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Don't feel the need to apologise at all! That sounds like a traumatic expeeience.
It's so difficult to keep training, especially when there are so many external factors beyond your control. With Akira I feel like it's a constant battle of 2 steps forward and 1.9 steps back. Progress is so slow, or will sometimes disappear altogether. Two weeks ago when I was at my parents he just took off without warning, and started running down the main road which was terrifying. He got about a mile and I only got him back because a kind stranger stopped and grabbed him.
Feels like we are back to square one, but we aren't, all the training we have done previously is still there, just need to keep reinforcing it. It's tough and tiring though.
Double_J
Thanks for sharing and good on you for putting the work in. My partner and i are at the same 6 month stage with our rescue and it's been quite the rollercoaster.
On reactivity, Nori our Staffie cross has reactivity issues with other dogs that we were not made aware of from the rescue charity beforehand. Sadly after a scrap last week where i had to pry another big dogs jaws of her face only for her to lunge back in and she has taken a real downward turn. She now disengages very quickly, looks tense, has poor recall and looks like she's brewing for a fight. In the time we've had her we've had 3 quite severe incidents and i'm worried it's taken it's toll on me and the dog. It's becoming increasingly hard not to tense up when other dogs come bundling over (which clearly makes things worse) or not feel that a disproportionate amount of other dog owners are fucking useless (which given that me and my dog are the "problem" doesn't get me very far with them).
We're trying to lock down a decent behaviourist but we're struggling to find someone that can either give us the time atm. FWIW both the trainer and the behaviourist we've seen have made very positive comments about her but it's hard to put the bad stuff out my head.
Apologies for the dump, feeling the pressure right now!