"An agitation collar will give you the short distance you are looking for but may not allow you to maintain your hold on the dog! I know, right? When they outweigh you sometimes leverage is what is needed. The head collar people have mentioned works like an elevator bit if you know horses; it offers control but long term? Not sure."
Right, exactly. ^^^ I may have to start lifting weights to build up my own physical strength, lol. Thank you again
khplaw for all your advice, and as far as my finger goes I find it pretty funny that it is my middle finger. Good luck "stalking" the thrift/vintage shops for a Hermes scarf, I hope you find one for Sophie.
And thank you
ruthcatrin for all your suggestions; since Luther has very short hair I would imagine I shouldn't have problems with the agitation/collars sliding around, hopefully.
I took Luther for a long drive to my friend's farm on Sunday. He loves riding in a car, surprisingly, the drive was 1.5 hour and he did great, we have a Durango so he has lots of room to move around and lay down if he wants to. When we got there my friend had company, few adults and a bunch of kids playing ball… but she lives on 10 acres so everyone had plenty of room to do whatever is that they were doing. Luther did great. Initially, I had him wearing his muzzle, and had him on a short /traffic lead and prong collar. My friend knew about his “issues†so everyone was told to “ignore the dogâ€, no touch, no talk, no eye contact thing… and everyone was very respectful and complied. After a few minutes of being there, Luther seemed fine, so I decided to put him on a longer lead and although he was curious of his new surroundings and being around new people, had no issue laying down by my side and observing everyone. After some more time passed, I decided to take him around the property for an off-leash walk (I took the muzzle off too). And he did awesome. Stayed near me, came right away when called. We walked around chickens, turkeys and ducks free-ranging and he showed no interest in them, I guess he is use to birds at home (I have 4 pet chickens and 2 house pigeons) and I did training with him and my pet animals, so he knows what is expected of him.
While out on the farm, I took him over to meet some goats, at first he was a bit unsure and almost growl at them, but I corrected him and made him sit - he laid down. I'm a HUGE animal lover, and when around animals I am very comfortable. I interact with them in a very calm easy way, and Luther must have picked up on my vibes, because within a minute he was sniffing politely at the fence and was totally calm - the goats were really curious but cautions of him, except one goat - I think it wanted to play with Luther, but I didn't test that theory.
And finally he met the horses, well more like observed them out in the pasture. I think he was confused since he has never seen such large animals, first he was sniffing along the fence, but as soon as the horses came closer he moved a few feet away and just stood there watching them. After our walk around the farm, we came back to where everyone was at, we walked by the kids playing ball and Luther didn't even care, he looked their way and just kept on walking/trotting, paying attention to me. Just the way I like him. We only stayed for about an hour, I didn't want to overwhelm him. When we were leaving, he seemed at ease while I was saying my goodbyes, and on the ride home he even fell asleep in the car. I am very happy with his behavior at the farm, he exceeded my expectations, anyone who does not know him would have assumed he has no issues. He listens to me so well, and is obedient, and I always do NILF training with him too, which I think helps out a lot.
I wish my friend had some larger dogs, so that I could have Luther watch them from a distance to get comfortable with, and maybe eventually be properly introduced to. But she only has a little dog (I don't know what kind of breed it is), and I didn't want her to bring him out. I didn't want to stress the little guy out, or Luther. Come to think of it, everyone I know only has little dogs… oh well. It is not essential to me for Luther to interact with other dogs in the park. In the beginning I though that it might be good since everyone talked about how important it is to have your dog be properly socialized with other dogs, but I'm fine with avoiding all dogs while we're out. And now that I am more equipped to deal with the dog owners, we should be fine. I'll just focus on making sure Luther pays more attention to me, and only me. He still goes to group class, so when the training starts up (after their summer break) I'll ask the trainer for help with this issue.
And this morning on our walk, when we got to the park there was a cop car parked outside of it, the officer watched us as we walked around, and when we were passing by his car, he asks if that was a mastiff, and commented how "well obedient", and what a "nice looking dog" Luther is. That made me smile. See, from far away, we are model citizens.
