Delivery Boy

We are always looking for new and interesting experiences for Harrison so when I left this morning to meet the dog food co-op delivery truck for my order I took Harrison along. 

Heading out on our adventure

I love taking foster dogs to deliveries because there are usually 10-12 people there waiting and I'm guaranteed that all of them are going to love dogs and not mind getting jumped on or licked. There are also sometimes a few dogs around so it is a great chance to see how a foster reacts to unknown dogs with pretty tolerant people. And finally, the meeting spot is a huge parking lot next to the mall that is mostly empty so a nice setting for practicing attention, leash walking, etc. 

Not too sure about the parking lot

Harrison was somewhat leery of the big parking lot at first and was doing a lot of shake offs but after a few minutes he relaxed and started to enjoy sniffing along the grow strips and peeing on trees. There are buildings everywhere - Toys R Us, Petco, Joanns - so he had a lot to take in. It was a perfect time to practice check ins. 

It's always nice to be able to get your dogs' attention when they are feeling overwhelmed or excited. Sometimes when Harrison is excited he will pull around on his leash and rarely looks at me or lets the leash slack up. We had lots of time since we arrived so early so I started clicking/treating him each time he happened to look at me. Pretty soon he was regularly checking in. Yay! The goal is to play this game often enough that checking in becomes a default behavior. He also was reinforced for looking at me when I called his name. It seems simple but Harrison is a teenage dog and he tends to turn off his ears when he's goofing around. Again, I want to build up a default behavior that when someone calls his name he offers them his attention.

A truck full of raw meat, bones and chews - what could be better!

Then the truck arrived and all the people got out of their cars to get their stuff. Harrison was in heaven. Man does he love people. He greets everyone as if they are a long lost friend and everyone greeted him back the same way. His exuberance is pretty contagious. 

Then it was back in the car for the ride home but the good news is I had picked up a big box of compressed rawhide bones and bully sticks so he had something to chew on for the boring drive home.