My Rex shut down after getting collars tangled with our 3 month old chocolate. I forgot to take collars off. Puppy squealed and peed, we had them separated within 5 seconds. Rex was very worried and sniffed the pup all over and cleaned him well. Parents did not scold or yell at any of the dogs. Later that night we noticed Rex was not himself, we assumed he had an upset tummy cuz we had played in the woods all day and he tends to eat deer & bunny poop. Still down the next day, then worried about a blockage and took to vet. The more I thought about the timing and did a little reading and I think he shut down. Went from and activity level of 8 to a 1. Will not play with anyone or anything. Avoids the room where it happened. I can only get a bit of a tail wag. He is a hunting dog and had been sent to training, which we think did not go well. He has always been great with the family and when hunting. Would appreciate some advice. In 3 days he has not changed much. We are trying to do regular routine and lots of rewards. We do some alone time and some time with puppy. Thanks so much!
Hi and welcome from Hattie 9 years and our rescue boy Charlie 6 years. Sorry you are having a tough time with poor Rex. I had a similar incident a few years ago where my two became tangled in their collars and Hattie was nearly strangled. This changed their mood for a while afterwards, there was no playing or interaction so I put it down to the collar incident, however they did get back to normal and no negative association in the room it happened. Maybe a little time will help. Perhaps you could reward Rex with high value treats when he goes near the room taking it very calmly, maybe a favourite toy and gradually he may go back in. I hope the puppy is OK and that they both get back to normal very soon. Why do you think the residential training didn't go well? x
I hope a little time is all we need. Worried about making it worse. we also have a 15 year old chocolate and 2 cats. A busy household! In our 25 years of marriage we have had a few hunting dogs and all went to training and were fine. Rex's personality is a bit different than the other dogs. He is stubborn yet more sensitive. Since Rex doesn't like some men of a certain type I am guessing the trainer lost it with Rex.
From what I can gather, many of those residential training places use terribly harsh methods - away from the owner's view, "out of sight, out of mind" and all that. If that's the case, it's not surprising a sensitive dog will be broken from it. You may be on a long road to fixing the issues, if indeed they are fixable. I have a very sensitive girl who shuts down very quickly if put under any sort of stress, even through positive reinforcement training. If she was trained forcefully, she'd be an absolute wreck.
I agree with the above comments, having a sensitive working girl myself. I am also thinking there may be a case of "trigger stacking" going on. I see this a lot with my older boy who is a rescue and incredibly sensitive, he has had a rough life which has led to a degree of reactivity in certain circumstances. Trigger stacking is when they are exposed to a number of moderately stressful situations over a short period of time. They are able to just about cope with 1 or 2, then the third incident comes along and everything literally goes haywire! The straw that broke the camels back, literally. They just can't cope. This could be what happened with your puppy. Take it very with him, keep excitement of any kind to a low key, including playing, meaning stimulus of any kind. Hopefully he will sort things out in his mind, and with lots of gentle and positive associations with the puppy and the room, he should settle down, give him time and allow him to initiate any interactions with pup.
Our field trainer said some of those send away training places, not just field training, use "Stockholme Syndrome" for dog training. The dog is shut up, sees no one, gets no attention, except when taken out for training. Then, same as in the syndrome, they will do anything to please just for the social aspect. That's how they train dogs to rob banks. I make light but probably you understand how this would work and how it could break a sensitive dog. But you know too, weird coincidences can happen, and I wonder if a blood workup at you Vet's is worthwhile. He could have picked up or developed something. Something it only took a bit of stress to bring out in him and the symptoms you see could be medical.
15 YEARS OLD!!! That's incredible!! You are so blessed! No good advice from me but just HAD to comment on the age of your chocolate!
Thank you all for your comments. Thinking this thru is very helpful. The stacking that was mentioned makes sense. Adding puppy, went on vacation... Though we have a wonderful kennel! She has only a few dogs at a time, has a living room and play area and spends 8 hours a day with them. My babies come home exhausted! Usually the first few days after we get back I get to spend all day with them. This time it was beautiful and all the snow was melting which left more deer poop available, a fun part of living in the country. So there was a lot of 'leave it!' said to Rex the biggest deer poop eater there ever was. Then the collar incident. Yes we had a work up at the vet. At first I thought he had a blockage or an upset gut. All was good. Today is day 4 and there are baby steps. I get a little tail wag. He slept on the couch with me for 15 minutes. He follows the group of dogs and cats on our walks. And my hubby played fetch with the pheasant wing on a very down scale version. we are hopeful. His activity level went from an 8 to a one. Today it's a 2! So am I correct in assuming this will take a while and we are going to have to be careful to take him out of stressful situations forever. And he may not be the same? As long as he wants to interact with puppy it's good. Otherwise limit puppy. And lots of positive reinforcements.
And my hubby has changed his thinking on some of the dog training that he is using. You can't rely on recommendations only.
Time will tell. Those little steps are already progress, but it depends what triggered the shut down, which of course you can't know if it happened through the training. Just try to keep everything positive for Rex so he regains his confidence.
Yup, this. Good for your husband in rethinking his training methods. It is possible to train a hunting dog through positive reinforcement alone. None of that awful, awful force fetch that is so common over there. No shock collars. No lead jerks. No physical or emotional violence or intimidation. Just rewards-based training. Retrieving is in our dogs' blood, and is a natural pleasure for most of them. They just need guiding to doing it how we consider to be the "right way". No harsh methods are necessary. There's a great book called Clicker Gundog that explains force-free methods for training a hunting dog (whether that be a Labrador, spaniel or HPR). If he's interested, it's worth a read.
Today Rex came to me and put his paws on my lap on 'our' couch and eventually laid his head down and slept on me for about an hour. Yeah! On our walk he actually ran and did the but scoot that labs do when they go fast. And he played with Zeke the 3 month old puppy for a few minutes. Back to himself a little bit! Yeah! Scale of 10, I would say he went up to a 5 today. We are a little familiar with the clicker method. The 'bad' trainer used it. Thanks for the reminder. Spent all last night reading this forum. Very helpful and very supportive.
Rex doing well. Today I am giving a seven. A thought about a trigger... Our 15 year old Fudge is going deaf and the eyes aren't so good either. And she is slower so she ends up wandering off in her own world. We are going at a 3 different speeds with puppy Zeke and fast Rex and Old Fudge gets too far from us so I am talking louder to keep all close. Ok we may be yelling. And Rex doesn't like yelling. So how to change this? I put puppy on his long rope to keep him closer. Try to walk separately but time is an issue at times. Maybe try the vibrate collar on fudge to get her attention, but that won't help with direction. Found out a year ago that dogs as they go deaf can hear a sound but no longer can tell what direction it is coming from. Interesting. Fudge does good on the first part of walk so maybe drop her back at the truck and continue with the young ones. Any suggestions for a deaf dog?
Snow bunny.... Loves the dogs robes. Gonna have to make some for my babies. Or was there a website to buy them that I missed? Beautiful Babies you have!
I have a deaf partially sighted dog. I walk on a harness with a long line when I'm out with my younger dog as she needs to be watched and guided carefully. It's hard to attend to the young dog properly when I've got the old girl off lead so I do her a separate walk off lead so she have a truffle about. I don't shout her there's no point. They both have very different exercise needs now as she has a heart murmur too, so exercising them separately us now the best option
The other thing I did teach the deaf dog was to come to me whenever she saw me. She just got a treat for moving towards me, obviously I have to keep in her line if sight which is now diminishing
Thank you. Yes it's time to change some habits. I was in denial about her hearing I think. Is that your old baby in the pic? Mine has been grey since she was 7 or so.
We just can't imagine them being old, it's hard. It's is fun though learning to do things differently and she enjoys our time together. He face today when she saw me and came trotting over to get her treat was so happy. You can see her face brighten and relax its not just the treat she's pleased to see me. its taken us both a while to adjust shes a very fit old girl It's Rory my 3 year old in avatars he's just really shiny. If you ment me?
