At six months old, Daisy came over from Eastern Europe. She lived with a someone nearby before the lady took her in three months ago.
Daisy is now one year of age – a beautiful mix of many breeds.
She is polite, friendly and absolutely lovely – a real tribute to the lady who has worked hard. She can be taken anywhere.
Apart from one problem. Barking in the car.
She barks so much in the car that the lady has to wear earplugs! Continue reading…
I have just met another Henry – a Miniature Schnauzer age two. He is quite unusual to look at, being brown and with a poodle-like curly coat. Cute! 
Henry was barking behind a door when I arrived. Let out after I had sat down, he came charging up to me, barking quite fiercely. This didn’t last for long and I could see that he was scared whilst also wanting to make friends. He backed away and inched forwards. He licked his lips.
Within a very few minutes of being left to do things in his own time, he was taking food from me and we were friends.
Henry is very reactive to anyone he meets when out on walks. It’s even worse if they have a dog.
Unlike some scared dogs that back away and try to make themselves small, like others Henry seems to feel that attack is the best form of defense.
It’s puzzling why he has become like this. His mother has an even temperament. He was introduced nicely to everyday life at a young age and so far as I can see they did everything right. Nothing seemed to scare him early on, it just slowly developed. Nobody has ever hurt him.
On lead he will walk nicely until he sees a person or a dog, and then, while his human traps him tightly on a short lead as they pass, he strains to get to them, barking all the time. Their very common approach teaches him nothing. It won’t be making him feel any less fearful of people and dogs.
The million dollar question is what should they be doing?
It stands to reason that if people continue as they are, nothing will change. The only way is to do things completely differently.
Any continued close encounters with people and dogs will merely go on making things worse. Where can they go to avoid them? There are people and dogs everywhere.
Where there’s a will there has to be a way.
There are three choices when considering what to do about reactivity, barking and lunging through fear of people and dogs when out.
The choices aren’t based on convenience or lifestyle. They are just fact.
One is great, one is dreadful and the third is doing nothing.
Either Henry’s root fear needs changing so that he no longer feels scared. No longer feeling scared, he will no longer be noisy. He will in time be a happy and much more confident dog. Everyone will enjoy walks. Job done.
It’s all about building up trust.
Another possibility (which Henry’s humans won’t be doing!) is to deal with just the symptom – the barking, pulling and lunging – with no regard for the emotions which making him behave like this. This is punishment administered by a human who is simply bigger and stronger and may also have painful equipment to use on the dog.
This is the ‘dominance’ approach used in the bad old days. Cruelty used to force a dog through pain and fear.
This destroys all trust.
It’s hard to believe in this enlightened day and age that there are still trainers and TV programmes that advocate this kind of approach.
Who could want their relationship with their dog to be on that footing? Certainly not Henry’s owners.
There is a third choice which some people understandably end opting for. That is simply to give up and live with things as they are.
Harry has six loving adult humans in his life who have always done their best for him. Between them they will do whatever is required to build up his confidence. They will all need to pull together. Behind his fear of people is a very friendly little dog ready to burst out.
All people must be consistent in keeping the threshold distance for Henry from dogs and people while they work on things. This isn’t optional. The will each know how to react should someone unexpectedly appear or if they have a ‘near-dog encounter’.
Henry is never let off lead although they live very near to parkland. Here they meet few dogs and people which is ideal for a dog with fear of people. They can drive there. They can even jog to get there. He’s not reactive while they are running.
They will get a long line for him so that he has some freedom. This will make his walks fulfilling.
Fear of people doesn’t involve avoiding people altogether but working on them within Henry’s comfort zone. If Henry’s humans all stick to this and take it slowly, his confidence is certain to grow.
They will need to be tough about appearing unfriendly by creating distance between themselves and people who want to talk to them. If they want success they have no choice. Here is a little video about how to increase space without seeming rude.
There are certain sacrifices to be made but it will be so well worth it in the end.
Monty and his shadow
Monty is an absolutely delightful, much-loved Cockerpoo pup, six months old. His coat is unusually soft.
The problem with Monty is he grabs clothes and damages them. After several months, it’s undoubtedly a well-rehearsed, learned behaviour.
They react to the jumping up by telling him Get Down and No, and pushing him. At the same time he may grab the person’s top. The man’s t-shirt had holes in it. (I had been warned and came wearing tough clothes). Continue reading…
The Jack Russell growls at the boy. It’s a sad situation and I feel so sorry for Eddie (not his real name). He is thirteen years old and their rescue Jack Russell, Ted, ‘doesn’t like’ him.
What makes it even more sad is that Eddie was the one family member not particularly interested in getting a dog until Ted chose him at the rescue. He settled on his lap. For Eddie it was love.
In a week or two everything had changed.
Continue reading…
The young couple adopted mix breed Buddy at five months old. He is now nearly two. They were told he had Beagle in him, though it’s hard to tell.
There really is nothing wrong with the young dog that a bit of motivation and consistency won’t solve – along with some systematic training exercises to get him to pay attention to them.
She seldom feels completely safe. Lucy’s fearfulness affects everything, most importantly her reactions to their baby daughter.
With fear being at the root of all the issues that are a problem for the seven-year-old Cocker Spaniel’s owners, general fearfulness is what we must address. Continue reading…
Excitable Dalmatian Milo can get from zero to a hundred in a second!!
He barks persistently at people coming into the house- though didn’t at me. I’m calm and the lady and her adult son were asked to ignore him initially. Nobody was stirring him up. It was in the morning and there had not (yet) been any build-up of excitement. Milo was still relatively calm.
He has recently become a little bad-tempered when approached by another dog on a walk. This has only happened a few times but it’s spoiling walks for the lady who is now on the constant look-out.
Milo now barks at dogs on TV – even at the theme music introducing Supervet. He barks at dogs passing his house.
He has always been great with dogs and regularly goes on ‘Dally Rallies’. The three-year-old dog has a couple of particular dog friends he meets and plays with every week.
The first incident occurred when the excitable Dalmatian and his special dog friend were playing. A young dog ran up to them and Milo saw it off. The owner wasn’t pleased but no harm was done.
The other couple of occasions have each been when another dog has come up close – a big dog. On one occasiona he and an approaching Boxer had to be pulled apart. It’s such a rare occurrence so far that I’m convinced it’s to do with the excitable Dalmatian’s arousal levels at the time making him grumpy. As we know, stress levels stack up.
The lady fears he will be labelled as aggressive locally which he plainly isn’t. He is, however, sometimes much too quick to react.
For instance, when Milo meets this dog friend, another Dalmatian, the lady gets him excited with eager anticipation before even leaving the house. She says ‘we are going to see Benji!’ and the excitable Dalmatian is already beside himself before the two dogs even meet up.
Key to their success both with the occasional ‘other dog’ issue and with his reactivity to people coming into the house is not stirring him up. It may seem fun at the time, but the fallout comes later in some form or other and is inevitable.
These two things are incompatible: over-excitement and self-control. They simply don’t go together.
If they want the end result badly enough, then the son in particular needs to sacrifice some of his own fun.
I had given Milo a couple of chew items to help him calm while we chatted. This worked until the young man began to use these same items to generate a game. He feigned throwing the antler chew until the dog was really excited and then skidded it along the wooden floor. Milo then took it back for more.
The chew items are meant to be associated with calm. Chewing is a major way the excitable Dalmatian can calm himself down. If they then use the antler for play instead of for calming him, it will do the opposite. Milo will demand continued throwing until people have had enough of him.
Then, like a pressure cooker, he blows.
The dog then raids the bin and jumps to see what he can siphon off the counters. He can’t help himself.
This ends in commands and scolding.
The family can replace this arousal with the kind of activities that are enriching to Milo and require him to use his brain or nose. This is, actually, a lot kinder.
He is a beautiful boy – and clever. The lady worked hard on his training and now the family should work together for calm. Without a concerted effort to keep Milo’s arousal levels down it’s hard to see how they will make progress. Excitement and over-arousal are the main emotions driving the barking at people coming into the house, the dogs on TV and the reactivity to some dogs on walks.
We discussed how the lady can enjoy walks again without worrying about whether her excitable Dalmatian will be reactive towards an approaching dog. When calmer, he’s more tolerant.
Milo’s recall is excellent, but what they can’t control is the behaviour of other dogs.
Stress builds up over time so it’s not only what the lady does immediately before they leave the house. When everyone replaces winding him up with giving him calming, sniffing, chewing, foraging and brain activities they should find things improve. (Maybe more boring for a young man – but a lot better for Milo).
The key is simple. It’s about keeping their excitable Dalmatian calmer which will allow him to gain self-control.
Sid is gorgeous and I was expecting a Cavapoo. I don’t believe he is a Cavapoo though. The scared barking came from a dog looking more like a newly trimmed Cockerpoo.
There is definitely something fishy about his start in life, where they got him from at eleven weeks and the fact he was already incubating kennel cough.
The ‘breeder’ wouldn’t give her address until they were on the road. When they got there Sid was handed over to them straight away. There was a small Cavalier KC that they said was Sid’s father and a small black poodle that they said was his mother. No other dogs.
My suspicion is that this smart house was a front and very likely Sid had been shipped there from somewhere else.
One year old Cocker Spaniel Lucky will chase people walking past the fence and boundary bark. He is a lovely dog, doing exactly what most other dogs in his position would do. Particularly a working Cocker Spaniel with loads of energy both mental and physical.
Give a dog free access to fences, where people with their dogs walk past, he will very likely boundary bark and chase. No doubt from Lucky’s perspective he believes he is chasing them away – they always go, after all.
With each time he does it, the behaviour becomes more established.
They have had him for three months now. He’s landed on his feet with a wonderful home, and they have got themselves a wonderful dog.
I was called in order to do something about his general excitement and the boundary barking.
From the point of view of Lucky’s stress levels, this frequent charging from gate, up the side fence and back to the gate is not good. He gets so frantic he tries to dig out underneath.
The gentleman’s way of dealing with this is to chase after him with a slip lead and corner him. In such an aroused state Lucky sometimes gets to a stage where he can no longer control himself. On a couple of occasions he has redirected his frustration onto the man and bitten him.
It’s a bit like a child having a tantrum kicking out.
With frequently topped-up stress levels, Lucky will be much more nervous and jumpy in general, just as we would ourselves. Things that we consider may be fun for the dog – like repetitive or exciting hands-on play – can actually be adding to his general arousal levels. This will build up and remain in his system for days. Trigger Stacking.
A working dog needs breed-appropriate things to direct his energy onto. I understand this well, having a working Cocker Spaniel myself. He needs to hunt, forage, explore and to use his brain. Adding this kind of enrichment will tire him out in a much healthier way than simply exercise and physical play. It’s a lot harder work however than just letting the dog run around freely, doing his own thing.
A large aspect of Lucky’s life will be frustration. He will boundary bark but be unable to actually get to the person or dog.
As they can’t let him off lead on walks for fear that he would go off on a chase and not come back, walks must be frustrating for him also. Currently he is held close on a slip lead. With no freedom there will constantly be things out of reach that he can’t get at or sniff. I suggest giving him time on a long thirty-foot line in the woods or fields where he can make his own choices – and the man can follow him. This should enrich Lucky’s life greatly.
The line should be attached to a harness – a tightening collar could badly damage his neck.
The first priority where the boundary chasing itself is concerned is to manage the situation better and to remove opportunity.
Allowing Lucky access to that gate when they aren’t right there on hand to deal with it immediately is simply asking for more trouble. Lucky has an anchor cable in the garden which gives him a lot of scope but keeps him away from the gate where the barking ritual kicks off. They should use this more. They may also be able to fence off the front part of their garden.
When Lucky does boundary bark, it needs to be dealt with appropriately. The man may be able to catch him eventually, but it doesn’t get to the root of the problem at all. It won’t stop happening. It will intensify.
The humans should show Lucky that it’s their own job to protect him and the territory, not his. Their role of ‘protector’ can’t be just when they feel like it so they must be consistent and ready to react immediately he starts. If they delay he will have become so aroused that he will unresponsive and not even hear them.
Chasing and cornering him is the worst thing you can do with a dog. Lucky’s family will now work hard at getting him to come to them as soon as they call him.
They will condition Lucky to come to a whistle immediately and make it very worthwhile for him. As soon as he charges down to the gate they can whistle. Then, instead of chasing him, he will come to them. They can experiment with what works best as a reward. It could be a special treat, it could be scattering food around the place or it could be throwing him a ball.
Then, as well as relieving him of any boundary duty, passing people and dogs will be associated with something happy. This will result in them becoming less troubling to Lucky.
In time, if they do this every single time, he will be hearing someone approach and instead of chasing come straight to his humans for a reward instead – without having to be called.
So, Lucky boundary barks and chases which is the behaviour they want to stop. As well as approaching this directly there are other things to do. They won’t excite him unnecessarily. They’ll enrich Lucky’s life as much as they can. Importantly, they will use management to prevent free access to that gate whilst reacting to any boundary barking appropriately.
This is a story about my own dog, Cocker Spaniel Pickle, and the ball thrower.
I’ve hidden the ball thrower.
Pickle loves to chase the ball. He jumps to catch it and he would carry on till he dropped (though I can’t image Pickle ever dropping if the ball kept being thrown).
Although the dog loves it, the ball thrower really may not be a good thing unless used very sparingly. People with ball chuckers seldom use them sparingly, like five throws then put it away.
Why isn’t it a good thing? Dogs LOVE it.
Unfortunately they can become obsessed. Too much and they can even become adrenaline junkies. They are never happy unless a ball is being thrown for them.
A lovely walk can become nothing more than chasing a ball, fetching and dropping it to be thrown again. The richness of the countryside becomes lost to the dog. He should be using his wonderful nose to explore the environment and all the dogs, other animals and bugs that have passed his way before him.
Would a dog, freely out in the environment alone without humans, be doing anything quite so relentlessly repetitive?
Anything repeated over and over can be addictive and causes stress of a kind, even if the dog does LOVE it.
It’s almost like the dog is a clockwork toy (remember clockwork?) and with a key we are winding him up until he is over-wound.
Pickling
My Cocker Spaniel, Pickle, would chase a ball all day given the chance. However, if there is no ball, he is happily ‘Pickling’. He does what instinctively comes to him which is running about, tail wagging, exploring with his nose. He may chase a pigeon or dig up a vole.
He’s a working dog, and needs to use his brain whilst exercising.
The day before yesterday someone took my dogs to the field with the ball thrower for Pickle. He threw the ball for him, over and over.
Over the past two days the fallout from that extended ball play on Pickle has been very evident. (I do myself play ball but it is for a few throws only then I stop. Adding some training and brain work goes a little way towards fulfilling his genetic needs).
He brings the ball back, drops it where it makes it easiest for the person to pick up. He runs off in anticipation of where it might land before it leaves the ball thrower.
The day before yesterday after the lengthy ball play, Pickle charged back into the house ahead of the other dogs. I was sitting at my computer. He leapt into the water bowl, digging out the water all over the sitting room floor. Dripping, he charged all over the furniture and then jumped into and knocked over the larger water bucket the dogs drink from.
Any self control was simply impossible.
For a good hour he paced and he panted. Each small noise set him off barking.
Isn’t ball play meant to tire him out and make him calm? Isn’t a tired, physically worn out dog a good dog? Fat chance! It’s the opposite.
Pickle was on alert for sounds for the rest of the day. The next morning he was still high, getting vocal and excited for his breakfast, perfectly illustrating how stress chemicals remain in the body.
No ball thrower yesterday and no ball thrower today.
Pickle has been out in the field with me several times, Pickling. No balls.
Afterwards he comes in, has a drink and settles.
Today the neighbours wheeled their wheelie bin down the passage. After just one token Woof Pickle settled again. No vocals before breakfast.
It’s taken three days to get him back to this.
This is such a classic example of trigger stacking and the importance of the right kind of exercise that I have written my story about Pickle this time.
If anyone reading this with a highly wired or stressy dog uses a ball thrower to chuck a ball repeatedly for their dog, just try something.
Try no ball throwing for a few days. Just allow freedom to explore and to sniff. Your dog may find ‘doing his own thing’ very hard to start with, but persist.
If the dog chooses to run, he can chase things he himself chooses to chase.
A less stressed dog will result in a dog being able to cope with all sorts of things life throws at him, whether it’s encountering other dogs on walks to being less destructive or waiting patiently for his dinner.
PS. Dangers to be aware of if your dog loves ball play.
