This is a long post..... We've moved house and I am now struggling to work out a routine with Jess. Our house here fronts onto a busy road with narrow pavements. There is a wood and riverside walk across the road, and a park a couple of streets away. In principle, those would be our quick toilet walks, but Jess is balking at all of them. Basically she just will not walk in any direction if I try taking her out on the lead - within a few metres, 100m at most, she will dig her heels in and refuse to go on. I think she is frightened of the traffic on the road, and of the dark in the wood - she definitely prefers open spaces in general. When she digs her heels in sometimes it's possible to get her to move a bit further with treats and encouragement, but usually not. The only time she will walk from the house is if my husband and I are together, and she will trot along between us so presumably she feels safer then - though still needs lots of treats to keep moving. So I've been driving her to parks to walk instead. Tonight the park we went to had football teams training and a couple of balls came past quite near us. Jess just freaked out - she was still on the lead but she pulled hard to get back to the car. This is quite common with her - if she gets spooked by something she will dash for home. She just gets really stressed out - her tail is down, she is panicked and she wants to get home. But it seems to be happening in more and more situations. Part of the problem I think is that she has had so much upheaval in terms of different houses/different people around (as in @SteffiS thread from a few days ago). Part of the problem is that she is generally quite an anxious dog. But I really hate to see her anxious and stressed, and I feel like we worked a lot of this in our last house to build a routine of places that she liked and felt confident in, and it's depressing to see how fragile that confidence was and to have to start all over again. So my first question I guess is if anyone can suggest how to build her confidence and encourage her to keep walking while on lead (or to build confidence generally) My second question is a bit less obvious, which is that we've been wondering if a second dog would help. Jess's confidence definitely, absolutely increases when she is near another dog. It's really apparent and seems to work for her tolerance of noises, busy places, generally stressful encounters. It's noticeable enough that other people - even strangers! - have commented on it and suggested that we get another dog. In principle we'd like a second dog anyway, though we were thinking more in a year or two, and we obviously want a dog for its own sake and not only as a security blanket for Jess.... I just wondered what people here think of this as an idea and whether you have had an anxious dog that is reassured by other dogs. Or am I idealising the potential for another dog to solve her anxiety/confidence issues? (Interestingly, my dad has Jess's mother (Daisy) but she lives together with 6 other dogs and is always worked together with other dogs. Earlier this year he took Daisy out to a shoot as his only dog, as an intended "treat" for her. He found that without the other dogs, she was really nervous - shaking and trembling and not able to work at all. It was the first time he'd ever taken her out on her own and he was really surprised to find that she was so dependent on other dogs for her confidence. That's made me wonder if maybe Jess has a similar tendency?) Sorry, very long post....
oh, also, I should add that though Jess and I have only just moved to this house permanently, it's not a new house - she's spent quite a lot of time here since she was a puppy. So it's not simply a case of a new house and needing time to settle in, though I'm sure that's got something to do with it.
I have an anxious dog, as you know and, no, she's not a bit better when the others are around. That doesn't mean that Jess won't be, though. Here's a thought - can you borrow one of your dad's other dogs for a week to see how she does? In any event, you need to address Jess's anxiety, rather than using the band-aid of another dog, because reliance on another dog is not a good thing - what if that dog can't go out because of injury, illness, or if they die first (sorry to be depressing, but you have to think of these things!). For me, I don't think routine is necessarily a good thing for anxious dogs - again, as you've found, it's a bit of a band-aid that, once removed, reveals the problems. And no-one can guarantee a lifetime of routine. Expanding on my post on flexibility, the concept goes beyond simply playing with things in the environment differently. It's about trying to not have a routine. Your dog learns that anything can happen. Sometimes the collar goes on and you make a cup of coffee. Sometimes you get the dog "dressed", go out the door, do five minutes of training and go back in. Ditch the idea of "going for a walk", and spend your time doing other things instead. Fun training games can be just as energetic, especially for a busy little spanner! Cross the road, turn left and do some leg weaving. Turn 180 degrees, walk twenty paces at heel, stop and do some middle. Turn again, walking leg weave. Turn again, jumping into your arms. Or whatever. It doesn't matter. Just fun games, you're not trying to get anywhere. But, once you've associated that bit of path that may be only 20m long, right in front of your house, with fun games, you can start to extend it. Walk another ten paces and have her put her feet on a tree. Take a target post and use that. Use your imagination, get out of the mental shackles that bind you to "going on a walk", and just play
thanks @snowbunny, that's a really helpful reply. I'd love to try this but they live in Scotland.... You are absolutely right with this of course. Well put. I'll try to work on the training games idea to focus her onto me rather than worrying about her environment. It's a good strategy and I can see how it would help to keep her upbeat and happy rather than alert and anxious. Though if any forum members have a magic confidence-building dog that they don't need any more, we'd be happy to borrow it
I don't have any advice to add, but just to say, poor little Jess feeling so upset, she was so good on your holiday though, I'm sure you can help her through it I think all the keep -the-focus on us games really do help, I've noticed a real difference in Cassie since I've kept up the consistency. We don't have to go far on a walk for her to be satisfied. Although of course she is a sofa-loving Labrador not a busy busy spaniel!
Thanks. She is so good, and she really does have a lot to adapt to. It's just depressing because I used to love our walks and now they are becoming a bit of a headache. She won't poo in the garden or on pavement and if she doesn't poo then she barks and won't settle, and not having a walk routine is making our day a bit fractious (I don't mean 'routine' in the sense of same time/same place, but just a place where she will poo: which for Jess is no easy matter!) I tried taking her for a morning walk/poo just now, and tried to be upbeat and play happy games with her - bits of cheese, asking for heel, weave through my legs, paws up. I obviously over-did it on the Blue Peter presenter approach, and she was clearly wondering what was going on. Then I stood on a twig and it cracked near her - she looked at me in horror and then for home, and almost pulled right into the road. So that wasn't very successful. I think trying to play the games when she was already stressed just made her more stressed. I need to find a different approach to it somehow.
Being "Blue Peter presenter" can be quite stressful to dogs that aren't used to it, for sure. If she's not reacting well to that, don't put pressure on her to perform, just be calm and collected about it. Giving her a "job", albeit in game form, can engage her mind. Keep it really easy for now if she's stressed, and keep arousal down. Have you seen The Rucksack Walk? Might be worth a go: https://dogidogblog.wordpress.com/2016/06/20/the-rucksack-walk/
I like this idea! Will definitely try it, and I like the idea of building mindfulness with our dogs. So much training advice is about being upbeat etc, and I don't think that really works for Jess/me - though I have seen her respond amazingly to it from others (my dad for one) so I think it's my delivery that's the problem! The rucksack walk does seem to depend on being in a calm and stress-free space to begin with, and our problem is getting to those spaces - when we're in a nice open field, there's no problem. It's just not currently possible to get her to one of those for every toilet break. So I need to make the stressful spaces a bit less stressful to her, or get her to poo in the garden.... Though the garden is also quite stressful for her at the moment as the house next door has been sold and the very overgrown garden is being cut down - lots of chainsaws and machinery noises going on. Not ideal for a noise sensitive dog.
I'm sure the day will come when you look back on this time as a distant memory, not meaning to offer platitudes but you know the forum saying - this too will pass! It does sound as if she has a lot on her plate, and I get what you mean about maybe being too upbeat adds to the issue. It's all quite a difficult balance with our dear dogs! Just a thought -- she was in season recently wasn't she, could she be having a phantom preg as well. I know I probably seem obsessed after Cassie's experience. I do think these hormones play a massive part in their lives though.
Poor Jess - I'm sorry she's having such a hard time. It's so difficult to watch when they are scared and we can't reassure them. We had a similar problem when we moved somewhere between two rivers, and you can't get anywhere without walking over a bridge, which Lucky was terrified of. To begin with I carried all 20kg of him over the bridges! At that time he was scared of going into buildings, and after moving house he became terrified of open doorways - and would refuse to walk past them or would dart into the road to avoid them. He was confident in our apartment, but in the corridor he'd cower and get low to the floor. After a few months, he settled down about doorways, and got more confident with bridges. We didn't do anything specific, other than using rewards if he took a step forward, and making sure not to lure or bribe him, just marking and rewarding for making the choice himself. I can't give any advice, other than to say that for us it did get better with time!
Thanks - it's really helpful to hear that. I hope that Jess will just get better too. We'll just keep trying to be reassuring and build her confidence. Part of me is starting to wonder if this is another step in her training of us, as we are now driving her to lovely walks instead. If so, she hit the jackpot today: forest walk in the morning followed by a run on the beach for lunch.... If only every day was Saturday
