Molly has decided to become nervous of people. She barks at visitors and backs away. In the street when people stop to talk she barks at them and trys to run off. She has started barking at people walking past the house. I put my finger to my lips as did when she was a small puppy. My husband thinks the shouting at her method works, so I am currently trying to train him! She is becoming intolerant of loud noises, whereas before she just ignored gunshot, loud lorries etc Is it har age? She's 2 years 4months now. The only catalyst I can think of is an incident in November when some moron set off some VERY loud bangers about 25 meters away behind a wall. And when I say loud I am not joking, everyone in the High Street flinched and I had to act as drag anchor as Molly tried to dash for home.
Tina, maybe it's the age.....Cooper has also started barking at things he never did before. People walking down the street, cars going down the street, and jumps at noises. I had recently written about my concern for this behavior of his. But now I see Molly is 2 years and 4 months old....Cooper is 22 months old. Could be they go into a "fear" phase? He will even jump at the washing machine starting up or ditto with the fridge. Noises he has heard forever. And, as you say, to track it back to something that happened? He stayed overnight with a dog walker that owns four dogs and a huge parrot that squawks!! How do we work them out of this phase? or is it a phase?????
Juno, just turned 19 months, is more jumpy at the moment when we are out on walks although for us I can put a lot of it down to the change of environment. She pays no attention to rife shot but often jumps when we hear the bird scarer go off as we walk along fields or at car headlights passing us on our late afternoon walk - both new experiences since the move. I just try to carry on as normal with a calm voice to Juno to walk on. I'm pretty much taking the same approach as when she was little and trying not to reinforce the idea that these events are scary. Sorry I can't offer much advice Mollly except to go back to your puppy training with Molly, and perhaps some nice volunteers to visit or who will stop in the street and ignore her barking. It does sound as if it was the loud banger that has triggered the behaviour although I'm not sure how she is connecting the noise to visitors or people in the street, unless someone scared her on top of the noise. You just think you've got through all the stages and end up going back to basics.
Mollly sorry Tina I've only just seen your thread. I don't know if you've seen any of my posts about my two but they are both very nervous of strangers. It started when they were six months. However we've gone from barking at people coming towards us at a distance to standing by them and even excepting treats from them. Being touched by a stranger is still work in progress but compared to what they were like they've come a long way. I mainly used BAT Behavioural Adjustment Training which is counter conditioning except rather than just teach the dog to associate the scary thing with something nice you teach the dog that it can move away, it can trust you to make the right decision. A nervous dog has three choices fight, flight or freeze. On a lead the dog can't choose flight so a nervous dog will do a good impression that unless the scary monster backs off it will fight. Of course people usually do back off so the behaviour has worked. You need to choose flight for Molly. When you spot a stranger and you think she will react have a cue word and if possible change direction, go up a driveway or as far up the verge as possibke so she feels at a safer distance and reward her for staying calm. Eventually you will be able to give the cue and walk passed the stranger all calm. The BAT website is www.empoweredanimals.com but from what you've said about Molly's behaviour I'd recommend 'Why Does My Dog Do That ' by Caroline Spencer. It's very good and uses techniques similar to BAT but also has techniques on stopping barking indoors and it can be used for all sorts of nervous situations like loud noises. This is a link to it on amazon where you can look inside the book and see if you think it would be any good for you. http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/..._rd_t=36701&pf_rd_p=577048787&pf_rd_i=desktop
Hi to you and Molly, I agree with what the others have said but could i add that you possibly buy or play some noises which Molly might find scary? I bought a puppy CD which comes with a lot of different sounds (its awful for us humans to listen to!) Id start it off very quietly then work it up until its around the average/normal sound if that makes sense. I did this with Max as a puppy as he hated lorries, buses and kids screaming, whilst the CD was playing we'd often play or i do housework but you have to stay in the room with them to watch their reactions to the sounds. Surely enough my boy used to sleep through them just like what he does with the tv! Id recommend some training classes too just to try resocialise her around other people, my boy is incredibly nervous of being petted however as soon as he sets foot into the class hes very confident! I almost cried the 3rd week into training as it was the first time Max had let a stranger pet his head!!!! Albeit he does get food of everyone there haha Last but not least try de-sensitisation which is where you click and treat for behaviour you want, with Max when he looks at a stranger then chooses to look away or at me i immediately clickand treat then gradually get closer to the object or person they find scary. It does take a while to see improvements but it works, unfortunately theres no quick fix to this behaviour. Jen can i just say thanks for the recommendation of Caroline Spencer's book, i've read BAT which somewhat helped my nervous boy but do you find setting up controlled situations difficult? I tried to incorporate it into our daily walks but even with a dog bandana clearly stating "Respect my Space"and a lead cover saying "i need space" i STILL get idiots trying to stroke Max which sets me back a lot :'( we've got to a point where his recall is improving and around other dogs he's not anywhere near as nervous. Still having issues when its dark but thats a work in progress Excuse the essay i got carried away*
Thanks Jen. I have followed you on the Forum for sometime and know how hard you have worked with your two to achieve the results you have. BAT makes logical sense to me, but then so do all aspects of positive training. Molly was trained from the very beginning to sit when passing strangers in the street. This was quite simply to stop,her jumping up at everyone she met. I felt it better to give her something to do, rather than trying to stop her doing something I didn't want her to. As Tori says the difficulty can be in predicting who she will react to. Funnily enough, on our evening walk a man stopped me to tell me what a good looking dog she is. She barked at him, which made me realise that she only reacts if people interact with me. More to think about.
It is strange that this has come on a bit suddenly, when she is mature, really. Charlie had a period of nervousness - but that was after he had been in hospital for 3 days. Apparently the banging and crashing, while being poorly and probably a bit scared can cause this. I just got him out to new places every day (I think too much routine is bad, because then anything changing seems like a big deal) and in terms of noises, I found a fun fair setting up on the Common. We walked around it at a huge distance, got closer etc. It got noisier every day, and we just gradually got accustomed to crashing and banging again. Anyway, don't know if it's any help, but maybe the bangers that scared Molly had a similar effect or something. Do think about the routine point too, I think we can easily slip into too much routine.
Buster is nearly 2 and he is more nervous ever since someone let fireworks of a week before firework night, since then he is more nervous at the moment there is a lot of gunshots ( I can not wait for shooting season to be over) he is so scared of that noise i am so fed up with it all, I just want to walk him and for Buster to have no worries about anything. I have now got that cd of noise i just hope it works.
Tori_lizzie setting up controlled situations is difficult when your dog is nervous of people as it's not exactly practical to ask a complete stranger to stand still while you BAT them I was lucky, if that's the right word, my dogs are nervous of anyone they didn't meet before six months of age which includes people I know so I used those people where possible for more controlled situations. Unfortunately you will always get people who think they can just walk up and stroke your dog. I found it worse when they were pups. Let's face it there aren't many people who can resist a labrador pup. I walk regularly with my friend who has two Rottweilers people give them a wide birth and head for my two. Wrong choice ! I've got better at asking people not to come too near and not to touch after advice from Caroline Spencer. She pointed out there is no reason for anybody to touch your dog so don't let them. You wouldn't let a stranger come over and pat your child on the head so why should they pat your dog. She has a point I suppose but it's not easy. Mollly I think the best thing is to assume your dog will react to everyone to start with while you build trust. Once you have a cue word which your dog understands means "don't worry I will deal with this" then you can start to allow interaction but always on the dogs terms. First maybe just passing people closer, then maybe standing closer if you stop to chat. Eventually you may find your dog wants to sniff the person and go to them but take that slowly and then eventually you can ask the person you meet to offer a treat. It's important though that strangers don't bend down over the dog, don't reach out to the dog and don't try and stroke the top of their head. I found this website and trying to get people we meet to follow PAWs rules helpful. It's actually rules for people approaching strange dogs they meet but if you can get strangers to do the steps, not easy I know, it will help. www.woodysway.co.uk This website might also be useful http://careforreactivedogs.com They are all very similar methods for dealing with nervous dogs but you might find something slightly different works better for your dog.
I'm the same with dogs I don't know but I'd like to think I'm pretty good with reading dogs behaviour but I must admit labrador pups are hard to resist I met a spingador today but I'm not overly touchy if they want a pet sure but I make sure they sniff my hand first which is kept to the side of me. I'd imagine it to be scary for a hand to just come out to you. I love rotties I've never met a bad one which is awful because they get such a bad reputation like staffies
