Yesterday: a great walk, until the cat came running up, and then he went into prey-shrieking mode (which he doesn't do at deer, curiously enough). He was able to calm down quickly and practice the emergency turn-arounds with me. For those, our cue is: "this way!" called out in a happy voice, with lots of cheez-whiz for rewards. The idea is simple: let's blow this popsicle stand before Vanya tips over into a screaming frenzy. My goal is to work on his happy turns, even in the face of provocation, so I don't have to drag him off, which quickly leads to shrieks and howls. The cat certainly provided the provocation. Vanya was fine with her as long as she was lying down in her driveway, and he performed quite a few impressively calm LAT with her, and then practiced his calm "this ways" quite a few times. Then she got curious and came bounding up to us (oop!), which was more than Vanya could handle.
But he was quite calm with the deer at the end of the driveway--barking once, then telling me to hurry up with the LAT game. And he got two visits to the sea caves beneath the cabin for off-leash hunt time.
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