Who sang that song, Bonnie Raitt or someone?
Yes. I just googled it. I'm not sure why I know that.
Anyway, this whole training the dog to not bark is difficult.
Unlike the way I was raised to keep my emotions internalized, my dog likes to try to express his emotions as best he can.
So, if he is feeling protective or insecure when someone comes near us, he barks. I've been trying to ideally use "leave it" before he barks, and "no" and a chain jerk if he is barking. But, in the heat of the moment (heat of the moment, telling you what your heart meant - Asia) I might get them mixed up, making for not the best trainer and confusing him.
But I'm trying.
Anyhoo, I've been bugging the FP about taking Rudy out to a bar and see how he does. I mean, there has to be a first time if it can ever become a regular thing, right? So, we did. We took him to Jimbo's Sandbar. It's this cool tiki hut dive bar on the intracoastal with tons of outdoor space. So, we thought we could take Rudy to a corner of the place and try it out. It was kind of away from everyone else. But there was this big tall monster truck parked in the lot next to the table. I feared that it was a little too close to us, and that the guy (I assumed a guy owned it) who owned it would walk right by us, and that if he left when we were there it would be so loud it would scare the shit out of Rudy.
Rudy was anxious on the drive there. He didn't know where we were going. We should have walked him around the neighborhood before we took him to the bar.
He was ok at first. He wanted to go walk around and familiarize, but he was confined to the table area. He was just looking. I had a bagful of treats to divert his attention from barking... he was doing ok.
Then this shirtless redneck guy standing at the bar with his back to us started dancing. And Rudy started barking at him all the way across the place. So, I had to calm him down with a treat. Then, later, the bartender was dancing a little when she was walking to a table, and Rudy started barking. Then he started barking at every person that walked in his field of vision. I was just feeding him nibble of treat after treat. I had brought these duck jerky treats that were formed with a "skin" to look like a slim jim, but they were dry dehydrated flaky meat inside. There was meat dust everywhere on the table. And water too. It reminded me of when people take their kids out to a restaurant, and the table is a mess by the end of the meal.
Then, my biggest fear happened. The guy who owned the obnoxious monster truck was going to his car. Rudy just went nuts barking like crazy. I mean crazy! The guy looked at him menacingly and rather than ignore him and walk away, he got closer. Then he wanted to engage Rudy, and Rudy wanted no part of it, just a part of him in his mouth. The guy insisted that once Rudy smelled his hand (which is what you do with dogs, hoping they won't decide to bite, of course) he would be fine. Rudy quieted when the man offered his hand, then he started barking again. The guy insisted again, that Rudy wanted to play, but that he was just protective. He could tell that Rudy wanted to play because his tail was wagging.
Can I just tell you, a wagging tail does not automatically mean playtime!!!!!
I thought that was something that people who know about dogs know. But this guy allegedly raised "racing dogs" - I think that was a euphemism for fighting dogs, but raising racing dogs is not admirable either.
Anyway, he was totally antagonizing Rudy, and Rudy was very unhappy. He stepped on my pinky toe trying to get away from the guy, and it broke the skin. Finally, the FP had the common sense to take Rudy and go for a walk. But even then, the guy wanted to follow them and try to interact with Rudy. But he kept barking. He barked so much that he started to foam at the mouth.
We were embarrassed. And crestfallen. We had had such a great walk that morning by the beach. He didn't bark at anyone, he was happy, and we jogged most of the way. And now this.
We got the check and we bared through it as he tried to bark every time a server came back to the table. I ran out of treats in my ziploc bag, so I had to go to the car to get more. And then he ate all of that. The FP was very generous with the small tab and tipped like 100% so that they would welcome us back, even though they were very nice about all the commotion that Rudy caused. Some people at the bar even told the FP that Rudy was a good judge of character, because that guy who riled Rudy up was an asshole.
I was going to have to rethink my going -to- the- bar -with -Rudy treat selection. Maybe a more chewy dense treat - a jerky type thing, or pig ear or something. Not rawhide of course, because he goes beserk with rawhide and likes to chew those in private. I stopped giving him those because he almost bit me when I gave him one. He also thought he was boss and wanted to chew the rawhide on the bed, where he knows he is not allowed. We would also have to scrutinize our table selection, and figure out how to handle Rudy while someone came up to the table to take our order or deliver a beer or something.
Anyway, that was Rudy's first trip to the bar. Hopefully it will get better but not too painfully, right?!?!
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