Hey Woofa’s,

Training your dog at any age takes Time, Patience and Persistence!!

And YES you can train any dog at any age! The  saying, ‘You Can’t Teach An Old Dog New Tricks’ is a myth.

We’ve been working on desensitisation training with Billy for when he’s outside (in the real world) going for walks.

Today, we had a training set back that I want to share with you, because it’s real and it happens.

BILLY’S DESENSITISATION TRAINING!

Step 1 – Putting Billy’s walk lead on 30mins before we actually go for a walk.  Allowing him to walk around the house and us not making a big deal that he’s got it on.

This is to desensitise him from his normal reaction of standing at the door and whining and scratching at the door to go out!

Step 2 – Once Billy’s lead is on, we’ve waited for roughly 30mins and he is calm, we all then sit on the front veranda.

Sometimes this is where his anxiety can start.  He jumps around, tug-o-wars on the lead and does Staffy whining, he shows real agitation.

So we again sit and wait.  We ignore his behaviour and if he doesn’t settle down, we put him back inside and we stay on the veranda.  He usually sits at the screen door, whines for a bit and then finally settles down.

Sometimes this can take anywhere from 5-15mins.

Step 3 – Once Billy calms down inside, we bring him back on the veranda with us and if he’s still calm we start our walk.

If he carries on again we go back to step 2.

Step 4 – When Billy is calm we start our walk.  This doesn’t imply our whole walk will be calm JUST YET, but he starts out calm.

We’ve been trying to work out what his triggers are, lots of cars at school pick up, barking dogs behind fences, school kids screaming while they play and these are only the noises I can hear.  Dog’s can hear far better than we can.

Some days he appears not bothered by anything once walking, and other’s he’s super sensitive.   For instance, while walking we can pass at least 5-6 dogs and he won’t react to any of them even if they want to come over for a sniff.   And other days, he Staffy whines and leaps towards them!!!

Step 5 – We recognise that somedays are going to go well and other days they may not.  Sometimes we can start out fine but during the walk he’ll have triggers.  This causes him to do the leaping and biting the lead etc

We stop walking, tell him no and ignore his behaviour.  This does work sometimes, he’ll realise we’re not responding and he’ll stop and we keep walking.  Other times he just doesn’t settle, so we crouch down by him, put a hand on his back (not patting) to support him and we wait for him to calm down.  His panting does increase in these instances so we calm him with touch.

We don’t pat him because we don’t want to reward the behaviour, however we do want to calm and support him at the same time.

If he calms down quickly and the trigger is gone we keep walking, if not we head home.

Step 6 – If nothing works at all before we even leave the house we just don’t go.  There’s no point in overwhelming him when he’s already worked up and won’t calm down.

We do try distracting him with his favourite toy, treats, clickers, squeaky toys, meat, food to no avail, the triggers seem to far outweigh his attention.  All these distractions work well in the backyard and in our house, but in the real world so far no good.

That doesn’t mean we’ve given up on trying to figure out what else to use.

TODAY’S SET BACK!

Today we did steps 1-4 and we were walking really well!  Billy eagerly peed on trees along the way and he seemed busy sniffing and walking.  I thought we’d finally had a break through!!

Until we spotted our next door neighbours walking their dog.

Side Note – Billy and this dog play up and down the fence, they play bark and run up and down like crazy for ages.  This dog is the same age as Billy, is a working dog breed.   She also suffers her own anxieties and is very scared and submissive.

As soon as he spotted her he went into over drive, it was anxiety AND excitement!  I tried to divert us down a side street but Billy was jumping around so much he managed to get out of his collar and lead!!!!

He ran straight across the road straight to the other dog.  Billy leaped at her (he’s a rough player), the dad picked her up knowing how scared she is, but Billy was play nipping, leaping and trying to sniff her bum.  All the while his Staffy half bark/half squeal was making it sound a lot worse.

This was lucky to last 50seconds (it felt like 30mins), Dean ran to get Billy and picked him up as he was kicked away (understandably so) by the other dog’s human dad.

I told Dean to keep going and I stayed with Ellie.  She was very clearly shaken, no bites at all, no blood at all, just clearly shaken up.

I felt terrible, so terrible.   The neighbours kept reassuring me it was just an accident and she was fine. She shakes like that at thunderstorms etc.  I said it wasn’t right that My Dog had caused this.

They kept on home and I went to find Dean and Billy.

Billy was walking like nothing had happened!!!  I discussed with Dean how this was clearly on us!

Yes it was an accident and no he’d never gotten out of his collar or lead before but we had no recall he didn’t listen to us at all!!!

We’ve walked passed many many dog’s before and he’s never reacted that eagerly.  Was it because they play through the fence, maybe?

WHAT CAN WE LEARN FROM THIS?

• It’s a definite set back;
• we definitely need to keep up with his desensitisation training;
• his recall needs definite work;
• we need to find something strong enough to distract him from his triggers;
• the neighbour’s dog is definitely a huge trigger;
• we are getting him a stronger harness, he’s escaped a harness before just out the front when he was a puppy but it wasn’t a strong one and I never used it again;
• I feel this incident is my fault, he spotted them before we did and while we did try to divert him he got away from us;
• Is Billy a vicious dog?  NO not at all, if he was there would’ve been dire consequences.  Does he need more training – most definitely?  Billy does have a scratch and small lump under his right eye, I’ve no idea how or at what stage it happened!

WHAT DOES THIS MEAN?

Any kind of training with your dog takes Time, Patience and Persistence.

No matter how well your training is going – there’s always potential for set backs.  Don’t give up, learn from the set backs and keep going.

Dog’s don’t plan to do things, they’re reactive creatures.  They react to their environment.

Maybe it was the excitement and overwhelm that caused Billy’s over the top reaction, I wish I could ask him!

All I know is, as Billy lays his head on my lap under the blankets while I write this, I let him down today!!

If I get real with myself and about my Dog Ownership I need to step up!

I’d love to hear if you’ve had any training successes with anxiety on walks, with your fur kids.  Or if you’d just like to share your training set backs and successes!

Drop us a line in the comments below, we’d love to hear from you.

Cheers