I didn’t know Oreo is afraid of the sound of shopping carts separating! Our training is usually just going to a new place, everyone telling me what a beautiful dog she is, and then she gets treats. Yesterday we did some actual desensitization training. Pull out a shopping cart, she ducks and runs for cover, gets a treat. Repeat until she smiles instead of ducking. The tail wag came at about the ninth time, and the smile on the tenth. She was perfectly well-behaved inside, happily letting some kids pet her, and doing a good down-stay while I got some flour and oats.
She became excited at the coffee grinding station. She was owned by two soldiers before she lost her leg and was rescued, and I believe she was being trained as a drug-sniffing dog. She zeroed in on a couple of cars at my old apartment complex and went up and down the wheel wells and around the trunk just like you see on TV! So, coffee is used in drug sniffing training because the bad guys sometimes hide the stuff inside coffee, to throw off the dog’s scent. Not my girl! 🙂 I keep telling her she’s off the clock now though. 🙂
At the checkout the lady of course said how pretty Oreo is. I explained about the shopping cart sound desensitization training we had done before shopping and she said, “Oh…THAT’S what you were doing standing out there.” Ha ha! I must have looked like a fool. Oh well, mission accomplished.
