Today Salma definitely earned a gold star!
A major challenge for her is going into an urban environment because she finds it overstimulating and therefore becomes overexcited. I am sure this is also exacerbated by her poor vision under certain circumstances.
We have been working at home doing TTouch groundwork with slalom, poles, labyrinth, ramp and seesaw (or teeter-totter for my American friends) (https://ttouch1.com/salmas-journey-with-the-ramp-and-seesaw/). Today we went into the peripheral area of town and she was able to walk quietly and calmly on lead with changes of pace as we picked up horse chestnuts for the kittens to play with, had coffee in the park and sat on benches to watch the world go by. I don’t particularly want her to walk in heel, so I just say “Walk nicely” and today she was able to do so perfectly.
Halfway through the exercise I allowed her to run off lead in a green area but she just ambled along, as though transferring the spirit of the walk so far to this freedom zone.
Today I decided to use the traditional TTouch lead with two points of contact rather than. The TTouch connector. We have been using this configuration while working at home, so I felt it was better not to introduce any novelties, and also this configuration seems to provide clearer cues for her. As time goes by, we may introduce the connector with a longer lead but for the time being traditional two points of contact it is!
I was very satisfied with her performance and response. She was also much less stressed than on previous occasions.
