Ted and Chappie.
Today, I had a great consultation with two dogs and their owners. Ted is a pit bull and Chappie is a Breton spaniel. It’s really Chappie who is suffering with the worst issues here and that mainly being his anxiety.
I left their owners with quite a lot of information, more information than I usually like to leave people with for the initial consultation but it’s all relevant. I want to share some of the key points here.
I came into the house after meeting the dogs owners outside. Really nice people. When I came in the dogs were pretty calm and came over to sniff. I walked into the living room and put my bag down on the floor.
When I sat down on the sofa, Chappie very quickly jumped up, went behind me and put his front legs on my shoulders and then just stayed there completely still. I actually thought it was a bit strange.
I asked the owners if he does this with everyone and they told me they don’t really have many visitors so it was new for all of us. When I got him off his went straight over to his male owner and tried to do it with him. When he didn’t give in to it he went to his mum, then to ted, and eventually back to me. He didn’t stop.
The thing the owners needed to know was that he wasn’t acting like this because of something that happened to him in the past. He acts like this because they unconsciously reward his anxious state of mind which only makes it worse.
These dogs are also big pullers and dog reactive.
Here’s some of the key points I left them with until I see them again next week
Stop rewarding anxiety.
Although it might be hard not to give affection and claim your own spaces when your dog rushes over to climb on you because you went to the bath room, this is how your going to get him feeling better about it and stop anxiety.
Practise
Practise place with leashes on the dogs at home so you can give proper guidance and instruction to dogs that aren’t used to following your lead.
Get your dogs off the harnesses and on slip leashes
They aren’t huskies and we don’t want to get pulled into the road. Of course I swapped them for slip leashes today, conditioned the dogs to them, and showed the owners how to communicate to them through this new tool and body language energy.
Creates
Get crates so you can teach them to stop destroying your house when you leave and keep them safe. The right size crate is the size of your dog and then half that again. You should properly crate train your dog for a year to a year and a half. This gets rid of separation anxiety and teaches your dog how to be calm by himself at home. He can’t do that if he’s constantly destroying and trying to break out of your house.
Direction
Everyone in the family needs to be able to give the dogs direction. That means your partner can’t step in because it’s not working for you. Make it work, what you say goes, no questions asked.
Be calm
You need to have a calm, confident presence always when around your dogs. That means being relaxed and assertive in your approach to everything especially when it comes to your dogs. There will be plenty of time to get excited with them and do great, fun and adventurous things but you have to learn how to walk before you can run.
Final words
Like I said, it’s quite a lot for the first session but I know these owners are going to put in all the good work. They will start working with the dogs in side and out. Working on place and leash pressure. Short walks for now and more mental work. They need to go and get crates for both dogs and condition them to them while they are at home.