Leash Step, featuring Chip

Meet Chip!

Chip is a 2 year old doxie mix who is tremendously cute and showered with love in his home. However, he is also fearful, particularly with children and joggers on walks. Chip’s owners adopted him when he was 9 months old, and soon realized that his fear barking and nipping was trouble.  Chip was in need of some Zen Dog Training! 

Teaching Chip there is nothing to be afraid of when strangers pass by during walks is a great method to preventing aggression. We started the training plan by making sure to be extra aware of our surroundings. We don't want to get caught off guard by someone and end up with a scared, barking and lunging dog.

We made sure his owners weren't making things worse by trying to correct a scared dog or holding the leash too tightly. Leash tension can translate into feeling of nervousness. The dog might think, "My owner is nervous -- could it be that person running by? Maybe I should be on guard!" Nervousness can turn to fear, and if not addressed turn into aggression.

A method we use when stopping to talk with a friend on the street, is Leash Step, stepping on the leash while keeping no tension on your dog’s neck. The reason this is better than just simply holding the leash is because your tight grip might cause tension on the leash.

A Leash Step will not create tension yet it can quickly help stop a dog from lunging at any people passing by, which, in Chip's case can mean the difference between preventing a bite or an injured, angry jogger!

Use leash step when waiting to cross the street or in the elevator to prevent your dog from jumping up or running into traffic. However, it is important to never leash step in a way that traps a scared dog. Allow uncertain dogs to hide behind your legs or make distance between himself and a scary person, place, thing or other dog.
  Management and prevention are key in quickly solving these kinds of problem behaviors. For more information on Leash Step and Shy / Fearful Dogs, visit Zen Dog Training Online.

Jolly Talk.

Meet Bella!

Bella is a two-year-old Yorkie/Jack Russell cross who had lived with two other families before moving in with her current owners. In her newest home she was so fearful of strangers and loud noises that it had resulted in her owners completely abstaining from actual walks. Bella would panic and pull violently towards the house on a regular walk. She even began barking at the construction going on at the neighbors. She was simply terrified of the world outside of the house.

When dogs are subjected to a lot of inconsistency, they often lack a sense of security with their surroundings. Desensitizing a dog from things that seem scary is a way to help acclimate them to big changes. Bella's owners were asked to bring Bella outside to a section of the neighborhood that felt tolerable to her and just sit. As Bella began to get anxious and nervous her owner's were instructed to use what we call Jolly Talk.

Jolly Talk is basically using a calm but confident tone to say things to your dog like "It's fine, Buddy" or "Relax." Using Jolly Talk with random treats helped Bella to build a positive association with the outside world. When desensitizing a dog you must be very careful not to push the dog over threshold. This mean that you want to start out with something simple and work on that until your dog no longer shows signs of fear or nervousness rather than get your poor pooch in over their heads.

For more information on Jolly Talk, visit Zen Dog Training Online.

Rhody the Portuguese Water Dog.

Meet Rhody!

Rhody is a thirteen-week-old Portuguese water dog who lives in a large home, in a quiet neighborhood. He's got all of the best doggie amenities: a huge fenced in yard, plenty of toys and treats, and another dog companion.

Most puppies at this age are ready to take on the world. They're excited, inquisitive and always looking for new adventures. Rhody, on the other hand, seemed more than content to stick to his own little world, which was safe and certain. That wasn't always the case outside the confines of his puppy palace!

New people and loud noises were scary to Rhody. He took to growling at or chasing strange people on bikes or joggers, and barking at loud trucks and the mailman. He also ran away from meeting new people. Rhody's lack of exposure to new experiences had made him extremely sensitive to changes in his usual routine.

Dogs tend to do one of two things when they feel threatened:

• They will flee from a scary situation, or
• They will stand their ground and put up a fight.

As a puppy, a dog has to have plenty of positive exposures to as many new people and situations as possible. This is know as socialization!

For Rhody, it was clear that he would need to be systematically desensitized from things that frightened him. One of the ways to do this is to Treat for Confidence. By giving Rhody treats for tolerating gradual exposure to something or someone new, we helped him make a positive association that took the place of a negative one.

It's important to pay attention to your dog's reaction when introducing him to new things. You do not want to introduce your dog to too many things at once or to something he's clearly not ready for yet. This of course can have the exact opposite effect. If things seem questionable or you are uncertain of the situation, don't risk it.

To learn more about socialization and Treating for Confidence, visit Zen Dog Training Online.

Fear is Not The Time To Train.

Meet Daisy!

Daisy had a tendency to be fearful of men, especially when they come to her door, the mailman being the main culprit. Daisy takes her self appointed position of guard dog pretty seriously. Barking to drive the intruder away was her major line of defense but things got scarier for Daisy if the intruder actually ended up on the inside of her house. There all kinds of thing you can do to manage your dogs environment and to set things up to discourage barking but if fear is a factor, than you may have to take a step back and look at the bigger picture.

If your dog is acting scared or uncertain towards something or someone it's very important to realize that what's happening is NOT a training moment . When fear is the emotion your dog experiences, an instinct known as Fight or Flight tends to kick in. Your dog is simply not able to apply your human logic to the situation and as a result, will most likely pay no attention to you or worse, escalate their behavior. Keeping your cool is a large component of successes at times like this. Stay calm, take a Yoga Breath or some Jolly Talk ( clam and reassuring comments to your dog ) and offering your pooch a treat for confidence can help to desensitize their fear. When your dog has calmed down then you can resume training.

For More information in Jolly Talk, Yoga Breath and Treating for Confidence visit Zen Dog Training Online.

Implementing an Ask Strategy.

Meet Sammy!

This terrier cross is a new and young addition to the household, where he lives with Bailey the older cock-a-poo and Ziggy the chow mix. All three dogs have very different needs and personalities, so the big challenge for Sammy's owners is controlling their dogs' environment.

Sammy had been showing extremely reactive behavior towards people when they try to physically handle him. A routine visit to the vet turned into a very stressful episode for poor Sammy. Sammy's owners had the good sense to understand that he needed some help adjusting to their busy household.

Sammy's reaction to the vet was clearly fear based and so playing games like the Name Game with him was perfect to help build a bound between him and his owners as well as accustoming him to being physically handled. The Name Game is an exercise in which you help build a positive association to when your dogs name is being called. You can also use this game as an Ask Strategy, to elicit a different behavior when your dog is showing signs of apprehension. We also talked about creating confinement areas for the dogs to help control and manage situations like when visitors enter the house and when the dogs needed to be separated from one another.

For help with your multi-dog household, visit Zen Dog Training Online.

Woody the Daschund.

Meet Woody!

….But be calm and unthreatening when you do.

Woody’s family got him at eight-months-old from a breeder who assured them that their puppy was friendly and socialized. They were told that Woody was going to be a great pet since he was already past the most difficult of the puppy months. Unfortunately that wasn't exactly the case.

It was a huge shock for Woody, to be taken from his brothers, sisters and quiet backyard and brought to a new home. There were so many new sights, sounds, and smells that confused and frightened him.

Even though our dogs are domesticated, their primary instinct is still survival. When presented with a new frightening situation, that instinct kicks in and completely takes over — dogs go into fight or flight mode. The only thing dogs in these circumstances are concerned with is either getting the heck away or making whatever frightens them go away... which usually means barking, snapping and being as frightening as possible themselves.

In Woody’s world, two men like me and Gordon coming into his home was very scary. As we stood in the entry, we felt legitimately nervous. Since Woody was beyond the point of reason, we wanted to make ourselves as unthreatening as possible so we sat down; sitting made us smaller, and by being smaller, we were a lot less scary.

At that point, we began to earn Woody's trust quickly and easily: we had a Treat Party! By giving Woody Treats for No Reason, we stopped being a threat and became a source of food. Suddenly we weren’t so scary anymore! Ten or fifteen minutes after we sat down, Woody began to sniff around our chairs and even sniffed us, looking for more food. It was a major step, but it was only the first of many Woody needs to take in order to be comfortable with his world.

By giving a dog food when he is scared, we help him associate good things with what was once a life-threatening experience. Though it may seem otherwise, doing this doesn't reward our dogs for being scared — at that point, dogs are too scared to do any training exercises. Many terrified dogs won’t even take treats once they're scared and panicked. We want to teach our dogs to connect something they're frightened by (men, loud trucks, rolling chairs, etc.) with their favorite treats. If you train slowly while your dog isn’t too freaked out, you can work to change his feelings and associations enough so, while he might still be nervous, your dog can handle things he doesn't like.

For more information on Treats for No Reason and Treat Parties, check out Zen Dog Training Online.