Trip to the Outlets

As it warms up (well, it was in the 20s this weekend, a bit cold for our adventure!), Jonathan and I have decided to make a concerted effort to do more things with the dogs individually.

We were really good about that when Lexi was a baby, but we've stopped for convenience sake, and I think that's doing a disservice to the dogs.

I'm not sure if I've posted about it before on here or not, but Bentley is a touch reactive.  He reacts when on a leash and he sees or hears another dog.  We were working on it and doing well before we moved to Ohio, but now we live in a house where he can see and hear dogs a lot of the time (not a lot of responsible pet owners in the neighborhood--people just leave their dogs out to bark all day long).  So, for Bentley, we're going to take him on his own walks and take the clicker and reward non-reactive behavior.  We've done this before, but it's SO hard to do in our neighborhood because you get discouraged really quickly because you can't go 5 feet without hearing barking.  But, it's something that we really need to work on because Bentley has gotten worse since we've been here and it's not fair to him to continue to just manage it and not train.

Lexi is a touch sensitive, and has a tendency to worry if we let her.  Walking her with Bentley when he is reacting isn't fair to her, because it enforces her worries.  So for her, we're taking her on separate walks, and taking her out and about by herself a bit more often.  This weekend we took her to an outlet mall (about an hour from here) and we had so much fun!  She brightened so many peoples' days--young and old alike!  She has a blast because she got treats from everyone.