2nd Meeting, New Person (1st Week/September)

With not a lot of success in the first meeting, I decided to take a closer look at how Sweetie was going to meet people at my house. What I thought would work, with not a lot of thought put into it, did not pan out. A plan was needed.

So, I put the Manners Minder in the kitchen and sat in a chair in the living room - and we made a game out of dinner every night over the next couple days. It played out like this: Sweets runs to the chair, targets my hand and then the cue noise goes off on the MM and dispenses food (which is actually the more salient cue for her). We made a relay race out of it with her bopping my hand and running back into the kitchen for food. I wanted her to associate the chair with super good things, that she didn't have to put herself in a weird emotional place to eat the food (she was safe in the kitchen for later use) and she could keep playing as long as she wanted. She took to the game very quickly, so we tried another meeting with new person #1.

This time the meeting was much more managed. I kept Sweets in the kitchen and hallway initially separated by the baby gate at the threshold of the living room. New person sat in the chair I had sat in during the game and Sweets first saw her sitting down. Sweets got rewarded for coming up to the gate and looking at my staff member with kibble from the MM in the kitchen dispensed. I continued to set up the MM in the kitchen to provide a mini-break from the stimulus and dial down her stress levels.

This time, we had virtually no barking and lots of wagging loose postures. So, after 10-15 watches, I moved the baby gate up to the sofa so Sweets could move up if she wanted to - and she did. We repeated rewarding the watches - and then I removed the gate and provided the new person with dried chicken strips (hopefully outweighing the kibble by this point and safely allowing an interaction after this managed build-up).

Sweets approached hesitantly and took the strips - and came back for more. The new person feed and starting incorporating some chin rubs which pushed her a bit too much and resulted in some stiffening and a little unease, but not a lot. We continued the treats for a bit, she relaxed more and then we moved outside to do the come game in the backyard with me, Sweets and the new person. I had kibble, new person still had chicken and we would call her - and she would run to both of us for yummies, preferably to the new person as the treat was more high value. We did that exercise for a couple minutes with success and called it a night.

She was interested in interacting with the new person, finally! Progress, no reactivity, although some stiffening, but potential.