Hi, I have just joined this site recently but have watched Victoria's programmes when they have been on. Since getting my new dog I have'nt been able to see any of her programmes for tips. I have read some of the tips and advice given on the forum but am running out of options. Let me start at the beginning, I had two yorkies who I lost both a couple of years ago. I have a new yorkie (Daisy) who is 18 months old now. She is a good nature dog and I absolutely adore her. I am having problems when out walking with her, my sister has the same problems when out walking with Daisy too. I use a harness and she pulls quite a bit but seem to have been able to stop that to some extent by telling her to come back and stop pulling. When she sees somebody coming (adult or child) she starts barking and becomes aggressive. Recently she seems to be getting worse. Today when out even a plane flying overhead started her off. Yesterday a car going past even started her off which never happened before. Tried to keep her into side away from road today which seemed to help. I have tried few options from scooting her with water to distract her, turning round and going a different way from person coming towards us, keeping her on a short lead and only letting her off on extension lead when on grass area and a treat and nobody about. When people come to door she jumps up and doesn't bark or become aggressive. She also jumps up quite alot of my mother who is elderly and am afraid she will knock her over. Have tried time out option with regards to this and seems to work but I am worried I should be doing something different or easier to stop the jumping up. Daisy has her own cage which she goes into when I go out and she lies in this sometimes with door open quite happily.
It seems the more I take her out the worse it gets and I am worried as to what to do next. Today when she was walking on the grass area on an extended lead this woman came over the brow of the hill, which was my fault as I did not see her approach or I would have reigned her back in to my side. She went absolutely nuts and the woman only wanted to say hello. Lots of people want to say hello to her as she is so cute but I am getting really paranoid about meeting anybody and am embarrassed when she gots nuts. I took sweeties today to try and distract her away from things to bark at which worked as she focused on me then, but again I am not sure this is a good idea.
Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks
K
Tried lots of options
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Ayrshirelass
- Posts: 4
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- Location: Scotland
Tried lots of options
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ladybug1802
- Posts: 1991
- Joined: Mon Sep 06, 2010 3:39 am
- Location: Surrey
Re: Tried lots of options
Hi! The experts will give you some good advice soon hopefully, and there are some other posts on here explaining how to keep the dog at a distance from people, a distance before she gets stressed, and work with her like this...maybe do a search?
What I will say is to me it sounds like she is really frightened and this is why she reacts in this way. Cars make her react - loud noise coming very close to her. A plane - loud overhead noise. People approaching her - stranger coming directly to her and this scares her. I have a rescue dog who I had problems with with strangers saying 'hello'.....he would snap and to be honest, the more I had people try to say hello the worse he got. I had stupidly thought that the more people I get to 'say hello' to him the more he would get used to it. Wrong! He hates strangers making eye contact (which is very confrontational for a dgo, especially a nervous one), leaning/bending over him and trying to reach down to say hello....so now I just dont let strangers stroke him. No big deal to me, and we have had no issues for a good few months now. Dont be embarassed...just ask people to please not touch your dog as she is nervous of strangers. I have only had one person not listen to me (a bloke who thought he knew best)....i asked him not to touch Dylan as he is nervous of strangers, so the guy kept putting his hand towards him anyway. I then said "he will bite you" and as I said it Dylan did a little air snap towards him and moved back again. The more times you stop your dog feeling she HAS to react the more she will get out of the habit of it - but believe me it takes a lot of work and time but it is so so rewarding when you have found what works for your dog and get results!
I can understand you saying people want to say hello because your dog looks cute - same as mine! My boy is tan and white with the softest fut and the biggest brown eyes....but he is nervous of strangers and his reaction is to ask them to go away, and this he does by growling then snapping if the growl isnt listened to.....your dog is telling you loudly by barking and asking the person or noise to go away that she is not happy. You definitely need to listen to this...I know she is only small, but if you dont listen she will have no choice but to escalate her behaviour to ask the person or scary noise to go away because she feels she cant rely on you to do so. And you say that it gets worse each time you go out...thats because each time you go out she gets more and more worried. Does that make sense? I know first hand that now I have stopped doing the whole 'flooding' thing (which worked the oppositr with my boy) and have listened to him, he has a lot more confidence in me and will walk through a crowd of people if need be, watching me and gaining confidence from me.
Please dont squirt her with water.....that will get her more worried and mean that she associates the scary thing with another scary action (water) and by you spraying her with it she wont trust you. She doesnt see her behaviour in the same way as you do - to you it is annoying and naughty, but to her it is a natural reaction.
Also, when a person approaches, do you shorten the lead and tighten it?? It is SO important to remain relaxed in yourself, and with a short, but loose lead if that makes sense. I have been guilty of this and it makes a HUGE difference. She will sense you tensing the lead and think "oh oh, mum's worried, there must be something scary around here"!
What I will say is to me it sounds like she is really frightened and this is why she reacts in this way. Cars make her react - loud noise coming very close to her. A plane - loud overhead noise. People approaching her - stranger coming directly to her and this scares her. I have a rescue dog who I had problems with with strangers saying 'hello'.....he would snap and to be honest, the more I had people try to say hello the worse he got. I had stupidly thought that the more people I get to 'say hello' to him the more he would get used to it. Wrong! He hates strangers making eye contact (which is very confrontational for a dgo, especially a nervous one), leaning/bending over him and trying to reach down to say hello....so now I just dont let strangers stroke him. No big deal to me, and we have had no issues for a good few months now. Dont be embarassed...just ask people to please not touch your dog as she is nervous of strangers. I have only had one person not listen to me (a bloke who thought he knew best)....i asked him not to touch Dylan as he is nervous of strangers, so the guy kept putting his hand towards him anyway. I then said "he will bite you" and as I said it Dylan did a little air snap towards him and moved back again. The more times you stop your dog feeling she HAS to react the more she will get out of the habit of it - but believe me it takes a lot of work and time but it is so so rewarding when you have found what works for your dog and get results!
I can understand you saying people want to say hello because your dog looks cute - same as mine! My boy is tan and white with the softest fut and the biggest brown eyes....but he is nervous of strangers and his reaction is to ask them to go away, and this he does by growling then snapping if the growl isnt listened to.....your dog is telling you loudly by barking and asking the person or noise to go away that she is not happy. You definitely need to listen to this...I know she is only small, but if you dont listen she will have no choice but to escalate her behaviour to ask the person or scary noise to go away because she feels she cant rely on you to do so. And you say that it gets worse each time you go out...thats because each time you go out she gets more and more worried. Does that make sense? I know first hand that now I have stopped doing the whole 'flooding' thing (which worked the oppositr with my boy) and have listened to him, he has a lot more confidence in me and will walk through a crowd of people if need be, watching me and gaining confidence from me.
Please dont squirt her with water.....that will get her more worried and mean that she associates the scary thing with another scary action (water) and by you spraying her with it she wont trust you. She doesnt see her behaviour in the same way as you do - to you it is annoying and naughty, but to her it is a natural reaction.
Also, when a person approaches, do you shorten the lead and tighten it?? It is SO important to remain relaxed in yourself, and with a short, but loose lead if that makes sense. I have been guilty of this and it makes a HUGE difference. She will sense you tensing the lead and think "oh oh, mum's worried, there must be something scary around here"!
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Ayrshirelass
- Posts: 4
- Joined: Wed Oct 27, 2010 5:59 pm
- Location: Scotland
Re: Tried lots of options
Hi Thanks for answering. Daisy sounds same as Dylan. As you say this week seems to be getting worse instead of better. I usually rein her right into my side on the opposite side of the person approaching. I even try and cross the road. I absolutely hated spraying her with water, tried this on advice from a vet nurse but not for me or Daisy. She is not consistent, only seems to happen her at home or my sister's house. When we at beach, park where there is crowds of or even juist one or twopeople or children she does not bark and is as good as gold. She has a look and then just trundles on.Today when it happened with woman I put her in at my side away from woman and told her to sit and tried to keep her as still as I could. I talk to her all the time when we are out, maybe that aint a good idea.
Re: Tried lots of options
I suspect you have been suffereing a little from 'too many experts' (or 'too many ideas')...
Definitely no water spraying - her behaviour is rooted in fear and in fact its classic and very predictable even though it doesnt appear so to you.
When there is one specific thing that freaks her out, she reacts. At this point NOTHING you do or say is going to get through to her and she cannot comply with it, shes too stressed out sotehy ONLY thing you can do, is to remove her from the situation ASAP, without fuss and preferably without physically manhandling her (appreciate thiscan be difficult).
When there are HUNDREDS of things that freak her out, she doesnt know which thing to freak out at first, she cant cope so she 'shuts down' - which LOOKS as if shes coping fine, but really, she isnt, shes supressing it.
Stress levels take days to drop, not minutes or hours, so going to something like a show, or the beach, can mean that the next day, seeing something shes only usually slightly worried about, causes a total meltdown.
Soooooo... your first tool is avoidance. Your second one is teaching her to walk nicely on the lead and focus on you - use the about turn method and you want to be 'about turning' AS she steps in front, out of the position you want her to walk in, and WAY before she actually puts pressure on the leash. This teaches her that she MUST stay in that position and to do so she MUST focus on you.
Cut your walks down to a set time limit, rather than a particular route or destination. So start out with 5 minutes - starting from clipping the lead on! Insist on calm sensible behaviour and if you do not get it put the lead and harness down and sit down for a minute and try again. (You can use food treats to aid you here but dont rely too heavily on bribery or she wont really be focussing on what SHE is doing, just o teh food).
Set a stopwatch for five minutes and for that ENTIRE time, focus on walking on a loose leash, about turning and avoiding scary things. If you have to cut it short and go home thats fine, you can try again later, theres no reason you cant do lots of these five minute sessions. DO not think that she will be hyper and silly through lack of exercise either, as this is, done properly HARD work (which is why we recommend you do it in short timed bursts, becuase attempting to do it longer means you and the dog lose concentration, get sloppy, fail and get annoyed with one another and go backwards rather than fowards).
Over time she will learn she has to focus on you to walk, and that you will NOT make her face scary things but you will take her awy from them, so she builds up trust in you that you deal with stuff, she doesnt have to. Then you can begin to think a little more about working on these things rather than purely avoiding, nd that means finding a distance where she can handle something (see it but not react) and you just give her rewards for seeing them. If she cant take a treat - its too close and you need more distance.
Remember you MUST work at her pace, not yours - no more flooding with busy places as that will makethings worse too.
Definitely no water spraying - her behaviour is rooted in fear and in fact its classic and very predictable even though it doesnt appear so to you.
When there is one specific thing that freaks her out, she reacts. At this point NOTHING you do or say is going to get through to her and she cannot comply with it, shes too stressed out sotehy ONLY thing you can do, is to remove her from the situation ASAP, without fuss and preferably without physically manhandling her (appreciate thiscan be difficult).
When there are HUNDREDS of things that freak her out, she doesnt know which thing to freak out at first, she cant cope so she 'shuts down' - which LOOKS as if shes coping fine, but really, she isnt, shes supressing it.
Stress levels take days to drop, not minutes or hours, so going to something like a show, or the beach, can mean that the next day, seeing something shes only usually slightly worried about, causes a total meltdown.
Soooooo... your first tool is avoidance. Your second one is teaching her to walk nicely on the lead and focus on you - use the about turn method and you want to be 'about turning' AS she steps in front, out of the position you want her to walk in, and WAY before she actually puts pressure on the leash. This teaches her that she MUST stay in that position and to do so she MUST focus on you.
Cut your walks down to a set time limit, rather than a particular route or destination. So start out with 5 minutes - starting from clipping the lead on! Insist on calm sensible behaviour and if you do not get it put the lead and harness down and sit down for a minute and try again. (You can use food treats to aid you here but dont rely too heavily on bribery or she wont really be focussing on what SHE is doing, just o teh food).
Set a stopwatch for five minutes and for that ENTIRE time, focus on walking on a loose leash, about turning and avoiding scary things. If you have to cut it short and go home thats fine, you can try again later, theres no reason you cant do lots of these five minute sessions. DO not think that she will be hyper and silly through lack of exercise either, as this is, done properly HARD work (which is why we recommend you do it in short timed bursts, becuase attempting to do it longer means you and the dog lose concentration, get sloppy, fail and get annoyed with one another and go backwards rather than fowards).
Over time she will learn she has to focus on you to walk, and that you will NOT make her face scary things but you will take her awy from them, so she builds up trust in you that you deal with stuff, she doesnt have to. Then you can begin to think a little more about working on these things rather than purely avoiding, nd that means finding a distance where she can handle something (see it but not react) and you just give her rewards for seeing them. If she cant take a treat - its too close and you need more distance.
Remember you MUST work at her pace, not yours - no more flooding with busy places as that will makethings worse too.
West Midlands based 1-2-1 Training & Behaviour Canine Consultant
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Ayrshirelass
- Posts: 4
- Joined: Wed Oct 27, 2010 5:59 pm
- Location: Scotland
Re: Tried lots of options
Hi Emmabeth
Your absolutely right its like Daisy sees red mist before her eyes and she can't focus on anyone else but the scary thing or person. I do have problems with her before even getting out the door putting her coat and harness on she won't sit still and jumps about. Have started to put harness and coat down and going away and returning later last few days and will try doing this before I go out to make sure she is not so excited. Will also try the 5 mins and turning tip you gave me. Will keep you up to date. Thanks for your advice.
Your absolutely right its like Daisy sees red mist before her eyes and she can't focus on anyone else but the scary thing or person. I do have problems with her before even getting out the door putting her coat and harness on she won't sit still and jumps about. Have started to put harness and coat down and going away and returning later last few days and will try doing this before I go out to make sure she is not so excited. Will also try the 5 mins and turning tip you gave me. Will keep you up to date. Thanks for your advice.
