A fresh path

I put this video together to show my fearful dog’s progress from just before I got her until now…it’s a slow process but with patience and a little help of a small dose of Prozac, we are getting there!

I almost gave up on her a couple of times…now, I’m very glad I didn’t!

This will be an ongoing kind of subject since I adopted a rescued 2 year old Australian shepherd dog that turned out to be VERY fearful. I found Dany (Dany D. Dog) at the Northern Nevada Humane Society shelter here in Reno. At the time, there was no indication of a problem at all…she seemed perfectly fine and seemed fine for the rest of that day and the next…it was on the third day when the big trouble with her fear got started! I dropped the handle of the retractable leash and the nois scared Dany…she jumped and that caused more noise…that is when she took off like a shot trying to get away from the noisy thing following her. It took me about three minutes to get into a place where I could tackle her and get the situation under control. From that day, I have been dealing with the most fearful dog I have ever seen! Below is a short video I took of her soon after the leash incident…

As you can see, Dany was two different dogs depending on whether or not she was on the leash or out in the wide open spaces. Or, at least it SEEMED that way! As it turns out, she was just as fearful of certain things ALL THE TIME. I did visit the vet with her and now Dany D. Dog take 15mg of Prozac daily….it helps! Drugs are not the answer all by themselves but what the Prozac does is help take that huge edge of fear down several notches and allows for me to employ counter conditioning techniques. With THIS particular dog, I doubt I could have gotten as far as I have without it. Even with the help of Prozac, there have been two occasions when I almost threw in the towel and took Dany back to the shelter…I’m glad I didn’t but it has been a real emotional challenge!

Afraid of EVERYTHING!
Dany d. Dog and I have so far dealt with many different things Dany showed a fear response to. She became afraid of my butane cigarette lighter for a short time. After that, I found that the “pssttt” noise of opening a soda can scared her and since she saw the can too, she associated the sound with the can and was afraid of all soda cans…we dealt with that as well! Next, I found out that if I was just carrying her leash, not attached, and played with the buttons on it, that clicking noise scared her! She is almost over THAT one. People were scary to her for a time and sometimes still are but she is much more comfortable going up to strangers to make friends and soon after the first pat on her head is acting as if they are best buddies…..go figure! Large pickup trucks and 18 wheelers are still scary to her but little by little, she is getting less and less fearful of those too.

Learning the dog.
Teaching a dog anything, even the most brave mutt, requires that the “trainer” learn that individual dog. I have been around a lot of dogs in my life and most were fairly easy to get to know…Dany D. Dog was NOT so easy to figure out and I still haven’t gotten her all figured out! However, I have learned quite a bit about her. Most of my learning was by making some mistakes, some very terrible mistakes at times, and adjusting MY approach.

One idea I had was to leave Dany to her own devices as much as possible thinking that she would eventually just ease into being comfortable with various things. That was a mistake! If something was just SLIGHTLY scary to Dany, she would distance herself and not attempt to investigate it. The more I let her distance herself, the MORE AFRAID of that thing she became until it got to the point where it was almost impossible to approach her if she THOUGHT the scary thing was anywhere around. It soon became apparent that Dany would simply get MORE afraid of things unless I sort of forced the issue…the trick is to find a way to do that without Dany feeling like she is being punished in some manner. That happened to be where the leash actually became a good tool! Dany seems to feel that, if her leash is attached, she is OBLIGATED to go where I go no matter what scary thing is around. Yeah, at times, she has resisted and there have been times when she absolutely refused to go somewhere but those times are getting fewer and fewer.

Another thing I needed to learn is what Dany really loved to do. As another person very knowledgeable about fearful dogs said, I had to find out what “rocks her world”. Very soon after getting Dany, I found that all sorts of small critters are irresistible to her…bugs, frogs, mice, rabbits…she just LOVES investigating those critters and if they run, so much the better as she loves a good chase. Not once have I seen Dany try to bite even a bug. Once, she chased down a mouse where I work and stood over it just sniffing! Once she was satisfied with her sniffing, she left the mouse alone and it scurried off unharmed. Other things she loves is a good “play fight” especially if we involve one or her toys in the tussle. Then, of course, are the “special” treats of roast chicken breast and sausage.

One thing that seems common with dogs that have extreme fear responses is that they get so scared that they won’t even look at even the yummiest treat…when that happens, the best thing I can do for Dany is get her away from what scared her until she is calm then try again later.

Well, that’s the intro stuff I guess. Our current project is dealing with Dany’s fear of my CO2 replica of a Magnum Research Desert Eagle handgun. She is scared of just the sight of it and if a noise is made by it, that just makes things a bit worse….well, she is getting better. All last week, I made sure the pistol was within sight of her so if it’s just laying around, she’s OK with that but when I carry it, she treats it with suspicion…now, I’m getting her used to seeing me carry the pistol and occasionally just drawing back the hammer and easing it down again…actually dry firing it is a bit too much for her right now.

It’s imperative that I get Dany used to the sight and sound of air rifles and pistols as I use them quite often when I go camping. Eventually, I want to take Dany along on my rabbit hunting and even when I go after coyotes with my .357 air rifle…

It took some time for me to adjust after losing Lassie the beagle but the last week of July, I spent some time at the Northern Nevada Humane Society…the end result is that I brought Dany D. Dog home.

She is reported to be an Australian cattle dog and about 2 years old. What I had no clue of when I met her at the shelter was that she had some serious generalized fear issues. That particular thing manifested the third day I had her and I have been working on helping Dany deal with life in general ever since.

Here is a short video of how she was when I first got her…you’ll notice that she is two different dogs depending on whether she is on a leash or not…

You can find a facebook page dedicated to Dany’s progress at Dany D. Dog

There was someone attempting to either massive spam the blog or maybe gain administrator or “author” access. This person was registering hundreds of bogus “users” every day for a good long time…I won’t just let such tactics go on for long before I take some sort of action. The action I took was the simplest by just disabling new user registrations.

If you are a reader and want to be a user/subscriber so you can get updates or post comments, just send me an email with your name, requested user name, email address you want to use, and a URL to your web site if you have one…I’ll add you in unless I feel you might be a spammer.

Thank you all,

Al