Quote: david eagle

Oh, ONE more thing. On Friday of last week I began working on pack structure (again), which means she went from spending a good deal of time out in the house with us (tethered) to spending the majority of her time crated (with grooming, 2 walks, potty time, and a very little free time).

Is there any particular reason why you went from a lot of time out of the crate to a majority of time in the crate? If her confidence level was rising due to time out of the crate which means lots of interaction with the family, then making her spend too much time in the crate may cause a regression.

I understand from your previous posts that she was a bit wild and just basically lacking in house manners, but that "wildness" may have surfaced because she hadn't been free to romp and play before you got her. So I think the wildness she was displaying was confidence building for her. She was beginning to feel her oats. You want that.

Spending the majority of time in a crate is unfair to a dog, IMO. A crate can be a homey den or it can be a jail. What she needs is more interaction with the family and more exercise. Exercise will help to eliminate some of that fear energy as well. Exercise is freedom for the body and for the mind.

Sandy - You bring up a very interesting point, at least for me :-) When Gus was Macy's age, he was also very wild and had bad house manners, which my husband and I did everything we could to get under control through pack structure exercises, including leashing him in the house which was pointless because he would just chew through the leash! So we started increasing his time in the crate as part of working on pack structure. I realize now that this might have been a mistake that erroded his confidence, but we needed to save our sanity, and didn't know any better.

So David, since we've apparently done similar things in regard to pack structure and increased crate time with our pups at similar ages, and our dogs seemed to have a similar puppy temperment (from what little I've read of Macy!) then I think it's very likely (in my very humble opinion) that she's starting to develop what Gus is going through now -- uncertain how to act in new situations, signs of fear, erroded confidence, etc, because we didn't know at the time that the wildness and free-romping were a part of his confidence-building!

(BTW, I don't rememeber reading about this aspect of a certain degree of wildness being related to confidence-building on the Leerburg site... the strongest impression I always got was you must control your dog's environment and show him who's boss, and lots of time in the crate was part of doing that! This might be a novice mistake that shows my ignorence, but nonetheless it's a critical piece of information that should be pointed out so that other novices don't make the same mistake I did!)

Hopefully, Mike Schoonbrood will reply. Besides his other talents, he has a good handle on working dog puppies. If you see this thread, Mike, see my previous post and if you agree or not. Of course, also the original post.

 Quote: sandy moore

I understand from your previous posts that she was a bit wild and just basically lacking in house manners, but that "wildness" may have surfaced because she hadn't been free to romp and play before you got her. So I think the wildness she was displaying was confidence building for her. She was beginning to feel her oats. You want that.

Spending the majority of time in a crate is unfair to a dog, IMO. A crate can be a homey den or it can be a jail. What she needs is more interaction with the family and more exercise. Exercise will help to eliminate some of that fear energy as well. Exercise is freedom for the body and for the mind.

It wasn't wildness that lead to the crate thing, she's ok in the house and I don't mind wildness in the backyard, it was the fact that she started barking aggressively while in the crate, and that she decided to have my finger for dinner that lead to the structure work. She does get a two long walks daily, but you bring up some good points. The explosive exercise of our Drive and Focus work has been all but abandoned for the last few days. Maybe re-integrating that would be helpful.

 Quote: jennifer marshal

I think she is probably very pack oriented from being left with her littermates. Doggy, which made her bond to you and her trust in you slower to develop.

Yeah, I had the exact same thought.

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Her confidence at this point may be limited to when you are with her. You may need more time to build a stronger bond before implementing the pack structure back into your routine - if she had a decent but still not totally solid bond and trust with you, and then is suddenly being seperated from her pack, her confidence could take a big hit if she feels like she is all alone in defense of herself.

That's a good point.

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I would go back to bonding and OB/confidence building and gradually ease her into greater amounts of time crated. Duke is 8 months now, I got him at a bit over 12 weeks, and I have yet to strictly enforce pack structure the way I normally would (as you described above). Because of his rough start I am waiting until he is more mature, and then it will be gradual as he is very pack oriented. When the trusty leader is suddenly not around as much, a pup whose self confidence isn't up to par in the first play may feel it has to rely on it's own guns when it thinks the poo hits the fan.

I'll certainly consider that. It's definitely a good point.

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I would say that it was more than likely the doors that caused the snowball to start rolling down the hill - which I have encountered a lot. Those sliding doors are something else. I can see how she would be avoiding doorways/entrances, and would not want to get out of the car.

As a suggestion, the next time you start to see the nerves kick in, instead of trying to continue, just stop, ask for her attention/redirect, once she redirects her attention to you, then you can back away from the doors/trigger, do a bit of confidence building OB with over enthusiastic praise/reward, and then continue on. Break the cycle when you first notice it, before trying to continue on and having to face the escalated levels of nervous/fearful/flight response. It goes really really quick sometimes, which you of course have now witnessed.

Snowball! Word of the day! I agree. She was leery to begin with, but the freaking out didn't really begin until the doors opened. It was all down hill from there. 20/20 hindsight, huh?

The challenge for me is that, generally when she freaks out I give her the "Silly puppy" treatment and keep moving. Within a few steps she's back to her old self. But I can see now that entering a high-stress situation directly after freaking out needs to be handled a lot differently than, for instance, continuing down a quiet residential street after being surprised by a trash truck.

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Just my 2 cents. I wouldn't give up on her working potential, though. As an example, I have zero intentions to attempt to turn Duke into an actual PPD, and when I first got him he would hit the floor like a tone of bricks, roll onto his back yelping, and urinate all over himself when any stranger, let alone an imposing one, would even so much as look at him.

The other night walking down to the elementary school he stopped mid walk - I thought he had planted, so I stopped and turned to look at him and he was standing big and tall with head held high, ears up, and staring down a group of suspicious looking guys that had emerged from a driveway across the street. He let out a gruff warning bark, growled, took a step towards them, and despite my glee at his confidence, I redirected/praised, and continued the walk.

A month ago I never would have thought him capable of anything but at best, a lowering of the head and a nervous glance to those guys. I guess his gonads are coming in handy :laugh:

Don't loose hope just yet, it doesn't sound, to me, like she is weak nerved in general - just lacking experience/exposure.

Nice to hear. I'm hoping that'll happen. Her breeder has a program that takes pups who aren't hard enough to work and trains them for Assistance...But I'd like to be able to work with her, I am fond of her.

Sounds like a proper reason, David. But I agree with you, play time is important to add into the routine in addition to walks. Play time and walk time are too different things for a dog, different physical activities and energies going on there.

If you don't feel comfortable yet (due to her display of aggression) in doing drive building with a tug in your hands, chasing a ball is a great outlet. Also don't forget doing obedience with her and teaching her new things since it's mentally stimulating. (You didn't mention that you were still doing OB, so just in case, I'm adding that thought.)

I'm kinda new here, don't know how well this lines up with training a dog for PPD, but I have an under-socialized rescued NGA greyhound. Afraid of everything when I first brought him home.

I've done two things with him:

1) When we enounter something scary, I put him in heel, take a few steps towards the object, reward heavily, and heel in retreat. Repeat. Gradually (often over multiple sessions) you can decrease the distance, and walk right up to the scary object, reward and retreat.
2) I taught him the command "smell it", and have him smell objects he is shy of but will go near.

This has been teaching him that unusual things should be investigated, not run from, and as long as he's doing as I say, the unusual thing won't hurt him. He is making progress, and now will actually put his ears up and step towards strange sounds before I order him to. (Still has issues with loud motorcycles, and children. He has an established pattern of not liking them, and we don't have them available at scheduled times to plan work.)

Sandy: You're right, we have basically halted OB. And you're right, Ob IS good...I guess it's a matter of finding that balance between doing the amount of pack structure work that effectively communicates to the dog, and also not isolating the dog to its detriment.

Liz: GREAT posts. Thanks! Per your and Jennifer's suggestions I'm going to start working more Ob and getting her focused on me more during unsure times.

 Quote: David Eagle

I guess it's a matter of finding that balance between doing the amount of pack structure work that effectively communicates to the dog, and also not isolating the dog to its detriment.

Absolutely right! (Ask me how I know )

Beautifully, wisely, and simply put, David!

From my understanding, all pups go through progression/regression stages. I don't think it's anything to worry about yet.

When we had similar episodes with Teagan, I got her to the point where she started to become anxious. I then put her in a 'sit' and did the basic 'watch me', ably assisted by pieces of hotdog. I then progressed this to walking up and down with her at that distance, using the 'sit' and 'watch' regularly.

Then gradually got closer, rewarding with hotdog (or other fave treat) when she was calm. Took a few sessions, but it worked. I still use this method occasionally.

Remember, not too much at once, as she's still a pup.

HTH
Rob