What I am currently doing to relieve the sysmtoms is going out giving praise so I am praising BEFORE she gets anxieity. I give her a treat that she loves like a hotdog so she gets it before the anxieity too. I will then throw a toy because her drive to chase has increased over the past couple months. I will then act like I am trying to get it from her but let her win. When she drops it I'll throw it again but only once more so it ends on her loving it and when she drops it I take it and put it up like it is special. Then I leave and go in the house so as not to give her a chance to get anxious. I don't want her to be showing this after the pups are born because the pups will sense this and learn it too. She is not weak nerved I never said that only miscorrected harshly at a young age 16 weeks and again about 2 or 3 weeks later. She may have been low prey drive but not now she has increased to a lower end medium drive and still increasing. She may also be soft/handler sensitive/low pack drive but NOT weak nerved. All dogs NO MATTER how good of genes throw pups with different levels of pack drive the omegas being the ones people call soft. This is not a genetic defect just natures way as in wolf packs. Yes we want to breed the strongest dogs to minimize this but Ed told me all anyone could hope for is a couple high quaility pups. The rest will be varible degrees of what we would want. Handler sensitive does not mean the dog would buckle under pressure from an outsider only pack higher ups/family. I really appreciate all the help and am using most of it. Does anyone out there feel that if I can't releive this anxieity from me before the pups are born suck I let someone else whelp the pups to avoid a learned behavior from occurring?

Again Thank
Rick Davis

Rick, You're right a soft dog isn't necessarily weak-nerved. Keep doing positive fun things with your bitch and maybe she will over-come her anxiety with you. What a bummer. Sometimes it's just hard to know what's going on from a forum post. Best of luck.

Debbie

My bitch made real good progress today. She ,in the past, didn't have a real passion for playing tug. Today I introduced something to play tug with of a different material than I have used before and to my amazment she played tug with much enthusiasm and kept pushing me to play. I stopped while she was still in peak drive so I am hoping to build on this. It is so strange seeing a dog develope drives this late (16 months) but I'm glad late than never. She also responded with more intensity for prey namely chasing the ball. This time thought I would not speak except to praise and not use one command. That could be the reason for her doing it with much more enthusiasm than in the past As I mentioned before she has been increasing in drive as she matures. She did hastle hard during all this and far before she should have needed to. Could this be an indication that the hastling I am calling anxieity could just be excitment in the beginning from wanting to play but when I add a command and I give a tone or something confusion or fear change the reason for the hastle? Could that be the thing that turns her drives off at the point of her first confusion?
I thought I might do this (no commands or voice except praise) for a week or so then add one occasionally hear and there. Does that make sense? What do yall think?

Question: Do you have a voice that's pitched rather low (even for a man) and/or naturally loud? If so you might try pitching it higher and/or softer when giving commands --somewhere between your natural voice and the higher-pitched voice you probably use when praising her.

Also, don't be hesitant to "correct" her if she starts acting anxious. I put that in quotes because in this case the "correction" should be very mild, a "don't be silly" type rather than a firmer, "that was unacceptable behavior," correction. And it should be followed immediately by having her do a behavior you know that she will do and do very well so that you can immediately praise her. I hope that's somewhat clear. It's easy for me to do, but a bit difficult to explain.

That was very clear Elaine. The answer to your voice question is. Yes I have a very deep loud voice. You mean basically just enough to distract / break her concentration from on being anxious then immediatly refoucus with say because she loves the chase now THANK GOD! LOL, throw a ball and praise her for returning with it because I just said bring passively correct? But still correct. It was not that I was going to stop correcting her as much as I was going to stop giving commands for a while and just play and give a passive command giving a command making sure it was going to be something absolutly that she would do ie: bring the ball back to me and use only that. I was going to do someting like that for a while so I would not have to give a correction. I beleive your saying distract her frame of mind and not let her stay in that mode. I agree and thanks!!!

 Quote:

My bitch made real good progress today. She ,in the past, didn't have a real passion for playing tug. Today I introduced something to play tug with of a different material than I have used before and to my amazment she played tug with much enthusiasm and kept pushing me to play. I stopped while she was still in peak drive so I am hoping to build on this. It is so strange seeing a dog develope drives this late (16 months) but I'm glad late than never. She also responded with more intensity for prey namely chasing the ball. This time thought I would not speak except to praise and not use one command. That could be the reason for her doing it with much more enthusiasm than in the past As I mentioned before she has been increasing in drive as she matures. She did hastle hard during all this and far before she should have needed to. Could this be an indication that the hastling I am calling anxieity could just be excitment in the beginning from wanting to play but when I add a command and I give a tone or something confusion or fear change the reason for the hastle? Could that be the thing that turns her drives off at the point of her first confusion?
I thought I might do this (no commands or voice except praise) for a week or so then add one occasionally hear and there. Does that make sense? What do yall think?

Sure makes sense to stop for a while what you feel she is reacting to in anxiety. Maybe she does just need to play, without any commands during that time. Changing the material of the tug was an excellent idea, IMO! Whatever she responds to with enthusiastic drive at this point makes sense! Glad to hear of her response, that's great.

See what you people think of the pedigree if this works properly on yahoo briefcase LOL. Mec is ZM titled and hip cert. Mec Pedigree

Dax Pedigree

I'm amazed. Dax (my bitch) has increased 3 fold in prey drive and has went from not caring to play tug to being dang hard to beat. I believe all this came from me allowing her drives to not be inhibited any more and letting exstinction (ms) set in from my 2 over harsh corrections as a puppy. By stopping any training over the past 2 weeks and just playing with her she has become more and more turned on as the days pass. I am very glad to confirm that it was handler error and not genetic. Thank you all for your assistance in this matter.

Rick Davis