Hero is coming up to a year old next week. Now he seems to have settled into lockdown routines which have, I'm sure changed things quite drastically for all our dogs. There seems to be a lot of questions popping up about the worries over the lack of socialising for younger puppies during this time, but what about after lockdown and for the older puppies who have been working already through lots of training and issues. We were just at the stage working through Total Recall where we were going to introduce doggie distractions with friends. Due to earlier issues we had to retrain from the start at the beginning of the year. Hero was doing great and then we hit the stop sign with lockdown. So that's the first issue to sort after - do we return to the start of the book again. Second, as we use our daily exercise to walk him and being in a town, this is quite limited where we can go, apart from trying to spend short periods either outside or in different rooms away from him he has become very clingy, and we have concerns on how to help him readjust again after lockdown. What else can we start doing to try to lessen separation anxieties. We keep him mentally stimulated with nose work, interactive games, learning tricks,etc and have created agility stuff for in the garden and other physical exercise games and we're keeping up with training which is possible, but the lack of socialising with the family, other people and his doggy friends is a big concern. In fact out on walks, when we go past houses where his friends live, he just lays down and won't budge and it's not possible to actually avoid them when we leave the house whatever direction we take. He does this too if he sees people or dogs he knows in the distance. He won't even budge for a favourite treat. Makes anyone around laugh but it's no joke getting 34kg to shift when it don't want to. I know there are many people on here who have spent a lot of time working on behaviours and various issues with their teenage dogs, and also be concerned about how to do things once we exit. As we don't know how long this is going on, just wondering if anyone has any ideas on where to go with this.
It sounds as though you are doing a lot to try to help your dog through this challenging time. And it is challenging, especially when it comes to keeping up with socialization. Spending short periods with your dog in separate rooms is a good idea, provided you don't increase duration until he is happy with the current one. You may need to go very slowly with this if he is already finding it stressful. What are you taking with you on walks in the way of treats? You need to keep him focused on you rather than on his environment - to keep him moving and happy. Maybe some more attention and focus games at home would help too As far as recall training is concerned, yes you will probably have to go back a few steps, but you should find your onwards progress is quick once you start training again. Try not to worry too much. This isn't going to last forever, and we can only do our best with what we have right now. Once things improve then you can focus on getting back on track.
