Becca goes to the Park

Thankfully the promised rain hadn't come by time time I met Kerry and Becca at a park.

The plan for Becca today was to get her used to being away from Honey and doing a little experimenting with the Confidence Course. We started slowly with cones and (2) 3' pieces of ladder.

I traveled light thinking the sky would open up at any moment.

After we got the cones & ladders set I walked Becca through the cones using the Balance Leash Plus and she did really well with those. The ladder was a different story and she would much prefer to walk around it. There were people doing a photo shoot not far from us and this concerned her. Becca walked more freely with them to her back than she did walking toward them.

We decided to see if she responded better with a wrap....that I left in my trunk. As I ran off to get the wrap Becca was anxious that I had left her newly formed pack.

Becca did well wearing her wrap and did not protest. We did several touches trying to relax her and headed to the course again with Kerry leading her. Again she did well with the cones but had reservations about the ladders. With tuna fudge strategically placed she would do a step or two.

I decided to try to guide her with the TTouch wand so that resulted with another run to the car leaving the pack. Again Becca was concerned but Kerry was able to get her to go through the ladder using treats~ Yeah Becca.

A couple rounds through the course with the wand showed me that this wasn't the answer I'd hoped it to be. At one point she did start to follow it into the ladders but caught herself and did a fancy side step to avoid it.

Another session of touches and Becca completely relaxed. I did ear work, lying leopards on the body and on her legs. At one point she even laid down.

We took her through the course again and then called it a day. There had been a lot of stress for her and she didn't freeze up and even relaxed for some of it.

Kerry said she slept for 90 minutes straight when she got home.

Our next visit will be where we can set up a full confidence course and find different parts she can do more comfortably and start building up those successes and her confidence at the same time.