Timken Learns About Life In The Real World, Part 1

Our sweet foster boy Timken has had a less than optimal start to life. The fact is he was not socialized and he most likely has not had very good interactions with the few humans he was raised around. Because of this he is hand shy, freaks out with sudden noises or movement, cowers if we try to pick him up too fast, can submissive pee if he perceives anything is awry in our movements toward him, and is completely awkward when it comes to dog-dog interaction. These are the realities of Tim right now-------BUT there is more to Timken than this, much much more.

He is smart, this is not just foster mom saying her foster boy is smart either. In the right environment where he feels safe he learns fast! He learned the cue "touch" in one session. Touch is where I offer my hand with the cue "touch" and he will touch my hand with his nose and get a treat. This has been a great game for him to learn that an opened hand means something good. In the beginning tries I had to modify my hand movement and position because just offering him a flat hand had him pancaking and he was clearly uncomfortable. I quickly changed up, slowed down, and BAM he got it and now will search for my hand to "touch" in most positions.

In talking with a fellow foster mom about Tim we both came to the conclusion that is was time to get Tim out and work on slowly socializing him to the real world outside the safety of his foster home with us and the walking trails we frequent where there is no one else but us and our dogs.

We decided to go to a small park near us, mid week, mid day, so that there would be minimal foot traffic and Tim could start to hear the noises of a small city and he could stretch his comfort zone in a safe and hopefully positive way.

Here is the park we chose to get Timken out and about. As you can see not a lot going on, but we did encounter a few new people and a dog or two.

Here is Tim walking with foster dad, nice tail position, nice ear position. He is doing great!

 You might want to turn the speakers down as there is wind noise on this video.

In this clip you can see Timken is not 100% sure about things, he zig zagz and his body language is not real comfortable but he is doing pretty good considering he has never been here and there were lots of noises he wasn't sure about, (train in the distance, cars, planes over head, kids playing in the parking lot etc...) You will see Tim balk part way in, this was because there was some loud noise of air pressure being released. He recovered quickly and moved on the sniff the cool red fire hydrant, then he gets some reassurance from Dave and then he moves on. I was super impressed with this!

In this clip Dave took Tim up and then down some stairs. Tim was still a bit wary but I didn't feel he was so uncomfortable that we should stop. He seemed curious and interested in moving forward. Then to my surprise there was a woman with her cute JRT at the bottom of the stairs and Tim did great! He and Skip both decided to get some reassurance from Dave but all and all it was a good meeting and Tim was a rock star!

Another wonderful sign here in this clip. There is an off leash dog park that we were walking by and Tim walked by just fine, even with dogs playing there. I could tell by him and Skip that they knew dogs were over there as they were both zig zagging, but it was a great walk-by and again, I was so proud of Tim.

Timken really started to get the hang of walking along at the park.  He did really well and we will come back again and again to continue working on public places and feeling safe. Stay tuned as we get Tim out and about into more real world situations as we do baby steps with him to build his confidence toward being a more well rounded and balanced rattie boy.