Below an email I have just sent to our Gun Dog trainer in the hope of some help! Obviously a Springer Spaniel and not a lab, but hoping someone might be able to help me. I'm at my wits end unfortunately. And apologies, the email doesn't read very well and is a bit "scatter-gun" - I was trying to get all the info down quickly for the trainer prior to a telephone call this evening... Monty is now approaching 16 months. He is intact. Extremely affectionate and very sensitive too. We moved house at the end of November. Monty was/is really happy. He has a big garden to race around and fields all round the house. I work from home so I am with him 99% of the time. At Christmas time we decided to remove his crate and swap it with a dog bed. He seemed fine. (after speaking to Gary on Sunday I have reinstated it however and he does seem a lot happier) Since moving, we have done very little in the way of structured training. I have been doing a lot around the house and garden and he is getting a bit neglected. He does still get two to four walks a day. Out in the fields he is great. His stop whistle is good, we do hunting, retrieves and blinds. I've even finally got his deliveries sorted! The problems are at home - in the house and garden. He seems extremely nervous and on edge, particularly with me, but also Sharon to a lesser extent. If he is sleeping indoors and I walk past, I see his eyes open and he is watching. If I approach him he will cower and get up and move. It's as if he thinks I'm going to do something bad to him. He may even growl. Where he used to see the slip lead as a wonderful thing and would spin round and get excited about going out, now he stops motionless, cowers or runs away and hides. He does not want to go out on the lead. I have to trick him into the porch to then trap him and put the lead on (I need to do lead walks for two weeks as he has really hurt his leg unfortunately). Inside, if I say "come here" where he would normally come and sit perfectly (and still does outside of the garden) he will just stop and stare at me. If I approach him, again he will cower and run/hide. If I get frustrated (it can go on for an hour) and grab him, he will growl (I know that's the wrong thing to do but I do lose my rag). There have been days where it's been peeing down with rain and I've just had to leave him out there. He would still not come in. When he's inside, he's fine with the exception of the nervous watching if he's sleeping. Outside, its a similar thing. He will not come back into the house with the normal "come here" command. He will sit under a bush. If I approach, he will cower and reverse deeper into it. Again, he's looking fearful as if I'm going to hurt him or do something bad. I have never hurt him, hit him or done anything bad that I can think of. The worst thing I can think of is his Opi-etic ear drops which he used to tolerate but now hates. I do wonder if that was the start of it. A few weeks ago he did start to become possessive over food. He would eat extremely quickly and his heckles would go up if anyone approached (us or the cats) and he would growl. He snapped at me once. We did a long process of feeding him slowly to desensitise him and it worked. The other day he was sleeping (admittedly on the sofa, but that is now stopped!) and Sharon was stroking him. He was watching out of the corner of his eye nervously but she kept going on. She stroked his face and he completely lost it. He jumped up snarling and because I reacted protectively and jumped up he fronted up to me (standing on the sofa) and was staring at me. Luckily Sharon reminded me to defuse it by backing down and he quickly snapped out of it. He knew he'd done wrong, but Sharon was understandably very shaken up. Initially, when he was doing the food possessiveness I was dominant with him but then read that that just escalates the problem and reinforces that there was a reason for him to be defensive. When we did the softly softly approach, we resolved the issue. Out in the garden, I also tried being very assertive. I've shouted, bagged him and got the collar round him and dragged him out of the bush. Looking back that all probably made it worse. But where we are now is being assertive makes things worse. Being soft isn't getting anywhere. He has learned that he can just ignore me and get away with it. So basically, out in the field fine. At home, totally misbehaving and nervous. Any ideas or suggestions?
Hi James, really sorry to hear that life with Monty is very difficult at the moment. I think I would be contacting a good behaviourist to try and find the triggers for the behaviours and from there try to work on improving/eradicating those triggers so you and Monty can live happily together. From everything you write it sounds as if Monty is an unhappy dog, who isn't relaxed in yours or your wife's company. Trying to dominate him will only reinforce his reactions by giving him a reason to believe that he needs to be careful/on guard/watchful round you. A dog has no understanding of right or wrong, they respond to something good or bad. A dog staring is a normal response to a situation which causes stress or fear and can be a precursor to growling or even biting. It relates to the fight or flight responses, or in full fight, flight, freeze or flirt, and therefore Monty is responding in the way his body, and all his experience is telling him is the best option. A good place to start is an appointment with the vet to rule out any physical or health causes for his behaviour, and a good behaviourist would want those ruled out. Your vet may also be able to recommend a good behaviourist. I wish I could offer more help and advice but from what you are writing it would seem that the problems aren't a quick training fix.
Thanks. We've been at the vets fairly recently for a general checkup and very recently for his sore leg. I had thought initially that his poorly leg was causing him pain which was being translated as this weird behaviour. But I think that's clutching at straws. Most of the time he is really happy, loving and affectionate. His tail wags at warp speed and he'll come and sit with me all the time. It's just certain situations where he seems to think I'm going to do something bad for some reason. I can't quite figure out what/why which I guess is the first step to resolving?
Most definitely, and sometimes it's so hard to see the root cause yourself, particularly when he's a happy boy the rest of the time. A behaviourist would watch both you and Monty to try and capture the triggers, but they often want quite a lot of detail. Could you perhaps sit down and write everything you can remember of some of the situations? A sort of who, what, why, when down to perhaps anything you were holding in your hand, how you were standing. Quite often problems arise through a combination of events happening which the dog found scary particularly if there were any loud noises included in the mix.
@JAYMZ, is the gundog trainer you go to a traditional trainer? I know you say that you have never hurt Monty, and I know how much you love him, but I'd really say that some of that behaviour I've noticed in dogs who have not coped with traditional gundog programme - I've seen three now where their owners have had similar issues. If the trainers that you are training with are traditional, you really might think about swapping to a positive only reinforcement trainer. I really think you need to spend a lot of time with a positive reinforcement trainer, I really do.
I can only agree with the comments above. The other thing you could think about is leaving his collar on with a light line attached to it. This would give you an opportunity to gently take control if needs be. Please though don't use it to force him into things. A good positive trainer or a good behaviourist will talk about how important choice is particularly for a dog feeling stressed or under pressure. He needs to feel safe, in some ways it doesn't matter what caused it because he sounds like he's giving pretty clear signals. Perhaps don't use a slip lead or buy a very different one to remove negative associations. Ask him to walk to heel off lead, make the loop really big and drop it over his head as you walk.... Really though these are just vague ideas and you could really use some good, professional help who can see your interactions. Anything that involves force would be a massive mistake in my amateur opinion though. There's a great Nando Brown video of him 'capturing' a dog that's been known to bite. The dog has choices at every step and lots of patience, rewards and the removal of pressure are used. It's worth looking for to give you some food for thought. If I find it I'll post it or a link for you. Best of luck!
So behaviourist consulted and we have the early signs of Resource Guarding, which it turns out is very, very common in Spaniels. As suggested above this has been brought on as a result of the move and all the change causing him to become insecure. Thankfully, the solution is fairly simple albeit a slow process - but then most training is. We just need to slowly desensitise him to the things he is "guarding"mans help him learn that we are not a threat to those things. In fact, when we're around, wonderful things happen! (I've been telling my wife that for years but she's never believed me!) Poor little Moonpie! Edit, oh and the not coming in thing is because we HAVE done nasty things to him - trapping him and cleaning his ears. We were putting too much pressure on him trying to get him to come in and where I was getting cross, it was stressing him out. We have to completely step back and let him make his own decisions. And again, whenever we are around, wonderful things happen so his decisions will be to come and be with us instead of being told to come. I will let the vet do ear cleaning for a while so that eliminates that cause of stress. In fact, in only five days this specific problem has all but disappeared already.
Good news that a behaviourist has confirmed the causes of the problem and you now have a positive plan of action. Slowly, slowly does it and fingers crossed That you soon have your Monty back
That sounds great. So glad he's getting to make choices and you're just loading the bases so he chooses in your favour
Lovely to hear you have a plan of action and things are already improving. Having them choose is so important, I think. I see this so much with Willow, who is a very sensitive dog (certainly compared to Shadow, who is just a bruiser). When she's getting stressed, allowing her to make the correct choices makes so much more difference than trying to force or cajole her into something. Good luck with your boy, and please keep in touch. We'd love to see some pictures of him, too
Well in just this short timeframe, he is soooooo different already! He is so much happier. In fact it only took a day or so. I can just see that even his facial expression is much more relaxed. He is no longer looking like he's trying to figure me out and thinking "what's the catch?"!! It's still baby steps. I've had to go right back to basics with sit (I'd made him sit before I got him to do his ears), "come here" (again, to do his ears), recall whistle etc - but he's so smart that he's getting it back really quickly. I suppose the high intelligence is what cause it in the first place: he quickly learned that I was doing horrid things. Hopefully he'll unlearn it just as fast! He's enjoying the baby training again anyway with lots of treats!! And now when I pick up the lead I get a "yippee" skip-and-spin from him whereas before it was tail between the legs and run and hide! Onwards and upwards
So, so pleased to hear that your relationship with Monty has improved so much and that you are having fun together. Slowly, slowly does it, and there is absolutely nothing wrong in going back to basics and re-building.
