hello all, Our gorgeous girl (tatti) is now about 17 months old and us recently started acting up or differently. This is something both we and her walker have noticed. Some examples of changes: -she has started shaking (tail down, trying to run away type shaking) when we take her to our local woods when we are in the car park. Only in this car park and once she is Out of the car park she is fine again. She has never had a bad experience there but clearly there is something she doesn't like about that particular car park (started about 4 weeks ago). -she has started to sleep out on the landing rather than next to our bed. Her bed is under the window but this wasn't a problem last winter. She comes back in to her bed at around 2am. -she is definitely barking more than she used to, particularly at old people or anyone who says 'hello' in a particularly cheerful way :-/ -she seems to get spooked by things quite easily at the moment, e.g. she won't walk past the new dishwasher without encouragement and where she used to chase the vacuum round the house she now runs away. Is this an age thing? Incidentally, I am 6 months pregnant (first child), not sure if this might be a factor in the behaviour change??? Has anyone else experienced similar behaviour changes? Lou
Hi Lou, many congratulations on being pregnant, how exciting Maybe this could have something to do with Tatti's behaviour. Something must have spooked her in the car park even if you didn't notice. Could you play a little game of tug to get her through the car park or a little heel work with some good treats? As far as the barking at some people you need to do some more socialisation around different people, old, young, children, people with walking sticks, glasses etc. As always take good treats and lots of praise. Could you feed her some tasty treats infront of the dishwasher without it being on? Keep an upbeat tone to your voice or have a little game with her might help. I think a few owners have experienced this kind of behaviour around this age. I haven't experienced it myself but I'm sure someone will be along with some more suggestions. Take care of yourself. xx
Thanks Charlie, Been doing a lot of treating near the dishwasher and she will walk past it now (although it's usually more of a run) - will continue work on this to work up to when it's on. Same with the car park- I love your idea of tug although she won't eat treats, she just wants to run away. I can't imagine what happened I think you are right re socialisation too, we've just signed up to an urban adventure class with our trainer that should help a bit. It's just weird that she's started to get spooked at so much recently. She is still her gorgeous, loving, bouncy self- just with a few issues now. I wonder if it's because we haven't done much training over the last two or three months- maybe she's a bit bored :-/
