dididog Posted September 23, 2014 Share Posted September 23, 2014 Also leading on from Grumpette's lovely story, can I just say that I appreciate how you've all stuck it out with your reactive dogs as long as you have and all the progress you've made with them This has only been a recent thing for us but it's already doing my head in and making me really sad and stressed out. So many things that I wouldn't think about before are now the things I worry about at night before bed and play over mind every time we step out of the house, which I know isn't helpful for the situation but if I'm not thinking about it I get complacent and make mistakes and reverse any progress we've made. I understand you though Hankdog, before all this Didi went everywhere with me, to some pretty weird places for a dog and she was fine with it all, occasionally unsure or too eager since she was still a puppy but otherwise just went along with it but now it's like an intense mission just to walk around the block. I'd love to take her everywhere with me like she used to, Melbourne's pretty dog friendly and we used to have fun but now I don't think going out for coffee or a picnic or a train ride would be fun for either of us as I'd be too focused on her and the people around her and she'd be too nervous the whole time for me to even justify bringing her along. I think I'm just a bit down in the dumps because we are yet to see any progress (as expected, still early days) and I keep stuffing up but I'm sure after a while things will start working out and we will both be more confident at handling situations and knowing our limits and the whole task will seem less daunting and impossible, but I like coming in here and seeing everyone's little (and big) successes in the mean time :) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
raineth Posted September 23, 2014 Share Posted September 23, 2014 Very hard to train those males! I had company today so took Jake to the rose nursery. We had a lovely time looking at plants and the only near disaster was Jake trying to climb into the water feature. It's so sad he is how he is because aside from dogs he is so easy to take around. No pulling or trying to greet people. He's so patient and calm. .... Except for the dog thing. I have had this happen to me several times with fountains HD! Digby liked a swim and if I wasn't careful would hop in to fountains. Once we went to this place that had a pond covered in water weed, I was with Digby at the edge looking at some ducks. Then Digby took a step forward and fell in! He hadn't realised it was a pond because of the water weed! He came out looking like some special sort of river monster, covered in mud and draped with green water weed :laugh: What a good boy Jake is :) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
raineth Posted September 23, 2014 Share Posted September 23, 2014 There are definitely some wins there Terri good on you and Didi. As you found out, one of the hardest things is dealing with people who think they know better! I think it's natural to feel a bit down. It's a lot of work, and not exactly what you hoped and dreamed dog ownership would be like! I get down about it too sometimes. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BC Crazy Posted September 23, 2014 Share Posted September 23, 2014 I think a very important thing to remember is NO ONE knows your dog like you do... People may know more about dogs, yes, but you know your own dog. I agree 100% with raineth it is very natural to feel down or upset at times. Owning a reactive dog takes it's toll on you emotionally because you love them to bits & you put every once of your heart, soul, effort & time into making their lives as loving & full as it can be. At times your whole life is put on hold in the process. Stella is a beautiful, loving little girl & I adore her BUT she has taken me to places emotionally that I never knew existed & everything in between. I go to bed most nights totally exhausted & had more sleepless ones than I care to remember. It's been one hell of a ride so far. A huge learning curve that I am only just starting to see rewards for on a 'good' day :) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hankdog Posted September 24, 2014 Share Posted September 24, 2014 Terri you just need to quaranteen the worry. You're doing what you can, try find the good things about your dog. Jake is super photogenic. Every time you "stuff up" is just a chance to practice getting back under control. She's young, you are getting training and hopefully she will improve. Either that or you'll just become a great dog trainer. Rubbish days will happen but you will survive. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BC Crazy Posted September 24, 2014 Share Posted September 24, 2014 (edited) Yes it's all about focus really. You want Didi to focus on things that will have a positive result & we need to do the same. I'm sure Didi has some things she does very well & those are the things you need to think about when things are getting a bit much. I find this outlook usually works for both of us when things seem to be going south. Try to step back ,breathe & refocus. This is a method but when practised helps you rebound quickly from most dramas. Edited September 24, 2014 by BC Crazy Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dididog Posted September 24, 2014 Share Posted September 24, 2014 Sorry for the pity party guys, though it's nice to hear your perspectives on it, I worry way too much about everything (as you can probably tell) and am just having a sooky week in general! But yes even though it's an issue and has changed a lot, she's still a great dog, so it's not too hard to focus on the good bits, just got to change my way of going about things a bit, have a bit more fun with my puppy! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dididog Posted September 25, 2014 Share Posted September 25, 2014 Okay well just as I had a little mope the other day, we had something really good happen today! We'd been on a long walk without anything major and as we were coming home Didi saw a group of people, mainly kids coming home from the show. They were about 50-70m away and she stopped and stared at them and at first I was annoyed because I thought I'd waited too long to click but instead of getting completely caught up in the group of people her first reaction upon registering the group and being scared was to look at me :D I clicked and moved us off the path as much as I could as I couldn't cross the road and dropped some ham for her to forage for on the grass and then as the group began to pass us I just kept shoveling ham into her mouth. At one point she looked up from the ham but then returned back to licking my hand so I clicked that too. It's such a tiny thing but it was a bit of a break through because I could finally see BAT working with the beginnings of her offering the behaviour I want when she is scared by people and the situation went so perfectly that it will be positive for Didi's memory bank. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hankdog Posted September 29, 2014 Share Posted September 29, 2014 (edited) Well school holidays have bought their normal quota of kids walking uncontrolled dogs setting Jake off. Yesterday was particularly bad. I stopped at an oval toilet block to cool down Jake under the tap and fill up my water bottle. I normally avoid ovals but in the heat I really needed the tap. The house next to the oval has a labxpoodke that is normally on a chain, the owner decided to let the dog and two young children, about 8 and 6 onto the oval. The dog immeadiately ran across to us barking and snarling. Luckily Jake was in the building so I stood in the doorway and started kicking at the dog. The two young children just stood about 100m away watching. I must have landed about 5 kicks. Finally the father came to see what the noise was about, Jake was screaming like a banshee and the acoustics of bare brick walks and tin roof were fantastic. He got the dog and kindly told me he would hold it while I left. I replied I would be doing some training. I found a nice big stick and started doing our drills, heeling, sitting, down and stays. Unbelievably this parent sent his little kids back out with the dog on a flexi leash while he sat on his verandah overlooking the oval. I think the kids were too scared to stay long, the dog was pulling and barking and trying to get across the oval. I know that training is supposed to be under threshold but since Jake doesn't really have a threshold we normally run him through his paces I between explosions at training. I think for him the routine of "drills" is now quite settling. I also find for myself that I just get quite nicely distracted by going into training mode and then I can slow my mind and just suck it up. Looking forward to next week when all the kids go back to school and their dogs go back into their yards. Edited September 29, 2014 by hankdog Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BC Crazy Posted October 1, 2014 Share Posted October 1, 2014 I get a lot of this come school holidays as well Hankdog. Makes me so cranky. We live in a holiday destination for a lot of folks. So they bring the family dog with them. Thats all well & good but they come to the leash free beach, mum, dad all the kids plus a dog, NO LEASH & it's just one big free for all. You can tell the dog rarely gets walked as he is doing well whatever he wants ERRRR. I'm doing my best to keep Stella occupied as this dog bolts up to us flat out. Family is blissfully unaware of their dogs whereabouts. I put Stella on lead as she was getting into a heightened state of arousal & yelled out to the people to come & grab there dog before Stella DOES... Well they weren't very happy with having to do this but tough. We were minding just doing our own thing. Makes me very cranky really. Another issue was I had a young mum who let her little girl approach Stella. Stel hasn't had much to do with kids. I could see Stella wasn't comfortable about this as she kept trying to hide behind me with her head lowered. So I asked the women to come collect her little one please. She replied in a rather put out manner that her daughter was used to dogs & it would be OK I replied well thats all well & good but your daughter is upsetting my dog. She very reluctantly came & got her all the while if looks could kill, I'd be dead... Now is Stella god for bid had a blow up & nipped the little girl, I would of been in all sorts of trouble & Stel would have been as well Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
raineth Posted October 1, 2014 Share Posted October 1, 2014 Well you were absolutely in the right BC Crazy. It's so frustrating sometimes, I feel like I need to join "raging dog owners anonymous" because I get so frustrated with other people. Yesterday I am walking with Del and my son. Ahead we see a schnauzer on an extender lead so I decide to cross the road just to be safe. The road we cross is one of those very old fashioned roads that are ridiculously wide. While we are waiting to cross I do notice a lady in a parked car across from us looking at us in a funny way. This sort of thing does happen when you have a big spotty dog so I don't pay much attention. As we cross I do vaguely notice her still watching us in this odd way. As we get to the other side there is all of a sudden a dog rushing at Delta and barking madly The lady then gets out of the car and takes her dog away. Del actually was fantastic, handled it like a champ. I on the other hand was consumed with rage! This woman had seen us, knew we were crossing the road and did nothing at all to restrain her dog. Then said nothing at all to me, I was really expecting an apology. So I gave her the nastiest scowl I have and said very loudly that I couldn't believe that she had seen were coming and didn't put her dog away. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hankdog Posted October 1, 2014 Share Posted October 1, 2014 The best management plan just can't take into account other people's actions. As Jake is now half my stress is managing him and half us managing people or dogs trying to bother him. I can imagine Del would bring out the crazies and Stella probably suffers from Lassie stereotyping, she's a collie she must love everyone. I went by the same park today and a lady who I often chat to pointed out the new "leash your dog" sign. Apparently it went up yesterday as there had been complaints to council about that park being a problem area. This lady was annoyed because she walks her dog off leash, it's a lovely spaniel and Jake can be close to it without a problem. It never interferes with any other dog. I do feel for people like that, there are dogs who just happily don't bother others with owners who mind them and pick up after them. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Simply Grand Posted October 6, 2014 Share Posted October 6, 2014 Riley's reactivity has never been that severe (only certain dogs, in certain situations and mostly just noise) but he has just come along in leaps and bounds since we started a modified BAT style training to teach him alternative responses when faced with his triggers. His mortal enemy has always been adolescent GSDs with softer natures, they were the first and most regular type of dogs that he's reacted to. I'm always careful about him meeting new dogs but particularly GSDs. Today at the dog park he met TWO new ones and was completely appropriate. After being in the vicinity for a while he was able to approach each of them, do a polite sniff greeting then turn around and come back to me without me prompting him. He looked so happy about it all too, like he was saying "look what I can do and it's fine". His confidence is so much better now that he has a little plan of action :) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hankdog Posted October 7, 2014 Share Posted October 7, 2014 Can I ask you what exactly you did? We did try BAT excercises for Jake way back but they didn't help. If anything made him worse. We had fun at training yesterday, I was quite early so we walked around and found some sheep to say hello to. Once he decided they weren't dogs, (one came quite close to see what he was), he was quite fine. When we got back to training he lay down next to the creek, which is now a swamp so no going in, and did his jelly bones thing. We decided to just do some tricks and basic training and give him a nice relaxed day. He was good walking past the dogs on the way in and out so that made me happy. Some lovely cake and coffee after and it was probably our best training session. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JulesP Posted October 12, 2014 Share Posted October 12, 2014 Really pissed off with myself. A dog had a go at Amber a couple of weeks ago. Today the owner asked if they could say hi. I'm thinking 'NO' but don't like to look like a total dog crazy. Had already objected to the dog being on a long lead in a stay whilst Poppy was in the same ring. So I agreed and of course the dog went for Amber again. The owner has zero clue. Keeps saying the dog wants to play but doesn't know how. Ummm no it is aggressive. But I do have a clue so it is my fault, so I am annoyed with myself. Amber is fine. I did some distance, LAT type work near the dog. Tried to explain about thresholds etc but just got a blank look. Owner is a instructor at the dog club and had a 'keep away' bandana on the dog. Might as well whinge about everything in here where it is likely not to be noticed too much. Who walks around a ring doing a run through eating a SAUSAGE whilst a dog is working in the ring? Seriously, no brains. My dogs would have been fine but the dog in there wasn't. And really that would have thrown a lot of dogs. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jemmy Posted October 12, 2014 Share Posted October 12, 2014 Really pissed off with myself. A dog had a go at Amber a couple of weeks ago. Today the owner asked if they could say hi. I'm thinking 'NO' but don't like to look like a total dog crazy. Had already objected to the dog being on a long lead in a stay whilst Poppy was in the same ring. So I agreed and of course the dog went for Amber again. The owner has zero clue. Keeps saying the dog wants to play but doesn't know how. Ummm no it is aggressive. But I do have a clue so it is my fault, so I am annoyed with myself. Amber is fine. I did some distance, LAT type work near the dog. Tried to explain about thresholds etc but just got a blank look. Owner is a instructor at the dog club and had a 'keep away' bandana on the dog. Might as well whinge about everything in here where it is likely not to be noticed too much. Who walks around a ring doing a run through eating a SAUSAGE whilst a dog is working in the ring? Seriously, no brains. My dogs would have been fine but the dog in there wasn't. And really that would have thrown a lot of dogs. Oh what a day! There's no limit to the amount of crazyness around... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hankdog Posted October 12, 2014 Share Posted October 12, 2014 Ok we made it through the weekend. If we get to Tuesday 11 am we will have not barked at a dog for a week. Dogs on tv and barking back at the neighbours dogs, if they start it, don't count. Will be carefully choosing our walk tomorrow. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
raineth Posted October 14, 2014 Share Posted October 14, 2014 How'd you go Hankdog? Did you make it through to 11am today? :) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
grumpette Posted October 14, 2014 Share Posted October 14, 2014 Really pissed off with myself. A dog had a go at Amber a couple of weeks ago. Today the owner asked if they could say hi. I'm thinking 'NO' but don't like to look like a total dog crazy. Had already objected to the dog being on a long lead in a stay whilst Poppy was in the same ring. So I agreed and of course the dog went for Amber again. The owner has zero clue. Keeps saying the dog wants to play but doesn't know how. Ummm no it is aggressive. But I do have a clue so it is my fault, so I am annoyed with myself. Amber is fine. I did some distance, LAT type work near the dog. Tried to explain about thresholds etc but just got a blank look. Owner is a instructor at the dog club and had a 'keep away' bandana on the dog. Might as well whinge about everything in here where it is likely not to be noticed too much. Who walks around a ring doing a run through eating a SAUSAGE whilst a dog is working in the ring? Seriously, no brains. My dogs would have been fine but the dog in there wasn't. And really that would have thrown a lot of dogs. OMG totally clueless and not following the club rules obviously. Scary really. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hankdog Posted October 14, 2014 Share Posted October 14, 2014 Hello, my name is Jake. I bark at other dogs. I have not done this for 176 hours. May the peanut butter be with you!!!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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