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Sometimes, outings or training moments with your dog just don't go to plan --- maybe there's too much going on and your dog is overstimulated, or maybe you're trying to do more than your dog is capable of in that particular moment, or your dog is just in a mood (hey, we all have bad days!). This happened to Sheba and I just yesterday morning... Sheba had been doing so well on all of our recent trips to downtown Savannah so I figured she was ready to graduate to a higher level of stimulation. My plan was to walk her for only a few blocks along busy Bay Street (and Factor's Walk for a picture on the iconic Love Lock Bridge) to one of my favorite cafes, Cafe M, that I used to frequent with my previous dog, Scout. I hadn't been there in a while and this would be Sheba's first time there (although she has eaten out with us countless times at other locations). I really had my heart set on their Bombay Chai latte and a macaron ;) So I parked where I normally park us when we venture near that area of town and Sheba did just fine at first. But as we moved along, I could see her starting to get worse...
I slowed things down and was able to get her walking on a looser leash a bit more, but I could see there was still just too much stimulation for Sheba to be successful getting to the cafe and I didn't want her to have a bad experience (or we wouldn't get there in the future either). So we turned around (with only 1 more block to go - ugh!) and slowly made our way back to a less stimulating area. So when your "plan" isn't going well, what do you do??? Be willing to adjust your plan to help your dog get back under threshold and in a more relaxed mental/emotional state. It does neither you nor your dog any good to keep pushing once your dog is over threshold - at this point, you are doing more harm to your dog's mental/emotional state than good and instead of building a confident dog you can actually build an anxious dog (let alone a lot more stress for you!). Do what you can to lighten the mood. Remember to breathe to keep yourself calm (since your dog will feel if you are tense and feed off of that energy) and talk to your dog in a clear, calm but uplifting/happy way. Sometimes I tell clients to think of "rainbows and butterflies" instead of stewing over how the situation just went wrong. Get down near your dog and get silly for a minute, or give her a rub in a favorite spot - perhaps a hearty butt scratch - anything that will get your dog's tail wagging again and loosen up any of that tension in your bodies. There's a reason laughter is the best medicine! Retreat to a quieter area and give your dog a chance to decompress. This could mean putting more distance between your dog and the stimulating trigger or retracing your steps and moving back to an area where your dog was already comfortable (alleviating the bombardment of novel stimuli that comes from moving further into new territory). Provide a sniff break. Sniffing allows a dog to process her environment using her strongest sense and is also a natural stress reliever for dogs (two reasons why sniffing is a frequent displacement/avoidance behavior). Try a little massage. IF your dog enjoys your touch and finds it soothing (some dogs don't - they either have large personal space bubbles or are body sensitive, which would then just add to their stress). You don't want to coddle your dog, but just providing long slow strokes down your dog's body or over tense muscles can get the "feel good" hormones flowing and help your dog relax. T-Touch is a wonderful method and you can find various video examples on YouTube about how to apply it. Don't quit, just help your dog find a way to cope. It's best not to call it quits altogether when the plan falls apart, so long as you can still help your dog decompress and cope while still having the exposure to the situation. Dogs hold onto their experiences like humans do, so it's important you leave an outing or training situation with the dog feeling like "that wasn't so bad, after all!" instead of "thank God that's over!" If you can move further away and give your dog some time and space to process, you can still leave that situation on a good note. If there's absolutely no way to get your dog to relax in the situation you're in, however (maybe you're in close quarters, you've got stressors coming at you from all sides, or if your dog is harming herself or you), then you must choose the lesser of two evils and just get out of Dodge. Your dog's physical and emotional safety should be your #1 priority!
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AuthorMaria Huntoon, CBCC-KA Archives
July 2024
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