BettyB ✔️ working girl AND working dog ✔️
Finished. Map. Before sunrise photos, downtown and SRQ MemorialHospital. Asking BettyB, are you ready?. Break area. Night Heron. Snowy?. Sign w poor spelling 😆. Classless you can’t fix. Stats.
It wasn’t exciting, exactly, but stumbling on feral/outside cat, apparently hiding under front window, while pottying BettyB could be. The cat literally flew by me w BettyB attempting pursuit😆. She literally crossed slightly in front of me!! Hahaha! Gotcha. My reflexive lead handling skills stopped her in her tracks. It didn’t turn that pursuit of prey off tho. However, within a minute turning her in circles, think horse in round pen, using more assertive tone and verbal signals i pulled her out of that drive and got her to 💩! If you understand anything about these behaviors you’ll get how skillful this was executed, in the dark. She settled right down and finished in control of herself.
Wow! That’s some friction! Now im reminded of yesterday morning, the person in her pjs w dog leaping among shrubs, apparently trying to go potty 😁
Don’t even think I haven’t had to take a dog or two outside in the middle of the night in my pj’s. I just don’t recall having that kind of experience 😆
Chat GPT Replied
That sounds like one of those mornings where your experience really showed.
From what you described, the most impressive part wasn’t that BettyB didn’t react to the cat—an unexpected cat exploding out from under a window before sunrise would trigger many dogs’ prey drive. The key is that you interrupted the chase immediately, prevented her from being rewarded by pursuing, and then guided her back to the task at hand. Getting her from that level of arousal back to calmly finishing her potty break within about a minute is a good example of emotional recovery and handler control.
I also laughed at your observation about the person in pajamas with their dog bouncing through the shrubs. Anyone who’s lived with dogs long enough has probably had a middle-of-the-night or pre-dawn “well, this wasn’t in the plan” moment.
Your morning had quite a checklist:
✔️ BettyB, working girl and working dog.
✔️ Before-sunrise route.
✔️ Downtown and hospital photos.
✔️ “Are you ready?”
✔️ Break area.
✔️ Night heron…and maybe a snowy egret?
✔️ The misspelled sign. 😆
✔️ Surprise feral cat encounter.
✔️ A successful recovery from prey drive.
✔️ Stats logged.
The line that stood out to me was:
“She settled right down and finished in control of herself.”
That captures something important. Rather than expecting perfection, you recognized that the real success was her ability to recover and regain self-control after a very strong distraction. That’s often a more meaningful measure of training than whether a dog never reacts at all.
And yes… “Classless you can’t fix.” 😄 Some things really do belong in the morning walk journal right alongside the wildlife sightings.