A Sign

     Henry went to the Arboretum today. It is a good place to expose him to other dogs while keeping an eye on his behavior. As usual, we started walking with the leash held inches away from the collar so the collar stays right behind his ears. After he demonstrated good behavior, i.e. passing other dogs without barking, I gave him some slack. But whenever I saw a dog coming I would put him back on a short leash.
     While Henry was enjoying the relative freedom of the entire length of the leash, he spotted a dog before I saw it. His first reaction was to look at me as if he was expecting a treat. So I gave him one. We had not done rewards-based training in a while. A few monthes ago a trainer showed me the method of plying Henry with treats as we approached other dogs. The idea was that when Henry sees another dog he would learn to expect a treat instead of starting to bark. This turned out to be a good method for getting him to stop barking at cars, but it was not very effective where other dogs were concerned. And it was difficult to implement. If the steady stream of treats was interrupted for a moment, he would start barking again. Keeping him on a short leash and controling his head proved to be a more effective way of managing Henry's behavior.
     But the look Henry gave me this time appeared to be a sign. He is ready for more slack. I let him have it. Previously, I needed to offer one treat after another in an unbroken flow to keep him preoccupied if another dog was in the vicinity. Today, each time we walked past another dog I only gave him between two to four treats. He would look at the other dog, I would call him and he came to me for a treat. Even when the other dog was very close. If the other dog was excited, this did not work. When we approached a yapping puppy, Henry got excited from a distance so I used the short leash method again.
     At the end of our time in the Arboretum, we got close enough to a cute beagle mix for the 2 dogs to interact. We spent about three hours there. We did not do anything strenous but Henry seems exhausted right now. The effort of self-control takes more out of him then our morning run did.