Return of the wanderer

Guess who's back? And I didn't even have time to put together a 'Welcome Home' party! With heavy hearts we sent Horace off to his new family on Friday, only to have him back again not much later. We were told that he did not get along with the family dog and that he showed aggressive tendencies towards male dogs. I was really surprised to hear that and just couldn't imagine my sweet boy being anything but, well, sweet! We had already promised to re-foster if something didn't work out (which we never imagined it wouldn't) so here we were looking down at Horace with puzzled faces but determined to get to the bottom of it.

The next morning we headed to the Pitty FAIRness event in Central park - a festival organized by a local organization called Saving Sunny, in an effort to raise awareness and a positive image of the Pit Bull breed. What could be more perfect? Colin stood at the edge of the Park while I went to find someone who could give us some advice - and i found Maureen Keenan, co-founder of Saving Sunny, or as I like to refer to her; a miracle worker. What happened over the next 30 minutes was something right out of The Dog Whisperer; she took Horace and walked him straight into the middle of the festival - there had to have been 200 Pit Bulls along with their humans. She was as calm as she could be and Horace sensed it. It was incredible to watch - she never said a word to Horace (later telling us that using your voice gives away any anxious feelings you are having), instead she corrected him, distracted him, got in his personal space, gave him his space when he was calm and praised him when he paid her attention. By the time she handed us back the lead we were a completely different foster family - we were 'Team confident' 'Team calm' 'Team we wont take any nonsense' and Horace knew it.

Shorty from the TV show 'Pit Boss'!

We spent over an hour practicing what Maureen had taught us and then we went for a walk through the crowds. If you have been the owner of a dog that drags you along on a walk you will appreciate this, because that was me. All of my dogs have dragged me along - even Yorkshire Terriers! So, it was an almost out of body experience when we walked through the hundreds of other dogs and people with Horace - without incident. He trotted along in between us - the lead completely slack, not pulling, not trying to greet anyone or anydog we walked passed.  A personal first - and with an 'aggressive' dog at that! I already knew that Horace is a fast learner from other activities we have done and the distance he came at the fair showed me that he can be a brilliant dog. He is of course still a puppy and what I learned this weekend is that puppies need more than just potty training, they also need social training to make them well rounded dogs. So for the foreseeable future he is back with us, his best friend Penny and his favorite pastime - Rope.