Hi guys, So we have had Daisy from a pup and she is now 5. She has always been nervous in the house and the complete opposite when we are on walks. She is bothered by things like washing baskets and bags etc but the most reactive trait is to do with my wife. If my wife sniffs,coughs or sneezes she will hide behind me or my daughter. This only happens with my wife, she has never hurt or been nasty to Daisy and loves her. Daisy will quite often rather be outside, even lying out in the rain until we call her in. Recently she had started to mess at night, not every night but quite often. The other day she managed to get upstairs and weed on our bed. She has 2 walks a day but I can't help thinking she could do with being occupied more like a working dog. Any advice to deal with the anxiety would be appreciated as I don't want Daisy to be unhappy. Thanks.
Hi @Wab, since some of what you describe is a recent phenomenon I would get your dog checked by a vet. If no medical issue, then I would get the services of a dog behaviourist, who can come to your house and observe all the interactions within and outside the home.
This is very strange, especially as her high level of anxiety is related to inside the house only. One of the issues I can see, is that this problem as been evolving subtlety over a period of time, and fairly typically has gotten worse. An example would be, nervous of the washing machine, now nervous of the sound of the washing machine door opening...there can be a predictive pattern involved, and gradually over a period of time symptoms of anxiety become more severe. As has been suggested, the vet would be the first port of call. They may prescribe medications to help reduce anxiety, to work alongside a clinical behaviourist.
Hi, when you say medication what meds are available for this sort of issue? The reaction to my wife sneezing etc has always been there but worse in the last 12 months. It's odd because she is very loving to my wife at times.
Some dogs can be quite sensitive, which means respond to fearful stimuli, quite easily. Especially working-bred labs... Fear generalises easily. Where you might spend ages teaching a dog that sit, down and heel in the field is the same thing as sit, down and heel in the house (ie - most 'normal' training generalises poorly and takes a lot of work on our part to generalise), fear spreads like wildfire - because it is adaptive for animals to be fearful of things they experienced as aversive. Anyway, there are some relatively simple things you can try: 1. An Adaptil diffuser, running in the main room Daisy is in. 2. A course of Zylkene - extended if you find it helps. 3. A Thundershirt. 4. Getting your wife to do some reinforcement-based training with her. If you run out of ideas for what or how to train, Jean Donaldson has this great YouTube video showing you loads of stuff: If you want to do some training with your wife away from the house, look at The Gundog Club's courses - you could do Grade 1 or 2 with her. Gundog Club Instructors are all force-free now: https://www.thegundogclub.co.uk Good luck.
