QA 23 - 9 year old mixed breed Ticket #20144

Full Question:

Hi Cindy. I adopted my (now) 9 y/o mutt last year. I live on my own, however I have been with my partner for years and we are getting married this year. My dog does not seem to have a problem with my partner in particular, but he (the dog, not the partner lol) is VERY insecure, and is incredibly attached to me and therefore gets anxious and invasive when other people are around. He is fine when left alone at my home, but if I leave him at my parents place, or anywhere like that, he will stand at the door and whine until I come back (max has been 30 min). If sit beside someone on the couch, my dog comes right up in between us and begins whining and panting. We are currently working on basic obedience and he is conditioned to a prong and a clicker. We just started the place command. It seems to be more related to my dog being insecure in general than any specific situations/people/etc. Any direction is appreciated. Thank you!! Love - Meg, Matt & JackJack

Cindy's Answer:

It does sound like generalized insecurity and anxiety and I would definitely work on obedience in and around the situations you know will likely trigger the whining, etc... Teaching a dog to stay on a place bed is a valuable exercise for dogs like this. I teach all of my dogs to do this in a variety of locations. when I travel with my dogs I bring the elevated bed and an expen and I set up an area for them to be where they can't stand at the door or invade the space of others in the home.

I think you are on the right track. Just make sure to not accidentally reinforce the anxious behavior by talking or petting the dog while he's displaying this behavior. You need to be "matter of fact" about how you expect him to behave. Sometimes the other people around the dog will try to soothe the dog and that also just reinforces the behavior you are trying to extinguish. If the other people present can learn to ignore him it will be helpful.

User Response:

This is great! Will be purchasing the basic dog obedience and reviewing his commands using those tools. Thank you so much!

Would corrections be effective for these situations? I've found some research that shows that corrections for maladaptive bx at threshold can increase generalized anxiety/genetic anxiety/etc. I've also read studies that say the opposite. A sharp "tst" sound elicits a reaction from my dog (ears back, tail back, bx stop, approx 3-5 sec recovery). Is this something we can use if he jumps up between us/on us? Should I condition to a marker first? Sorry for all the questions. I'm a behaviour analyst (with humans) and love learning about how to apply the behavioural concepts I know to dogs! I'm also a big research nerd lol. Thank you for all of your help and advice!

Cindy's Answer:

I don't use corrections until the dog understands the expectations I have. I prefer to give the dog a task that is not going to allow the behavior I don't want to occur. For example, if my dog knows and understands to lay on a bed then he can't jump on me. If he gets off the bed then I can correct THAT, correcting an anxious dog for being anxious can make it worse.

I'm also a big fan of using management tools to prevent the dog from getting into that state of mind in the first place, keep him leashed at all times so you can block him from moving freely in the room, use an expen, crate or place bed. Anxious dogs seem to gain comfort from having clear rules too, so that's a bonus.

User Response:

Thanks so much for your help. We so appreciate it! :)

No ratings yet

Was this Q&A helpful? Let us know!