Well, we took Simba to the kennel on the weekend, just for Saturday overnight, pick up on Sunday. The people that own this kennel are an older couple, kinda befuddled sometimes I think but basically really nice people. However, i have an issue every time we go in that when you drop the dog off, there are bags of dog food sitting on the ground, some open, some not. Basically I think they are either food that is donated by people or food that people have dropped off for their pets over their stay. This always causes a bit of a problem for the pooch. Plus the fact that they seem to want to take his leash off the before he gets into his spot. So, you can imagine the scenario. Added to this is Simba's collar sensitivity. Now this is something I have worked with him on and in the main he really is over it. However.....picture us arriving at the kennel. We are signing him in. I have him on lead. He's straining towards the bags of food, as he does so the lady is saying, "Oh you can take his leash off" , and reaches down and UNCLIPS lead before I even register what is happening. Simba immediately lunges towards the food (right beside the lady behind the counter) and sticks his head in to start to eat it. She reaches down and grabs collar to pull him away.... CHOMP. He grabs her arm. Not a bad bite or anything, just what he usually does which is to grab ahold of the arm/hand/whatever but still....I've finally got the lead back on and say "And that is why we keep the lead on" and apologizing, etc....I tell her he really hates to be grabbed by the collar. Next we head to the kennel area, he goes into his spot with no trouble, we leave. On Sunday when we pick him up the man is there and he lets Simba out from the outside area and he comes barrelling towards me, waggy, licky excitement to see me and of course before I can get charge of anything he's lunged towards the food and has his head in there eating it. Well I'm not going to grab his collar to drag him out of it so I pick up the bag of food and put it on the counter just as the guy gets back from the kennel area and I say "I'm just putting this up here so Simba doesn't eat it all" and he says, "Oh ya, you gotta watch him he bites. He bit Myrna" (his wife). I press for details as I'm not sure if this refers to the original incident or not but I get the feeling it doesn't, but he doesn't know any more. Anyhow I phoned there today to get the scoop and talked to her......apparently when she went back to the kennel where he was to put his food container in there and the water, etc he got out and of course raced back to the check in area and was merrily chomping away on the food so she GRABBED his collar to get him out and CHOMP. Much worse this time, she was quite bruised it sounds like but I don't think he drew blood. She did tell me she realized it was likely related to the first incident - I'm thinking to myself, "I did tell you not to grab his collar"...but still, when the dog has his head literally stuck into the bag and is wolfing down the food I guess you wonder what else to do. Which is why I picked up the bag itself. Sigh. There were a whole lot of things that went wrong here. I don't understand why they keep the blinkin' food on the GROUND to start with. And I feel bad I didn't explain the whole scenario about the collar sensitivity although I DID tell her he hated to have his collar grabbed after the first time, so really..... But it's discouraging. Simba has come such a long way. But I can't seem to get past this. It's difficult to think of how to train him out of it, I mean I suppose the only way would be to start with gently tugging him away from his dinner and dropping tasty treats at the same time? And then upping that? And then having other people do it? But I've tried hard to get him to relax around eating his food in terms of him not thinking that people approaching won't be trying to take his food away or interfere with him, so that he wouldn't react when people are around. So that seems a bit counter-intuitive. It's just hard to know what to do. :-\
Re: Discouraged Hang on a minute....let's write this a different way.... There is this dog, who comes to his new home and guards food, and is really reactive to being grabbed by his collar. The new owner works really hard with this, and has it under control with a mix of training and handling the dog in a sensitive way (ie not grabbing his collar when he is eating food is a super good idea). This dog goes to a kennel, and unfortunately the owners of the kennel are a bit nuts, and keep open bags of dog food on the floor - which is inviting any dog to stick his head in the food bags. Despite being warned that the dog hates being grabbed by his collar, the kennel lady grabs the dog by his collar while having his nose stuck in a bag of delicious food, and he clamps his mouth round her arm but does no real damage. Well, that's wonderful. That dog has come a long way, and in the most challenging situation, did pretty much ok. Be proud of Simba, and how far you've come with him.
Re: Discouraged Argh I wrote a great long reply and lost it - ipad playing up. Gist of my reply was that the kennel owners sound a bit bonkers and incompetent, to be honest, and I'd be looking for a new, safe place to leave Simba when you go away. I can completely understand how upsetting this was - but Julie is right, don't blame Simba or yourself; instead take a good hard look at the kennel owners. Last thing you need is a lawsuit on your hands because your dog bites someone, despite you warning them about his issues with his collar.
Re: Discouraged I agree with Karen, I think you should find a new kennel. Try and look at it objectively - these people mishandled your dog, causing him to injure one of themselves. They were told not to handle him that way, yet they then did it again. If they are willing to disregard your instructions with something as basic as not grabbing him by the collar how can you trust them with something a lot more serious? I think that comes off a bit harsh... And I know how upsetting it is to make progress on a behavioural issue, only to have a major set back such as this. Sometimes it leaves me in tears. Do you think you can trust them to follow your instructions the next time you leave Simba with them? Do you think Simba will remember this incident the next time he goes and begin to associate it as the place where bad things happen? If these people are experienced kennel owners and dog handlers they should know to respect the instructions given to them by the dogs owners, especially if it relates to a behavioural issue.
Re: Discouraged Open bags of food at the entrance to a dog facility? That is crazy. And kinda gross. Failure to learn from the first incident and keep the food out of reach of the dogs? That is hopeless. I agree that Simba actually did really well to only hold the woman's arm (albeit rather firmly). I mean, a whole bag of food! All to himself! And all he did was grab her hand. I actually don't think that there is a lot of mileage to be had in trying to get him used to being pulled away from his dinner. Honestly, that may make it worse. I think the solution lies in educating the kennel owners about how to behave towards Simba (not necessarily easier than training Simba!) or finding another minding facility where the people are dog savvy (again, maybe not so simple...). Don't feel discouraged about your progress with Simba, Lisa. You have excelled beyond description. None of us can proof our dogs against every act of human cluelessness... One thought - what about a harness instead of a collar when he goes to be minded? Is he more tolerant of harness grabbing? if he is, you could just ditch the collar entirely when he's not with you. He could just wear the harness (would not be a problem for a few days as long as the fit was good).
Re: Discouraged Anyone daft enough to leave open bags of dog food at floor level has demonstrated that they have no knowledge of dog behaviour and they should not be offering dog care services. Simba was chowing down and some idiot tried to drag him away and he reacted like a dog. I think he was quite restrained. Your work has paid off. It could have been so much worse.
Re: Discouraged Yeah, I know. The whole set up there is a bit ridiculous. But unfortunately I only have two choices of kennels. The other one was full (it's probably the better one all the way around) so didn't have much choice. I am going to look into kennels that are closer to the big city we usually are going to when we need to leave him - there will be lots of choices there. Then the challenge will become getting the pooch used to a longer car ride....right now he's only gone about 15 mins, and then he gets whiny. But that we can tackle, I think. Thanks for the support. It does help to have the forum to vent and moan on.... I tend to agree with you about the whole idea of getting Simba used to being pulled away from food. I don't really like that idea, and think it could cause more problems than it solves. He's not as bad with the harness. I'm pretty sure he would have turned and snapped in that same situation, but seeing as the hand wouldn't be right next to his face he wouldn't have made contact. There's no way he could have worn a harness for any length of time without chewing it off in the beginning, but I think now he would be okay. I think. Heh. So maybe that's an option. But this whole thing is a bit of an issue, in terms of impacting MY ability to get away for any length of time. About a month ago we were going to be gone for a day and our regular dog walkers could only come in the evening, so I wanted to arrange something for him for earlier. Only option I had was to get someone to come let him out in the garden for an hour or so and then let him back in, and then he would get a walk later. I'm not worried about him being in the garden, he would be fine. So although I would rather have him walked, it was better than having him cooped up in the house all day alone. But...I forgot about his aversion to going outside if it wasn't his idea. So the person came, but Simba didn't want to go outside, just ran up the stairs and started to chew on his Wubba toy (which he often does out of excitement when we come home). My friend thought, well, I'll just throw the toy outside and he will follow. But when he went to grab the toy Simba grabbed his hand. Last week we were gone and had our regular friend (who is actually our vet) come and walk him....Simba did his usual grab for garbage, ended up with an old drink cup. Walker went to get the cup and same result, a chomp on the hand. Arrgh. I HAD told vet's wife that if he tried to grab for garbage to just ignore, usually he drops it. Or alternatively to take some kibble with them and do a "leave it" which generally works, but if he ignored it to NOT try to take things out of his mouth....somehow the message didn't get passed along to her hubby. (they have a beagle which is notorious for eating garbage and he's had to operate on him twice for obstructions so his instinct is to take things away from the dog immediately) But it feels like I can't trust him anywhere when we go away, which makes it difficult to think about going away, if you know what I mean. Sigh.
Re: Discouraged If you are going away longer term, what about house sitters? From an agency? Some of them are actually extremely experienced and knowledgeable with animals... Often retired folks with an inclination to travel. Friends of mine (who are super dooper fussy about their dogs' training and treatment) use them with great success.
Re: Discouraged Well the problem being there is no options for that here. I wish. The eternal problem of being in a small town with none of those services available. So I'm stuck with either friends (of which there are not many who would do doggie stuff :) or the kennels....ho hum it's a bit tricky.
Re: Discouraged The practicalities do sound a bit limiting, it must be annoying. There are lots of positives though - you have various examples now of Simba facing the very situation that he finds very difficult, and he has done no damage. He hasn't hurt anyone. So it really sounds like this is just something that has to be managed in a bit of an uncompromising way. Maybe print out a simple list of key points about how to handle Simba, eg no grabbing collar, no taking things out of his mouth, and laminate it. Then, no-one touches your dog until you've talked them through the key points, and that's that. Which will make you feel that you are imposing more on people helping you out, but better that then they get alarmed by him grabbing at them, or unraveling some of your hard work.
Re: Discouraged [quote author=Lisa link=topic=10159.msg148908#msg148908 date=1426133160] Well the problem being there is no options for that here. I wish. The eternal problem of being in a small town with none of those services available. So I'm stuck with either friends (of which there are not many who would do doggie stuff :) or the kennels....ho hum it's a bit tricky. [/quote] I don't know how much you can afford, but I know an excellent dog/house sitter who will go anywhere in the UK (she's expensive)
Re: Discouraged I think Julie's idea of "House Rules” printed out and laminated and given to everybody is simple and brilliant. I have got something to add. There is a company called "Friedly Dog Collars" who sell collars and harnesses with various words woven through them. They offer one with "Caution" writ large on it. I bought a lead with "Training" written on it. People will say, "I won't interrupt. I can see you are training" so they obviously do take notice. They are available through Amazon and are not expensive.
Re: Discouraged Oh Lisa I'm so sorry you have this worry when you've made such great strides with Simba. I sometimes think people don't really listen when you ask them not to do things.....they just have a filter that says "look at him, he'd never do that" I like the rules card idea and a collar with Caution in big letters as a visual prompt if they go to make a grab. Would a limited slip lead help in that you can drop a loop round Simbas head without touching him or his collar then he could be led away from whatever it is?
Re: Discouraged Some people will always think they know best and dive in, it's so annoying as you have worked your socks off with Simba. Great advise about the collar and house rules. I would also ask that you could fix a sign on Simba's kennel reminding the kennel owners/workers not to grab Simba by the collar. Would the trainer at the clicker class you went to know of anyone that does dog sitting? Also maybe finding a kennel near wherever you travel might be an option and one that fully understands and listens to you about Simba? xxx
Re: Discouraged Really sorry Lisa, this has obviously really upset you, but it was their faults for not listening and being daft enough to leave food where dogs can get at it so easily . I hope you can find a solution , the rules list is a really good idea x
Re: Discouraged Thanks all for the suggestions. I like the list of "rules" and although I had the idea of a "caution" collar I can see where it might be useful. Will think further about this and have a plan for the next time...probably Easter, so I've got a little time to figure something out. Hopefully.
Re: Discouraged Hi Lisa,I hope everything you have read of the replies has lifted you,you are so responsible with Simba and have done a great job with him.all the incidents come down to folk not listening to instructions.....it's so hard to get last that,I can't tell you how many people have ignored me when they've asked if they can stroke Dexter and as the words are coming out of my mouth to say can you wait until he is sitting down ,they are doing it!!!I think the Caution alert on the collar is a great idea,sometimes people do just forget.... Open bags of food on the floor too?Dexter is asking when can he go! X
Re: Discouraged [quote author=Dexter link=topic=10159.msg149325#msg149325 date=1426312457] Hi Lisa,I hope everything you have read of the replies has lifted you,you are so responsible with Simba and have done a great job with him.all the incidents come down to folk not listening to instructions.....it's so hard to get last that,I can't tell you how many people have ignored me when they've asked if they can stroke Dexter and as the words are coming out of my mouth to say can you wait until he is sitting down ,they are doing it!!!I think the Caution alert on the collar is a great idea,sometimes people do just forget.... Open bags of food on the floor too?Dexter is asking when can he go! X [/quote] Thanks Angela. Yes, I think Simba thinks this is the BEST place ever!! ;D ;D Three times he had his head in the bag, chowing down! Come to think of it, I suppose I should feel flattered that he even stopped to give me a nice greeting before heading over to the gravy train... :
