Changes have come

[Holly Paterniti]

Good afternoon everyone :)

I have not been on for a while as school and the kids have taken up alot of my time :)  Anyways, last summer I had a trainer coem to our house to help me with Bear, since he likes to pull me all around.  He did VERY well with the training and I thought things would get better.

 

Well this year has been CRAZY!!  He has become WAY over protective of the kids and the house.  So when I called the trainer (which I LOVE her, she has helped through a lot with Bear this year), she suggested to start socializing him more, which I did not even think about that at all.  I have always had 2 poodles, so they would socialize and we had no problem.  But since he is the only doodle in our house, I thought I would give it a try.

 

The first day was a disaster!!!  He was a nervous wreck and when we went to go get him some more food at the place we usually go, a woman came up to him and he started to snarl at her then peed.  Luckily, she understood that he was scared.  Whenever he is backed into a corner, he lashes out.  I feel awful because I feel I have failed as a doodle mommy :(

 

By the third time, he was running to the doggie daycare.....EXCITED!!!  So I am hoping with him making some friends, he will soon not be so afraid of people.  But we still have the issue of him being over protective of the kids and our house.

 

 

[Karen, Jasper and Jackdoodle]

Holly, I'm glad to hear that Bear is doing so much better.

The next step in socializing him would be to start getting him out to other public places as often as possible. Remember that "socializing" a dog doesn't really apply to dog-dog interactions, it means getting a dog accustomed to and comfortable with human society: all the sights and sounds of our world. When I first got Jack, the trainer suggested that I take him somewhere out to a public place a minimum of three times a week. We went to auto repair shops, farmer's markets, any kind of store where dogs were allowed, and sometimes just walked past schoolyards at recess time. I even took him to the local fire department. It really helped. With Jack, it was fear issues, but that could easily have led to fear aggression if I hadn't done something to get him more comfortable with the world in general.

With the overprotectiveness with the kids and house, it's going to be a work in progress, as some of that is just a natural instinct for all dogs; hopefully, the trainer will continue to help with this.

And again, I have to say thank you for being such a great dog owner and investing time & money in Bear instead of giving up on him like so many people seem to do. I'm glad your hard work is paying off.

[Jane, Guinness and Murphy]

I'm so glad that Bear is doing well now in Daycare.  Can your trainer come to your house to work with you and Bear as strangers come to the door?   This has been a recent serious problem with my Murphy, and our trainer came a few times to show us exactly how we needed to handle him with strangers came into the yard or to the door.  We had "set up" strangers ring the doorbell while the trainer was here, and we learned how to keep Murphy calm and controlled.  It was really effective, and now he's not even reacting badly to people he's never met (which is a major change).  To be honest we had not been handling these situations appropriately for Murphy, and that made matters worse.  You've been doing a great job with Bear, and I'm sure with a little work you'll help him with this too!

[Bonnie and Kona]

This is an exciting update, Jane. I don't know if you have posted earlier about how Murphy is managing with the new training technique for guests coming to the door, but I am very excited to read this! Great news!

[Holly Paterniti]

Thank you ladies for your kind words :)  Bear means a lot to our family and I would never think of letting him go to another family nor to a shelter.  Jane......I am thinking of having the trainer come over this summer to help us out with the whole door thing. 

Tonight we left him at the Double Dog Daycare for about 4 hours instead of our usual 2 and he did AWESOME!!!!  The people who work there said he is definitely getting more comfortable being there and has been socializing a little more each time we take him there.  They did say if one of the dogs are playing to rough, he cowers and leaves the situation.  When a new person came into the daycare, he was leary about the new person and took time to see them.

I just can not believe how cautious he is.......Rylie was like that when she was younger and still is a bit now, but not to bad :)  So I guess he is like her????

[Diane, Hurley and Sidney]

Hurley is the only dog in our household. When he was close to 4 months old we got a trainer who came to the house.  Right away she suggested socialization so we started taking him to our kid's house to play with their full grown doodle and 2 labs.  Hurley was scared to death.  

He would hide behind us, want up on our laps, whine, pee out of fear, etc.  One time there was another puppy at their house.  That puppy was hyper and aggressive.  Hurley would still back into a corner looking so scared.  It took him at least a couple of hours before he even attempted to raise one of his paws in defense and even then it was obvious he didn't know how to defend himself or even play with someone his own size.

He had no clue as to how to engage in play.  It took about 6 times of playing with the other doodle and labs for a hour or so each time before he fully engaged.  Now, on the days I take the grandkids to school, he heads for the door and waits until I am ready to leave. He gets so excited when we pull up in front of their house.

During his socialization period I would take him to a Starbucks and sit outside so he could get used to the activity. We took him for walks twice a day so he could meet other dogs. We also took him to the grandkid's baseball practices because there are not that many people at a practice gradually introducing him to the games.  Now he goes to just about every game with us and loves making friends with other dogs.