Advocacy win last night!

So every night before bed I take my nearly-4 year old GSD out to do his business. We live in an apartment building and take the elevators but he has a problem when there are people standing on the other side when the doors open; he'll bark once or twice and get scared but has been consistently getting more confident with people.

Last night we took the elevator down and there were 3 people in the lobby, bags of groceries, and one of the 3 people was standing by the doors; I put my hand out and asked them for some room.

Normally I get as far as saying, "please give-" before Lulu barks, but last night he didn't bark at all, I got the full sentence out and the person (who recognizes us and is also dog savvy) gave him the space he needed.

Coming back in another resident was waiting in the lobby and stood up to let us in and Lulu started to get nervous but all it took was saying his name to break the focus and we walked into the lobby and waited with no reactivity at all!

He's really starting to learn that if something makes him uncomfortable he can trust me to deal with it!