Practice, Practice, Practice.

With limited opportunities to work on Monte's dog-dog interactions, we focused on night walks and traffic noises. Having surpassed the five month mark, he is more defiant and curious. However, his confidence lags a bit and we have had to make friends with a few shadowy figures the last few evenings: garbage can, mail box, and tree branch . He seems less distracted by passing vehicles, so our efforts on traffic exposure seem to be working. You never know though, sometimes it's one step forward two steps back

Saturday we made a trip to Neenah. Monte explored a different house and visited Grandma at assisted living. No issues at the house and he enjoyed his "new" toys. He was exposed to one of his high distraction items at the assisted living site, wheels. He did remarkably well with wheelchairs and walked side-by-side with a walker.

The final test on Saturday was a field of birds. As we took our evening stroll, the football field next to my old high school completely covered with 300+ white gulls, most scavenging on the ground for food and a few in flight, hovering. As we approached Monte was alerted by the movement as the birds sensing our presence retreated a few yards away. Monte remained calm and focused while on the flat collar. He earned his dinner.