Being a non-daycare day at Walker Ranch, it allows me some time to focus on my own dogs, and better yet leave the house and interact with humans. Early this morning before the weather warmed up I took Settler to North Collier Regional Park to work on calmness in public. Calmness is a behavior I will have to heavily focus on for therapy since Settler is very driven and is almost always trying to offer a behavior to be rewarded. Settler is still very immature so it will continue to take time.
In new environments he is pulling on the leash a bit (mostly to sniff and mark) but I understand it's a new place and he needs to feel safe and secure and check things out. At the same time, I need to build value with him so he stays engaged with me. He was very distracted upon our arrival so we took our time getting out of the car making our way up to the building. We did not do any meet and greets (thankfully) since I wanted him to know that although people are exciting, not EVERYONE wants to meet him. We worked basic skills once we got up to the building and secluded ourselves. We ended the outing by sitting out front for approximately 45 minutes on a bench with people walking by. Not one person asked to pet him (which was a good thing). He stayed with me and never tried to leave to go greet anyone. A couple of dogs passed which spike his attention - but luckily the dogs were not reactive at all so Settler stayed calm.
Our second outing was at a private school to visit family. The meet and greet upon arrival was quite difficult since he was already familiar with who we were visiting. He did a nice job in the school since there were not too many people present.
Settler worked hard today and I realize I need to make more frequent public outings with him. He is exhausted from being outdoors and being so stimulated. All and all it was a great day. We will see what the remainder of the day has in store and perhaps try to fit in some agility or continue our training holding an object.