So, Willow is scared of the car. This is a relatively new development, linked to a spate of trigger stacking. I've been playing some games to get her to jump in and out, where I throw a piece of kibble away from the car and feed her with mince by the car. This works well at getting her in the car, but it's not changing her feelings towards it. I was reading Hannah Brannigan's blog and came across this article: https://wonderpupstraining.com/articles/classical-conditioning-is-a-one-way-street/ In it, she says, "In all cases, the real solution is to find a way to break down the event or stimulus that is setting off the bad feelings, and find a version of it that is neutral. Find that spot. Get ahead of when the worry actually starts. And then pair that pre-worry moment with something really good." Now, this is something that I already know, but reading it in black and white made me pause and realise that I've not been doing that. Willow has shown signs of anxiety even approaching the car, if she believes I'm going to try to get her into it. There are lots of cues that differentiate "we're just going this way past the car" and "we're going up to the car to get in it", and of course I could work on making these cues less obvious, but that would simply be tricking her into approaching the car, rather than dealing with her emotions, so I see little value in that. Moreover, it could end up poisoning every exit from the house, as she loses trust in her ability to read my intentions. So, those times where she refuses to go further than five feet from the front door because she's read my intention, that's fine. She gets to say "no". What I've decided to focus on for now is fun interaction with me around the car, and towards it. Not asking her to get in, just playing in the proximity of the car. On Thursday, I took this bit of video to analyse my first attempt at this. I thought it would be interesting for others to watch it, to see the good decisions I made and, more importantly, highlight the bad decisions I made. It's easy when you're in one of these sessions to become too focussed on the task and not focussed enough on what the dog is telling you. It's a long video (10 mins) because it's unedited. Below are my notes, with the relevant times if you want to skip. Note that I'm not cueing the "go to bed" behaviour, it's entirely her choice whether she chooses to do it or not. Notes: You can see she's pleased as punch to be going out alone with me. This is her usual response, when she doesn't think I'm going to try to get her in the car. The time of day has a big impact on this; this was early morning, she's used to going in the car in the evening. I'll start playing these games at all times of the day. I was playing boundary games, as you'll see. There's a bit of hesitation from her when I first open the boot of the car to get the bed out. She looks a bit anxious (00:28). I start by having the bed on the ground, a fair distance from the car so she's moving away from the car as she goes towards it. When she understands the game, she loves it (01:00). Then I change direction so she's moving towards the car (01:45); at this point, we're still quite a way from the vehicle, and she's still relaxed and concentrating on the game. I introduce the ball as a reward at the end of the set and we have a little play before briefly repeating this level of difficulty. At 04:10, you can see she's stopping and going on alert; this is due to the distant sound of gunshot. At this point, I should have done a couple more reps at that same level and then called it a day. It's so obvious when you look back at yourself! Instead, when she re-engages (05:40), I continue with my plan of playing the game with the bed right against the car. You can see how her body language is completely different and she's suspicious of the car. Again, hindsight tells me that, even had I chosen to continue as I did, I should have had her approach the bed from the side so she wasn't running directly towards the car. It's so easy to forget about splitting when you're in the midst of it. At 08:50, she was telling me that she'd had enough. Looking at the car pointedly, then at me, with lip licks. At the time, I thought she had it in her head that I was just wanting her to sit with me, doing nothing, which is why I broke it with a hand target, but in hindsight, I don't think that was it. I mean, it wasn't a complete disaster, she wasn't frozen stiff, which she often gets like, so I will consider it a success in that way, but I need to do better to respond to her in the moment.
This is very interesting Fiona thank you for posting. I love the way Willow is allowed to make her own choices as the mat gets closer to the car. Could the crate be the problem? I wish 6 years ago I had this video to work from. After I took Charlie to a particular "gun dog" trainer he was so scared to get back in my car, he would shake, drool it was awful and upset me no end . I spent 18 months training and reinforcing with food that the car was nothing to worry about. I sat in the car with him just stroking him, didn't turn the engine on until much later and only did very short trips. I had my children sit in the boot with him, you name it I tried it. Years on and he only sees the car as a good place to be but it took a long time. I didn't think to play games around the car and gradually build up to the car We live and learn. How do you handle getting Willow into the car when you absolutely need to go somewhere with her? xx
No, the crate isn't normally in the car; that was just in there from when we took Conchita to the vet hospital. I may need to have her in it when I take her to the UK, so we brought her back from Barcelona in it to get her accustomed to it. In actual fact, the crate may actually help Willow, because she loves it! But, I can't have it in there because there's only room for one dog when it's in. She's the same if I ask her to go on the back seat, too. Luckily, we've not had to since she decided it was the devil incarnate (oh dear, I realise the pun as I typed that, sorry ). She used to be absolutely fine going in. She had a blip when we were in the UK last winter, which I put down to her slipping on mud getting in or out, but she's been fine since then, up until a couple of weeks ago. She'll have to go in it to get back to Andorra in a couple of weeks, and I only have three days between now and then when I have her and the car together, because J is in Andorra with it at the moment, I'm going to Andorra on Thursday for a course, back Sunday night and off to the UK with Conchita Monday morning. J will move the dogs to Andorra when I'm gone. I think it's going to be a case of him having to lift her in, which isn't great. I won't have much opportunity to do anything over the winter because there's nowhere I can drive the car to and walk her to to practice this sort of thing, but luckily she doesn't have to be in the car very often at all over the winter either.
