About 10 weeks ago we started barley at our local dog training club, with the intention of completing his good citizenship awards, He has already completed his bronze and is now working towards his silver, but the dilemma we have got now is he is getting very stressed when we take him to training, he is a very sensitive boy and as soon as one little thing upsets him that's him gone for the rest of the class, he does his best to try and keep his focus on me even though at times all hell is breaking loos in the class, but then one stupid owner will let there dog get into his own personal space and that's him gone for the class constantly trying to warn of other dogs and constantly looking around him, now the trainers are very nice and let him have time out, but we can't keep doing this every training session. We have possibly thought about getting him a thundershirt to see if this helps to relax him, as when we are working he prefers to be 'trapped' against the wall, and he feels much safer than if he is working anit-clockwise and he is 'open' in the middle of the hall. Now he is very good at telling me when he is stressed as he gives of loads of calming signals and signals of being stressed, panting, stress moulting, sweating through his pads, ears back, tail down and all that stuff. He has before on fireworks night worn a t-shirt which relaxes him but does not really fir him well, we have also thought about a TTouch body wrap. we have tried adaptil as he used to get very stressed in the car and we used to spray adaptil in the car but it made no difference at all, i dont know whether an adaptil collar would have an effect on him either. Ifany one has had any experience with adaptil collars or thundershirts your views would be very helpfull. he is due to complete his silver test in october so not very far away, so the sooner we find a solution the better. Any ideas on how to help him cope with this would be very helpful as we don't know how to cope with this
Re: Dog training classes Poor Barley. I think Thundershirts was discussed on here before. If you go to search and type in Thundershirts it will direct you. H x
Re: Dog training classes Definitely try a Thundershirt - from what I hear anecdotally they can help. It sounds like you are doing a wonderful job of attending to and responding to Barley's state of mind, which is really great. Good on you I wonder if your instructor could ask other class members to be extra vigilant about giving Barley his space?
Re: Dog training classes My advise would be to concentrate on training him to keep his focus on you. Much easier said than done, I know. My cocker is a rescue dog and hyper sensitive to anything and anyone. When I first got him I started to take him to obedience classes which were a bit of a challenge to say the least. Like your dog, Murffi needed his space or he would lose the plot. I made sure that I would always position myself between him and another dog whenever we had to do meet and greet exercises. And lots and lots of rapid fire food rewards. One of the best rewards I could use was a tube of Primula cheese, letting him lick tiny amounts every time another dog came near us helped to keep him calm and focused on me. The instructor once commented on how Murffi and I seemed to be in our little cocoon, a little bubble. She was right, I totally concentrated on him even when it wasn't our turn to do the exercise. Even now two years later Murffi will fizz up in a flash in certain situations, lots of it is down to his breeding and temperament. I still work in holding his concentration and focus on me regardless of what goes on around him. It is not always easy but I have seen huge improvements in Murffi compared to those early days in the obedience classes.
Re: Dog training classes Thanks charlie i will have a look Oberon the trainer understands that he needs some extra space and will try to place him near dogs that he is ok with and owners that understand he needs his space, most of the time if we are group stays or recalls we will work next to the wall so only one dog is next to him, so he is not surrounded by two dogs. It is really hard as he is very good and on a good night we can do some of lead work but on a bad night there is no way i will let go of the lead, i just don't know what he would do if a dog bothered him and he had no lead on him to hold him back. The trainers are good with him and will ask me if i am happy with doing certain exercises and if i want to do it off lead, it is my choice not a you have to do it like this kind of training place if you get what i mean, you can do the exercises basically how you want to do them. he is very good with his watch me, the trainers comment on how well focused he is on me especially when doing recalls and stays as he will watch my every move, he may not be the fastest at recall but he does it and focus's on me and not on what is going on around him. Even when it is not our turn to do the exercises we will still work on his watch me and simple basic tricks which is very handy for when he gets worked up for him to regain his focus, just take him to a quite corner and perform some basic simple commands to get his focus back and calm him down enough so we can return to training. Hedirun barley is a rescue as well, and he was not socialized at all when we got him, he was scared of everything and everyone, after he had had all of his jabs it took us over 2 months to get him out of the front door as the world was just too big and scary for him, he got overwhelmed very easily, and considering he was our first dog he was a challenge, but from what he was like when we first got him to the dog he is now it is unbelievable how much he has changed, he has been through so much. Some people would have given him to a rescue center because of how hard he was and all the issues he had, Food guarding, toy guarding, nervous of strangers, stealing food, very protective of us when out on a walk, very protective of the house, aggressive towards other dogs, various health issues, terrified of the car, bark and growl at anything that moved, the list was endless, it has taken me so long to correct some of these behaviors and some are still ongoing problems but we are slowly working on them. Most of his training has been at home, he was trained by me, and only me, some people have even asked me if i am a dog trainer because of how well he behaves when out on walks, but i just picked up my own natural way to train him and use his strengths to help him, for his recall we use packets of wet food as he loves it, it is the highest value reward he can get, so he behaves beautifully for it, but when someone lets there dog get to near him when we are working he will freak out and his usual reaction is fight, because of his food aggression and high value reward needs protecting, and because it is so smelly you attract dogs to you so we try to go up the park at unsociable times so we don't meet other dogs. I work so hard with him but it only takes one stupid dog owner to ruin it all and go back to square one. For training classes we use a variety of treats, quite a lot of home made ones like liver cake of fish ones are also a favorite as they smell so nice. When we first got him there was no way he could have gone to training classes it would have been way to much for him, so home training worked, last year we also discovered clicker training, which was the best thing ever for him, and it has worked wonders with him, but he is still a lot of hard work.
Re: Dog training classes Hi there. I'm a bit of a novice dog owner so not well placed to comment on the training side of things, but in terms of sensitive dogs I have a pretty sensitive girl myself and have found adaptil collars to be really helpful for her, i wouldn't say they have helped with specific situations, but what the collars do seem to do is take her general worry level down a good few notches. I can tell when her current collar is needing replaced as she will start getting a bit anxious about things she wasn't the week before - bright lights in the sky being the main one- pop on a new collar and she is fine again. Thundershirts seemed to help her with specific situations when she was little, she got very anxious in the car as a puppy, popped a Thundershirt on her, and all was well. I get the sense that different dogs will react differently mind you, so I guess its a case of try it out, but adaptil products seem to help my girl.
Re: Dog training classes I think we are going to try a thundershirt with him and see what happens. If it does not work we will have to try something else like an adaptil collar or anything else anyone suggests, i am open to all options
Re: Dog training classes We have dug out his t-shirt and we are going to try him with it on during this weeks training class, if it works we will buy a thundershirt if it doesn't we will have to try/think of something else to calm his stress levels down
Re: Dog training classes Hope the t-shirt helps a bit You've come a long way with your boy and it's a credit to you both.
Re: Dog training classes [quote author=Oberon link=topic=2368.msg23021#msg23021 date=1377689181] Hope the t-shirt helps a bit You've come a long way with your boy and it's a credit to you both. [/quote] Yes we have come a long way, not to mention the problems i had, let alone his own problems. This forum's members are much nicer and kinder than the members of the other forum i was on, they were horrible and everything i got picked on for, when we first got puzzle they were placing best on her having behavior problems, everything that i said got criticized, even barley getting ill, i can't stop my dog from getting ill, it will happen, i know he is not perfect and i can tell you that he is a lot better than quite a lot of there own dogs
Re: Dog training classes Puppy pal,this is a really nice ,friendly forum,and im glad you feel comfortable here.members don't always agree with each others opinions but that's ok,because we are all different. Everybody is respected and what we do all have totally in common is we love and are committed to the best care of our dogs.i knew I would get attached to Dexter but as my first dog I was unprepared for the depth of love I have for him!ive gone Labrador loopy!I could never talk about him as much as I do on here to my pre-dog friends....they wouldn't have the interest or the patience( lovely though they are ;D )my time on here each day ( whilst arguably might be better spent training my dog ??? )is pure doggy indulgence for me and has become part of my 'new' life ;D I love the help I have received but also just the lovely general interest,chat and laughs I've had on here. Best wishes to you all my new doggy friends x
Re: Dog training classes [quote author=Dexter link=topic=2368.msg23033#msg23033 date=1377693047] Puppy pal,this is a really nice ,friendly forum,and im glad you feel comfortable here.members don't always agree with each others opinions but that's ok,because we are all different. Everybody is respected and what we do all have totally in common is we love and are committed to the best care of our dogs.i knew I would get attached to Dexter but as my first dog I was unprepared for the depth of love I have for him!ive gone Labrador loopy!I could never talk about him as much as I do on here to my pre-dog friends....they wouldn't have the interest or the patience( lovely though they are ;D )my time on here each day ( whilst arguably might be better spent training my dog ??? )is pure doggy indulgence for me and has become part of my 'new' life ;D I love the help I have received but also just the lovely general interest,chat and laughs I've had on here. Best wishes to you all my new doggy friends x [/quote] Thank you that is so nice, i could literally talk about barley for hours and hours, not so much puzzle as we have only had her 2 1/2 weeks but we have had barley 4 1/2 years now so i understand what you mean, non dog owners don't understand how much we love our canine companions and they never will until they get a dog of there own
Re: Dog training classes Well today is the day to see if the t-shirt works, if it does we will get a thundershirt for him if it does not we will have to try something else. It also depends on how he is today anyway, some times he is good other he is bad, we will just have to wait and see, and also depends on which trainer we have
Re: Dog training classes Luckily the dogs who really set barley off were not there on friday,so he was good, he had a few grumbles as a new person had joined the group and let her dog get too close to barley when he was focused on me so he did not notice it until it was right next to him, but other than that he was good so no need for the t-shirt this time. we did discus with the trainer once the class had finished whether it was ok to move back up a class to one which he was happier in, but he said to wait and see how he is the next few sessions. our next worry is that the dogs that really annoy him are also doing the silver, in which case we will have to forfit doing it as it is not fair on him
Re: Dog training classes PP, you could always do it once the current crowd have finished SIlver, and hopefully be in a more comfortable group. Do you think that would work?
Re: Dog training classes [quote author=drjs@5 link=topic=2368.msg23848#msg23848 date=1378064225] PP, you could always do it once the current crowd have finished SIlver, and hopefully be in a more comfortable group. Do you think that would work? [/quote] the next opportunity to do it would be next july so quite a way away, and i don't really want to wait that long, we will have to speak to our instructor about it, we also want to do his gold as well and if we do his silver now then he has a long gap to practice for his gold, as after the one in july the next one is in next october, which is the one we are going to do this year
Re: Dog training classes [quote author=drjs@5 link=topic=2368.msg23853#msg23853 date=1378065208] Oh that is a long gap What a shame.... [/quote] We might be lucky, in that they run two separate assessment groups as they done that with the silver as loads of people wanted to do it, but i don't think that many want to do the silver, but we will just have to wait and see, it is a month and a half until he has the assessment so it is just a waiting game at the moment
Re: Dog training classes Well it is coming to that time again, next week is our silver good citizens test :-\, i don't know whether that is a good or bad thing. He has come on in leaps and bounds at classes, he has settled in and is more relaxed now which is good, he was super tonight, he played ;D, now i know that sounds strange at me getting exited at the fact that he played but for him it is a big step, he hardly ever plays but tonight he wanted to play with his stuffed toy, which was brilliant, lets just hope he does the same next week, as he has to play. he done well on his stays, he managed 3 minutes, for the silver he only has to do 2 minutes, but we are going to hopefully work towards 5 min stays, so he can stay for over the time he should. I feel better prepared for this test than the bronze test, so that must be a good thing
