Update on VooDoo the Border Collie/Lab

[PinkDice]

I've never been a frequent poster here, but I just wanted to thank all of you for helping change our dogs life for the better. We all still have a long way to go but here are some of our awesome victories with our very reactive and fearful pooch:

- We can now walk to the end of our court and back with a happy and relaxed dog, even when the neighbors children are playing outside across the street. Jacksdads' recommendation for reading Patricia McConnell's Feisty Fido and Mattie's loose leash walking thread have given us the tools we needed to succeed and we continue to make small improvements regularly. Most recently she chose to sit behind me and let me fend off a very enthusiastic off-leash Labrador Retriever when before she would have lunged at him and possibly caused a fight.

- She now offers us her paws to have her nails clipped and actually seems to enjoy it. Before we couldn't even touch her paws without upsetting her. We're next working on teeth brushing with a tooth brush instead of smearing toothpaste on her teeth with our fingers and hoping for the best. She's been regularly touching her nose to the end of the toothbrush for a treat and we're hopeful we can work up to touching her teeth with the thing soon. Thanks to emmabeth for sharing Ellie's difficulties with being groomed!

- We've had visitors in our house without incident. If she's not feeling up to company, she knows that she can hide in our office and nobody will bother her.

- Her separation anxiety is so much less dramatic. I can leave the house for up to four hours at a time and come home to a happy and relaxed dog. Previously I would leave the room and if she wasn't able to follow me, she was a mess. She watches Animal Planet and naps while we're away instead of laying by the door and pining away. We also have a yard now and she's perfectly happy to ask to be let out and go outside to play by herself or lay in the sun when she wants to.

Most importantly, I believe her life is so much more enjoyable now and relatively stress free. For that, I'd like to thank you all again!

[PinkDice]

Additionally, I forgot to update on what happened with her Dad leaving the house for work some time ago. She used to get so upset when even one of us left the house and Emmabeth suggested giving her a visual clue that he was leaving for work, like a traffic cone on the table, and removing it when he was almost home, and it totally worked! We started with a large sombrero without much progress but we then switched to something similar to a thunder blanket.When he left for work he put the thunder blanket on before leaving and I took it off just before he got home and she was fine all day! It was just the thing to stave off her anxiety and she doesn't even have to wear it anymore.

Edit: We were initially thinking we might have to medicate her to ease her very serious anxiety issues but after the thunder blanket, everything just started to fall into place. We saw very few results when we first had her, but after months something just clicked and everything has been getting progressively better!

[Suzette]

This is an awesome update! Kudo's to you and to VooDoo - well done!

[PinkDice]

Thanks for the kind words, Suzette!

[WufWuf]

It's really wonderful to hear you're getting on so well, you've done such a lovely thing taking the time to work through your dog's fears. Well done to you all!