and tried to get other food, only being stopped by the trainer. There are a couple of food-related exercises that must be passed in order to pass the whole test. Because Dexter failed, we failed the whole test. So we have been in intense training ever since. We had a great session with Cyn D, another trainer and I have learned some new techniques to try to get Dexter's focus away from food and scavanging. It involves giving him extra treats if he even hesitates before trying to eat something off the floor, and rewarding him for looking back at me when he sees any food. So far so good. It's not 100% yet, but the improvements are very enco...