Linda has been thinking more and more about my dog park fears. Yesterday's trip was a total bust. I growled at every single dog that wanted to play with me. She has been reading article after article and maybe has found the answer. It seems like she might be perpetuating my dog park growling. When I am afraid or unsure, I growl at the dog trying to play with me. Immediately, Linda (and Jerry... you know you do it too) picks me up to save me saying "Poor Choopie, I'll save you.. don't be scared... it's OK.) Linda has trained me that when I growl, I get picked up and loved. The trainers say that she is supposed to leave me down and let me explore and learn on my own. Most dogs at the dog park don't mean me any harm at all. I'll never learn this if she keeps picking me up. If Linda is confident that I'll be OK, I'll learn not to be a paranoid Chorkie every trip to the park. My little growl might turn into fear aggression where I do more then simply growl, but bite. The next nice day she is going to test it out and see if it really works. After all, how could this little puppy be scary?
