Counter conditioning means teach a behavior that’s incompatible with the behavior you do not want. For example, if you don’t want your dog to jump up, teach it to sit for greetings. Sometimes easier said than done.

Chester has been pulling a lot lately. In fact, his behavior has just been over-all frustrating. I don’t know if it’s adolescence, if he’s just having an off-week, or if it’s pain from his bad knee.

Anyway, today on our way home, he started to pull again. I’m afraid I’m not in a real patient place myself at the moment. I had been standing still when he pulled, but oftentimes he’d just go right back to pulling the minute we stepped forward.

So I asked him to heel. And it worked. He heeled the whole way home, and he didn’t pull at all the entire time. Granted, it was extremely sloppy heeling. He wasn’t all that near to me, he rarely looked at me, and he wasn’t doing his automatic stops. But he didn’t pull, and he was at least in the vicinity of my side.

We’ll have to see how it goes over the next few days. Of course, according to my regular vet, I shouldn’t be walking him at all (he has a severe luxating patella). I’m seeing the vet that does chiropractic & acupuncture today, and we’ll see what she says.

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