Having just read @Beanwood's post on decompression walks I thought I would start a new thread to pick some brains and would really value any thoughts. Mabel always seems grumpy at the start of one particular walk we do and although it happens to be one of my favourite walks I'm thinking of giving it up. The walk is in beautiful open countryside, as are many of her walks, we see a few people but not many which is often the norm. She has a combination of very quiet secluded walks and busier social walks taking in a cafe or pub along the way giving her as many continuing experiences as possible and allowing me to continue with my program of counterconditioning and de sensitisation as she can be a little nervous. None of these other walks produce any particular grumpiness. By grumpiness I mean she will randomly bark, have a cross face, show calming signals etc. She is one of those dogs that has lots of facial expressions. I did wonder if her behaviour was caused by stress, she can be hyper vigilant to the environment and just does not seem to relax at all during the majority of the walk. I have a theory about this particular walk. I used to do part of this walk daily with Mabel last year while she was recovering from her surgery. The reasons being that it is such a beautiful walk with very good visibility. I can actually see almost all of the whole walk ahead of me helping me prepare for any scenarios involving dogs, people, wildlife plus the fact during week days it isn't well walked, so all in all perfect for a dog recovering from surgery. There are lots of nice sniffs for her too. She has never been attacked by other dogs on the walk and we have never come across anything unpleasant that I can remember. I can only imagine how painful having a bone broken, plated, pinned and fitted plus severe arthritis must feel like, so my thoughts are: a year later does she associate this walk with pain! I know I'm biased but Mabel is a very bright clever little dog, I have a fabulous hydrotherapist that Mabel goes to and she says Mabel is a great thinker, which unfortunately sometimes does her no favours as she will over think things. For example the other day I parked in a different parking space and Alison greeted us at the door from a different angle, Mabel stood and stared and wouldn't move until Alison had gone into the building and then she happily trotted into the hydrotherapy suite. Over thinking things is not really a concept I had ever thought of in relationship to a dogs thought process, is it a viable concept I ask myself? I also wonder if perhaps it is not a case of over thinking but a case of learned behaviour. Has she learned not to like a particular walk because of previous experience, has she has learned to not like Alison standing in a certain position? Does she associate it with a previous visit when she was in a lot of discomfort. One thing I do know is my dog and ED has taken me down a very different path than I ever envisaged.
I think you are absolutely right - the walk is associated with pain. What a bummer - sounds like a really lovely walk.
I wonder if you could counter-condition Mabel by feeding extra-special treats at intervals on this walk?
That's a good idea. What about doing Ping-Pong recall? Cassie remembers and hopefully looks at me at every place we've ever done that, she loves it so much
@Joy yes that's one of the things we are doing, she won't take the treat in the beginning, which is definitely stress related, @selina27 ping-pong recall that's a firm favourite too.
It does sound as if Mabel associates the walk with pain so if you want to do the walk you will need a programme of desensitisation. Perhaps only walk a 10m or so at first turn round and walk to car and go home making lots of frequent short trips with high value treats for walking nicely and some recall. Build up slowly and she will re-learn that the walk is fun and lose the association with pain. On the behaviour arriving at the physiotherapist it sounds more like a change to the normal routine which unsettled Mabel. You parked in a different spot and Alison was standing in a different position 2 changes from the norm . Just try parking in different spots when you arrive to introduce the variability to Mabel while reinforcing that everything is OK
Well...I dunno. Charlie - who has been through cruciate operations, and endless associated procedures including coping with knock on ED - has no such reactions to anything. Leaving aside his ball/dummy obsession, he is the world's least reactive dog. Betsy - who has experienced nothing but good health, has had no painful experiences, is much more wary of the world. She is much more likely than Charlie to take exception to a familiar person appearing in a different context (for example). So based on my two, I'd say these kind of things are much more about the underlying temperament of the dog than associations, although that's always possible of course.
