excitement? anxiety? stress? good? bad?

[MPbandmom]

Sky is my exuberant, energetic, easily distracted husky lab mix. In many ways, she seems very confident. She acts as though everyone she meets is her new best friend and like she loves to be outside smelling the smells and seeing the sights. She is also very visually oriented. I have had her just over 3 years now and am finally finding some treat items that she will take outside of the house. Those items being peanut butter, baby food, and steak/beef roast. While she seems very confident and cheerful, she can also exhibit fear actions. Hiding under furniture, flinching at sudden movements towards her, ducking her head and seeming to cringe when someone she knows reaches out towards her. I know that her original training was punishment based, yelling at her, hitting her occasionally, rubbing her nose in it when she had an accident. She also spent a period of time during her adolescence in a questionable situation where she became totally out of control to the point of snapping at people trying to catch her and where one member of the household became so frustrated with her that he threatened to shoot her. The first year I had her, I took her to obedience classes at a local pet store, where she obeyed all the commands without taking a single soft, smelly dog treat the entire time. Well, half of the entire time, after about 30 minutes, she would ignore anything I said, preferring to play with a ball, or invite other customers shopping in the store to come an play with her. My second trainer was probably also more punushment based than I am comfortable with. The recommendation was to toss water bags in front of her to get her to stop pulling on the leash. She ended up trembeling in fear. I have been using baby food and working in short gradually lengthening training sessions with her on loose leash walking. She seems to be grasping the concept finally, but seems to be becoming somewhat meloncholy. I don't know if she misses the company of the other dog, or if she just thinks this new way of walking isn't her idea of fun. She also started taking agility classes recently, where I learned the steak/beef roast treat trick. She is doing well with the obsticles, but is a real handful to handle between obsticles due to excitement/distraction otherwise. She starts with the steak, but towards the end of the class, if I happen to have run out of steak, she has taken a favorite soft beefy dog treat

I took her to the local park recently on a kind of rainy day when all of the sport practices had been cancelled. The park has a paved circular trail passing mostly through the woods with occasional view of the playing fields. We went through one jar of baby food, clicking for focus, and then I switched to the favorite soft beefy dog treat and she was perfectly content with the switch. The following day, the sport practices had resumed. I ran out of baby food, but she would have nothing to do with the favorite soft beefy dog treat, until we returned to the van and once inside, she was quite delighted with these treats. People have offered her a wide variety of treats and goodies, even hot dogs, which she has promptly spit/dropped back out of her mouth. I always took it that she was picky or particular about what treats she liked. Now I am wondering if it has more to do with some form of stress/anxiety/over excitement.

I'm thinking that she is refusing all but the higest value treats when we are out and about, because she is stressed in some manner. She doesn't seem to exhibit signs of fear, more like there are so many other things to occupy her attention, she can't be bothered with treats. How do I know if she is experiencing a positive/happy excited stress, or an overwhelmed/anxious stress? Is there such a thing as good stress where dogs are concerned?

[jacksdad]

I would say it is a safe assumption that your dog has some anxiety and fear issues. based on observing my dog, I would say yes there is good stress and there is bad. An example of good stress is when my dog is working a puzzle such as the ones found here http://www.nina-ottosson.com/index_english.htm . a trainer I worked with briefly had some and let jack (my dog) play with them a couple times. he would get kind of a urgency about him that would be like a "arrrge, I am going to figure this out...but ooh its hard". but his general body language is that of a relaxed but focused dog. he is being challenged mentally, but not threatened or feeling fear. When he encounters a bad stress (where he feels threatened and or just fear) he get stiff, alert, ears forward, his body leans forward, and if he sees what he fears is close, he sometimes lunges and barks and he really gets worked up adds baring teeth. and goes into a "show of force" to try and scare the scary thing away. And he stops listening and taking food.

what does your dog fear? if your not sure, pay real close attention to her behavior, watch for her moving quickly from relaxed to stressed in her body language. One real good clue is when she stops taking treats, what is going on around you and your dog when that happens. Dogs who have reached their threshold for dealing with something stressful or scary for them stop taking treats or food in general. Once you know what is scaring your dog, try to avoid it for a while, let your dog calm down. and come back here and let us know if you need advice on how to deal with whats scary.

Treats. Dogs pick their treats/rewards, not us. spend sometime trying out different treats and see what your dog gets REALLY excited about. that's what you use outside. inside the house you can use less "valued" treats. just because my dog LOVE chicken or a little bit of natural balance, doesn't mean your dog will. so we can offer suggestions, but the final word on what is cool/yummy and worth working for comes from your dog. you can use just about any safe food for a dog as a treat. While most dogs work for food, some do prefer a toy and a few will even just work for verbal/physical praise...though these tend to be more rare. I only mention just encase your dog falls into this category. no use forcing food if a good pat or being given a few seconds to play with a favorite toy is much more rewarding then food. though I suspect your dog will fall into the food category based on what your posting.

dogs like us can fear one thing and be amazingly confident with something else. My dog isn't the most confident dog, he has a hard time with strange humans, flips out when other dogs get too close while on leash, but shows ZERO fear of moving cars...go figure. So don't be too surprised if your dog goes from the picture of confidence to one displaying anxiety and fear in different situations.

Trainers. Sounds like you and the dog has some bad trainers and experiences. If you feel the need to use a trainer, let us know and we can offer advice on what to look for. If there is something specific you are trying to work on and you think the past training methods are coming back to bit you, feel free to post about it, someone is bound to have an answer for you.

Lose Leash Walking. You did mention you were trying to work on lose leash walking. check out this thread for a simple yet effective method for teaching lose leash walking. viewtopic.php?f=20&t=858 Several of us have or are successfully using this method. It's not the only way, but is is one that works.

To build confidence in your dog, try clicker training. in addition to basic obedience commands (sit, stay, down etc) think up simple silly tricks your dog can learn and do and use the clicker train your dog to do them. here is a good thread to get you started on clicker training. viewtopic.php?f=20&t=513

sounds like you have some negative history to overcome. please feel free to post specifics and I am sure someone here can help or point you to help.

[Fundog]

I'm going with what Jack's Dad said. Here's another example of "happy stress:" When I get home from work in the mornings, Dottie is so excited to see me, that most of the time she can't even contain herself long enough to get her lovins-- instead, she starts running around in circles, dashing outside through the doggy door, running a circle, coming back inside, doing a dance that makes her look like a bobble-head toy, then zooming off again. I always give the girls a "good morning cookie" after our lovins, but this morning Dottie was so excited, she dashed outside and forgot to come back in! I had to go to the patio door and show her the cookie, lol. (Silly little cotton-head)

"Stressed-out Stress" is what happens when Dottie meets new dogs: She growls, snaps, snarls, and basically just acts scared to death and not very friendly at all.

Another example of "happy stress" is when I get the girls ready for an "adventure" in the car. Dottie gets so excited she is literally trembling! It is times like this that she would not take a treat if I offered it to her-- the only "treat" she's interested in rabbits, birds, and running like the wind.

[MPbandmom]

I am using the loose leash walking training techniques listed here. I haven't really felt like she is necessairly fear stressed, more excited. She wants to check out or chase pretty much anything that moves. She loves children, people, other dogs (that aren't barking at her). She loves to chase balls, birds, squirrels, outside cats, snow, whatever may fly through the air, which is where I have had my challenge in getting her focus for 3 years until I found the baby food and steak. But then I have also heard people say stress is stress and thus either happy or fearful stress can be harmful. Now that I am doing agility with her, she is doing great with the obsticles for the most part, but unless I am pretty much constantly shoving steak in her face, she is ready to take off and go check other things out. (She does go check things out when she finds an opportunity. The other day, she was being introduced to jumps lined up in series in a fenced in lane. The jumps were about 6" high and the fence was about 2 feet high. She took one jump and then took the fence to go visit other class memebers. I was at the other end of the series of jumps calling to her to come to me. ) I have been told that I need to be more interesting than the things around me and it was suggested that I do some running with quick turns which the agility trainer demonstrated and which resulted in a Sky extreemly focused on her to see what fun thing she was going to do next. (more excitement!) If anything Sky seems to be stressed when she is not being stimulated and excited. If we are just sitting around the house not entertaining her, she tends to whine at us wanting us to play with her. (And I know that I encourage this behavior because I tend to talk back to her when she is whining. I do that with the cat too, and the cat is quite talkative. )

So I guess I should just take the cue from her and go with the flow of being exciting whether it be by giving her steak or running around like a silly person. It has just seemed to be contridictory to have a calm well behaved loose leash walking dog in a dog that gets so excited about everything. I'm wondering, as she finds me more exciting, will she find other things less exciting, and thus perhaps become a calmer, less distracted dog who enjoys lower value treats and long calm walks on a loose lead?

[emmabeth]

Short as I have to go to bed (BBQ fooooooooods make Ems sleepy!)... but..

Yes you can be her exciting thing if you find the right way to go about it and depending on what else it is she finds exciting (some things are harder to compete with than others).

ALSO, you can become the 'Mistress of the Excitement'... (err that sounds naughty!), you are the gatekeeper to the fun, you enable the fun stuff and make it happen.. does that make sense?

Im not sure if you have already but take a look at Leslie McDevitts Control Unleashed as I think this is exactly the sort of thing you need.

[MPbandmom]

I will check this book out!