I decided to take Mae to Lowe's to assess her tolerance of environmental and social pressure. I had a big bag of turkey for some training. A man getting out of his car surprised Mae, and she barked. I had to get her settled and seated so she had a grip on herself. I gave her cookies and into the store she went. We saw people, and Mae got lots of cookies for looking at people and then offering me attention. She was a bit wound, but Mae is always a bit wound. I didn't see any signs of stress.
So after a bit of walking around, someone startled Mae and she woofed. I told her not to react and she stopped. I took her into a quiet corner and we played for a bit. Mae was happy to play and very comfortable. Then I sat down and Mae kind of looked around for something to do.
Back to walking around. Mae really didn't worry about people, but she was happy to get turkey when we saw them.
Then and employee sort of forced a bit of petting on Mae. I'd prefer that not have happened, but Mae pushed into his space and initiated the contact. She tolerated it, but it was too much pressure for her and she tucked her tail. I gave her a lot of cookies and stepped back a bit. We chatted for a while and then I moved on.
I tried some heeling with Mae and she was too busy looking around to heel. So after some walking I asked her to down. She was fine with the stays.
My take is that Mae is not all that stressed by environment. Environment is largely static. She is concerned about people, and although she wants to interact, she's too nervous for it to really be totally comfortable.
I'm going to work on getting out and simply get her comfortable seeing people as background noise. The more she knows that they won't try to pet her or put pressure on her, the more confident she'll be with people.
Hopefully increasing social tolerance in calm Mae will increase her tolerant of people when she's in high drive.
I'll post with our progress.
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