[Eleanor]

Great discussion. I lost my 2 maltese service dogs who mitigated health and PTSD concerns before I knew I had any! They unfortunately met with an untimely death by neighborhood haters. (Story for another day) I then adopted a rescue 2 year old GS/Mali mix from our shelter. She absolutely had previous training either in Military or Police work and her skin allergies disqualified her is my educated guess. A miracle from God I found her because I was not ready to replace the 2 I had lost. Yet there she was – pretty worn down from having had a litter before she was surrendered and had skin allergies and was pretty much a mess. The shelter neutered her before I took her home and for the next year I visited vets who were not getting to the root cause of her problem. Then I went to the human society vet who nailed it in one visit and my girl was on her way to a healing path. Over several thousand dollars later we were on our way to a better life for her and a focus on training. Long story short Arielle sniffs at everything, is well trained at protection and tracking and has a strong drive. I’ve consulted and joined local training groups as well as Robert Cabral and Mali Mom classes online. I want Arielle to have a full life as my service dog yet also meeting her full potential. We are now after a year and a half having great results. She comes with me everywhere, we do to the airport, malls, food stores, restaurants you name it we do it and she is admired every place we go. Here’s the thing: around pools – I live in FL – if she sees someone in the pool she alerts, stresses and may bark and lunge towards person in water. I think she wants to rescue them. So: Once I realized her drive, I’ve begun taking her up to our club pool every day,, walking her around it without people in it and waiting until people are in it. My attempt is to desensitize here to the overreaction while not killing the drive. So far I see it is helping. Do any of you know what style of training that reaction would stem from? Another thing we are working on is her hyper-alert to other dogs. Not all dogs, but some she goes into a sit and down and won’t be diverted. How best to deal with that/ any suggestions? Some dog owners are idiots and think it’s funny to watch her react – I do not find it funny.. Appreciate any feedback. She is an awesome dog.