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I went for a walk around my neighborhood lake. There were lots of people walking on the paved path. Some walking with strollers, bike riders weaving around walkers and lots of dog walking.
<b style=”background-color: var(–bb-content-background-color); font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; color: inherit;”>Did you observe good handling practices when dogs were being leashed and/or walked? Describe your personal observations.
There was a dog off leash running next to the jogging handler. They were in sync and the dog was trained to focus on the handler, not stop or get derailed.
A golden retriever was walking on a leash with a stuffed animal in his mouth. It seemed like it made the dog happy to have the toy, and I thought it was nice the handler let the dog bring it on the walk.
<b style=”background-color: var(–bb-content-background-color); font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; color: inherit;”>Describe two examples of how awareness was utilized by a handler.
One woman stopped walking her dog and was talking to another woman. She was not watching her dog. I saw the dog eat something in the grass. Don’t know what it was, but she never knew it happened.
A boy, probably in middle school, was walking his dog and teaching “Heel.” The boy was completely focused on teaching the dog this new skill and the dog was focused on the boy and his treats.
<b style=”background-color: var(–bb-content-background-color); font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; color: inherit;”>Describe two examples of how positioning was utilized by a handler.
One handler had the dog walk on the inside of the path, close to the grass. This positioned the handler on the side of the path where bikes passed by., protecting the dog.
One handler did the reverse and his dog was on handlers outside. It was scary because bikes would weave around the dog. The dog could easily have jumped in front of a bike if it saw a squirrel for example. The dog was not safe.
<b style=”font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; color: inherit; background-color: var(–bb-content-background-color);”>Give two examples of how contact with the dog was used in the handling.
One dog stared at the handler a lot. It looked like the dog loved his owner, until I saw her pocket was full of dog treats and kept handing them to the dog when she would say “Heel.”.
Two dogs were passing each other. One dog started barking at the other. The owner of the dog being barked at called her dog’s name, kept the dog’s eyes on her eyes until the barking dog passed them. .