It’s market day again! Chai and I went for her second visit:

All treats in the video above are for giving in to leash pressure or responding to an informal puppy recall away from tempting market distractions that would either disturb other people or require me to buy something (you eat it you buy it – and I do not want chicharrones or chicken intestines, thank you very much!). My one criterion for the treat delivery is 4 feet on the floor. Sometimes, I only get to the point after she has jumped up – sometimes, I am fast enough to meet her before the front paws have left the ground.

I love what a difference I see in her confidence in this (2nd!) market visit compared to Chai’s first visit a week ago! Her tail is up the entire time, and she is VERY curious about the environment this time! She even gets fed by a market visitor. The golden strategy: keep putting treats into their hands so they don’t get a chance to touch the dog and then move on as soon as they have fed the last treat.

The reason I’m not feeding any voluntary check-ins yet is that she freely offers them and she’s a Border Collie. I’ll get those check-ins for free and want to keep her focus on the environment a little longer before I start feeding check-ins and focus.

The second project of the day: basketball sounds. The sound that makes Chai uncomfortable is the ball hitting the metal plate. I brought a hard rubber ball to replicate the sound today. Since I didn’t bring a tripod and can’t handle a long line, ball and camera at the same time, I briefly tied Chai to a post. While her tail is down (my interpretation: she’s hot and bored after our exciting market loop), she doesn’t flinch let alone retreat from the sound, which she is free to do. I say we are over our basketball feelings!

By the way – the person in the market video isn’t the only one who fed Chai a couple treats today. I’ve been working our strategy (make contact without food and then feed if Chai seems interested) aggressively convincingly and charmingly with strangers and am happy to report that she got fed by 5 different people today – one of whom, our friend below, we’ve already chatted with the other day:

The rest of the day was spent working hard at home (Chai has discovered chairs and she likes them):