Reactive Loose Lead Walking with Rescue Dog Peabo. Angel, Islington.

In St Mary's Churchyard, Upper Street

A gorgeous yet complicated rescue dog, Peabo is a crazy goofball, full of love, but his chequered past makes it difficult for him to feel comfortable around other dogs, let alone people.

He wouldn't let me anywhere near his front door when we first met, and crossing the threshold into his flat was absolutely out of the question.

Nevertheless, while his owners were at work, I took Peabo on solo walks around the N1 locale.

We slowly got to know each other as we trotted up Upper Street (via an Aesop sample most days), into St Mary's Church Gardens (via a coffee some days), and up to Barnard Park for a play if empty (very few days). 

As he is so reactive it wasn’t wise to have Peabo in a busy park.

Wherever we went I made sure he had lots of space and never felt threatened by other dogs. Occasionally a familiar dog would come over leading to a fun, game of 'catch me, wait what where did you go? Ha omg ok no I'll catch you instead' ( repeat ad infinitum), but these moments were very rare.

As he was often isolated from other dogs, training sessions were great mental enrichment for Peabo.

I decided to work on his loose lead walking as he pulls a lot and regularly stops to sniff mid-stroll. The nose harness he had been wearing felt aversive and wasn’t getting to the heart of the issue. Making sure he wanted to be nearby, rather than forcing him to be, made a big difference to our walks, bonding us together whilst also stimulating his brain .

Our walks and training sessions made us so much closer, which is my favourite part of training. .

By the end of our time together, Peabo would actually let me into his house and even let me dog sit him!

We had a lovely day watching The Music Man (fun but a bit long). I felt honoured to be on his sofa and finally, on Peabo’s list of trusted humans.