Poppy is in most ways a super little dog. She is smart, eager to learn, keen as mustard about retrieving, very good with other dogs, and is very attentive and affectionate. However, there is a downside, and that is that she is quite a nervous little character. Always has been, from the word go. Just suddenly she seems to be increasingly nervous about strangers - barked and growled at some friends who came round recently, and yesterday when I took her into the office, barked at a couple of my colleagues. Clearly this is very embarrassing and I want to nip this behaviour in the bud. She really doesnt like strangers bending over her and trying to pat her, so I have been asking people just to ignore her for the first few minutes. I think part of the problem is that, since we live right on the edge of a huge great forest, we tend not to take her into town very often. She knows all the dogs and people around our area, and gets on well with everyone, and is friendly with the other dogs and owners at training, too. During her heat we obviously avoided all male dogs, and went for walks in areas where we could be relatively sure no-one else would be around. In addition, our old Lab Bones has been away with friends for the duration of her heat - perhaps this has knocked her confidence a bit. She is not even keen to get in the car at the moment - sits down near the front door and needs real encouragement to jump into the back! I have decided to take her out and about with me more from now on. She will be going to the office with me all this week, and whenever I go into town she will go with me too. I hope this will build up her confidence, as she sees that meeting new people and going to new places is interesting and exciting, and that nothing bad happens. I took her into the dog food store yesterday, and although she was nervous, she was ok and behaved in a friendly fashion to anyone who spoke to her. I read on here somewhere that working labradors are often more sensitive and nervy than show bred labs - certainly none of my other dogs were ever like this! Has anyone any suggestions how I can help build up her confidence?
Re: Nervy little thing Hi Karen, I have had this problem occasionally with field bred labradors. Did you see this article? It is a pain having to re-do socialisation exercises but it does help. Another thing that helps is to introduce the scary things (if you live in a rural area this is often strange people) in a context where the dog feels very confident or enthusiastic. I often for example find that working dogs gain heaps of 'stranger' confidence once they are working in the shooting field. Because they are mixing with a lot of people in a context that is extremely pleasurable to them. You could maybe incorporate retrieving exercises in some way, or even join a gundog training group? Pippa
Re: Nervy little thing Hi Karen , I had this with my old Lab girl Tess . We were living in very rural France at the time and had four dogs who all got along just great . Because of business , we did have lots of visitors to our home but I realised that we hadnt actually taken them into town to meet other people and dogs , smell different smells and sounds too , she freaked out the first time we did and I felt so guilty . We then set about introducing new experiences slowly, baby steps but it paid off in the end, good luck with Poppy, she will get there I`m sure x
Re: Nervy little thing Thank you for that Pippa, and yes I did read the article, and actually it made me very worried, because I do indeed think that Poppy is nervous of strangers, and am concerned about her reactions to them. We did our very best with socialisation, but you are right - living in a rural area means that although there are people and dogs around, she knows them all by sight and smell, and strangers freak her out! We have in fact joined a gundog club, and she loves the work - as you say, that may well be the key to building her confidence. But we are just at the very beginning of the training, so it will be a long haul. But I intend to carry on with it, because she enjoys it so much. In the meantime, do you think taking her out and about with me is a good idea? I dont want to freak her even more... Maybe I will gently increase her boundaries, one new experience at a time, waiting until she is confident for instance walking to the Post Office (quite a long walk, incidentally!), before moving on to walking through the town proper... Luckily I have three weeks off over Christmas, so can really concentrate on Poppy!
Re: Nervy little thing Hi Karen. I can only contribute my personnal experience with Lady. She's always been very timid. It's been displayed in the way you describe ie barking or growling at strangers (although only intermittently and ususally if she's been restrained on a lead); also taking a very fixed interest in anyone on the horizon where she just refuses to move while she watches them; and a real pain if anyone is behind us walking in the street. She also goes flat on the ground when other dogs approach which is sometimes very trying. But .... Following on from what Pippa has just posted, I started taking her on a small shoot last year once every two weeks. I took her beating with me and this is her second season. She's now 3 years old (2 when we started on the shoot) and she's settled in really well with everyone and enjoys the day out and mixing in with the other dogs and working with me. Most markedly, however, I let her try a bit of picking up last time out and it seems to have given her a step change in confidence - quite noticeable. My dog walking friends have all comented that she is suddenly much more confident, and it all clicked after the last shoot. I think the experience of actually retrieving behind the guns seems to have moved her up a gear. When we got back to the farmyard on that day for example, she hopped off the trailer and disappeared. Me hunting her down without success until someone said she was in the barn with the rest nicking mince pies! Most unusual for her as she previously stuck to me like glue. Mixing in and working with the other dogs on the shoot has definitely been very good for her. I've got VERY limited experience in these matters, but I think the idea of getting Poppy involved in a gundog training group is cerainly worth a try.
Re: Nervy little thing Thanks for that David, and lovely to hear that Lady has settled down so much and gained so much confidence! Actual shooting would be difficult for us here, since we live in Germany and they dont do the same sort of shooting. But I will definitely be doing dummy work with her, and they do have field trials and similar. And who knows, maybe we'll move back to the UK at some time... It's very helpful to hear other people say they have had similar experiences with their dogs, most comforting. Thank you!
Re: Nervy little thing I do think it is a good idea, provided you take steps to ensure she is not overwhelmed, which I am sure you will do. Have lots of treats with you, or a dummy, and reward her as much as you can whenever you see little signs of improvement. Hopefully you will be able to nip this in the bud quite quickly. Pippa
Re: Nervy little thing Karen if anyone can nip this in the bud you most certainly can, no worries. Good luck to you and the lovely Poppy. It's true when you live in a rural area as we do to, you are meeting the same people and dogs on a daily basis so there are no new experiences and we notice this with Hattie and Charlie. We are going to start take ours into town on a Sunday just for 20 minutes to start with to experience a more busy environment, new people etc. Lots of treats in pockets and of course the squeaky ball!! Helen x
Re: Nervy little thing Hi Karen , we lived in three depts during ten years, Loire Valley , then south of Poitiers and finally in the north of Brittany near to Roscoff , loved every moment but the pull of the grandchildren became too hard to bear
Re: Nervy little thing Quick sneaky sign-in from the office - Poppy lying quietly good as gold under my desk, no woofing so far! When anyone comes in I just ask them to ignore her instead of cooing and ah-ing over her, and when I have to leave the office for a few moments it's great 'down and stay' practice! Thank you all for your helpful comments. Yes I am certain we'll get this under control - I just have to remember that she is a sensitive little soul, and not as robust as my other labs have been! Kate - sounds lovely. My sister had a farmhouse in the Lot until just recently, and we spent most of our summers there. I miss it! Karen
Re: Nervy little thing Well done Poppy. Where do you work Karen that allows you to take Poppy to work? Lucky you... Helen x
Re: Nervy little thing I went through similar with Rusty, he has always been sensitive (field bred through and through) then got really nervy around men for a while. I made a point of ignoring the behavior and showing friendliness to the humans to reassure him. Also gave the humans treats to give him and his lab love of tummy overcame his nerves everytime! he is a lot better now although certain men for some reason will really freak him it's rare now and again if I take my time and they are sensible - (luckily they have been so far) we can get him around in bout 10 minutes with treats - thrown to a distance at first then gradually closer until handed over. Helped by Barney loving them from the get go.
Re: Nervy little thing Hi Karen, like David I can only contribute personal experience, particularly as a first time dog owner, but Cuillin is most definately in the nervy category! Cuillin got increasingly nervy from about nine months to now (fifteen months) but seems to have levelled out now at super wimp level, bless her. She is nervy about a lot of things (I currently have mice and she has developed a new phobia of mouse traps after seeing laid back little brother Brodick setting one off), I've seen her react quite strongly to certain people, she had a trainer once who was very nice but quite brisk and she petrified Cuillin so much she would just lie down whenever the woman spoke to or looked at her, shut down completely, and not move. We had to leave her and get a very very gentle trainer who she worked really well with. Her biggest thing just now is other dogs, she's getting better but she will fear bark at strange dogs in the distance. I have put a lot of work into this with her, we started going for walks ridiculously early so that we only met a few dogs and I kept her exposure to triggers low in number for a while and built them slowly, we are now at the stage where she will still bark but run to me now rather than towards the other dog and sort of 'ask' me what to do, if you know what I mean. she looks at me really intently for direction it seems, so I can call her over to me and calm her with tasty treats when she has stopped barking and settled a bit. Im not sure whether I sometimes reinforce this fear by helping her out of scary situations, but I try to act all jolly hockey sticks and just bustle her off sort of no nonsense style...hoping to see us at a stage where we can look at dogs in the distance with no barking but it might take some time! But her wimpyness is just who she is and she is a lovely wee girl, working things through with her has made us very close!
Re: Nervy little thing We had the unseen threat yesterday afternoon on our walk. She decided the bogey man was behind her and kept looking intently at the horizon not moving then scampering up to me with tail betwen the legs all the way home. So what was all that about then? Not a soul in sight and nothing I could see or hear. :
Re: Nervy little thing But remember David , her sense of smell is so much better than ours so maybe she scented something she didnt like ? Sam did this in the woods the other week, he rarely barks but suddenly kicked off, all the hair on his neck stodd up, but nothing there, not that I could see anyway
Re: Nervy little thing Well thanks everyone, what a blessing to know I am not alone in this!! Yesterday we had a surprise while out on our walk - Poppy was doing the 'freaked' thing, staring intently at the path up ahead of us... I couldnt see anything and thought she was just being weird again, when suddenly a BIG wild boar stepped across the path, about 30 meters ahead of us!! It looked so amazing and prehistoric, sort of like a small woolly mammoth!!! It trotted across the path, and then through the woods up the hill and disappeared into the trees. We do have quite a lot of them here, but they are very shy so we dont see them very often. So Kate is right David, perhaps Lady could smell something you werent aware of (though probably not a wild boar...)
Re: Nervy little thing [quote author=drjs@5 link=topic=1026.msg5842#msg5842 date=1355863421] Saw this on FB and thought of you.... A bit naughty, but funny! [/quote] Sadly I cant access this for some reason - it's just showing up as a red cross...
