Yesterday Lily, Helen and I were shopping in Party City.
Suddenly, a wheel-chair bound woman with her Service Dog appeared from around a corner about two aisles away.
The dog spotted Lily and ran to the end of the leash whining, paws scratching and slipping on the polished tile floor....pulling the wheelchair forward....in his attempt to get to us.
We all startled. Lily tensed and woofed. She was alert and she, too, was surprised. Using BAT, we turned and walked back down our aisle and out of sight of the other dog. Lily maintained her loose leash, but remained alert to this new distraction. We moved an aisle away and re-entered sight of the other team. The woman was having difficulty maintaining control of her dog and I didn't want to exacerbate her situation. But I also wanted to use this unexpected situation, to redirect Lily's attention back to me. I wanted Lily's body language to soften. Fortunately, Helen just dropped back, realizing what I was doing, and watched our transition from working mode into training mode.
Within a couple of minutes, Lily's focus and attention had fully returned to me and eventually the other service team reached the checkout counter, the dog finally settling into a down there.
It wouldn't have been a "bloggable" moment, except for this. The wheelchair handler had apparently been taught to begin tossing items for her dog to retrieve in order to regain his attention (much as we ask for Level 1 behaviors). Helen observed all of this while I was focused on Lily. She said that the other woman began tossing things from her lap onto the floor. Her dog did perform the retrieves, while whining and verbalizing and continuing to look for Lily. The fascinating point here is that the other dogs retrieve behavior was strong enough to perform even when highly distracted. IOW, she kept him moving and involved.
We have spent hours working on "other dog Zen" with Cathy and Jan at Dog Beach, at Balboa Park, at Petsmart and the vet. At the Humane Society. But I don't think we have ever trained the surprise of the sudden appearance of an unfamiliar dog. And one pulling a wheelchair, at that.
Fascinating. And something I had never seen in action before. Well done.
"Expect the unexpected."