🐾🐶 Training Berry, The Barky Australian Shepherd: A Journey of Paw-sitive Change 🐾🐶
Meet Berry, 🐶 an adorable Australian Shepherd that will make your heart do a little dance 💃 with her cuteness. Her lively presence brings sunshine ☀️ to the Subwork, a coworking place snuggled in the middle of the majestic Julian Alps 🏔️. Here, she serves as both the guard dog and the mascot, spreading smiles and joy 😊 among the co-working folks.
However, every rose 🌹 has its thorns, and Berry was no exception. She had a strong penchant for barking…a lot! 🗣️🐕 The noise, reaching a whopping 90dB 📣 (here’s a source for you fact-checkers), was enough to give a headache to even the most patient dog lover. On top of that, she is a notorious food thief, snatching away people’s meals! 🍔🍕
Berry’s tale began with my boyfriend who unfortunately lacked the patience to train her. And as someone who was not particularly fond of dogs, I too found her constant barking and naughty antics exasperating. However, fate had a change of heart and so did I, thanks to my newfound passion — running! 🏃♀️
Berry was my constant running companion and surprisingly, she made me fall in love with her. ❤️ Despite my initial irritation at her, our running escapades brought us closer, although there was one minor hitch: she would bark at me incessantly during our runs.
I learned that Berry’s barking was her way of seeking attention and herding, just as she would have done with sheep 🐑 (she’s a shepherd dog, after all!). Here’s a resource that talks more about this. But I was no sheep and Berry needed to understand that.
My first strategy to control Berry’s barking was straightforward: I would stop running 🛑, squat down, and look away from her whenever she started her bark-rade. The result? An annoyed Berry barking even louder! 😖 We went through this cycle of stopping and running multiple times, yet nothing seemed to work. To make matters worse, Berry’s barking caused quite an embarrassing scene when we came across a fancy foreign lady with her small dog in the town. 🤦♀️
But as they say, necessity is the mother of invention, and Berry’s barking led me to a eureka moment. 🎯 Every time we went for a run, I would put a leash on Berry until we reached a remote location. Only then would I let her off-leash to run alongside me. The leash dragging behind her seemed to remind her of my control and she eventually stopped barking! It felt like a breakthrough moment! 🥳
Fast-forward to now, Berry is a changed dog who no longer barks incessantly. She can control her excitement and is a pleasure to run with. It’s a wonderful sight to see other people smiling and petting Berry, not intimidated by her, but rather charmed by her presence. She truly is a joy to have around, and our journey together has been a transformative one, filled with learning, patience, and a lot of love. ❤️🐾🐶
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Aurora Poppyseed
