My little terrier Saana (1.5 years) had an awful reaction to lepto when she was about 12 weeks old. She developed terrible rash on her neck amongst other things. The rash is gone and most issues that resulted from this are being managed but I just don't know what to do with this growling thing. She is hairless (this is the only kind of dog my husband can have, I always add this info because we got some snarky remarks in the past about having hairless dogs).

This means that she needs clothes. She is fine putting them on, it's taking them off that is a problem. Every time she feels like the clothes are too tight (for her, anyways) around her head she growls when I am about to pull it over her head and right after it comes off she very lightly nips at whatever is right in front of her face. If she is really tired she won't do this and it is the worst when she is upset about something or excited like we just came from a walk.

This behavior also happens when we take her collar off. Now I have bought just about every kind of collar available on the market including harnesses etc. Upon advice from Willie T. I bought a martingale collar and I really like it. I marker trained putting it on following way:
Saana will touch the collar with her nose
Saana will allow me to touch her face with the collar
Saana will allow me to place the collar on her snout
Saana will allow me to place the collar up around her eyes
Saana will allow me to pull the collar over her head
Saana will allow me to put the collar on and off.

This took about a week and then I kept rewarding for another week. She seemed to be doing great so I stopped rewarding. After about two weeks she is back into growling. What did I do wrong? Stopped treating too early? Is it something else I am or am not doing?

Also how do I deal with the clothes? With coming fall and winter I cannot leave her without clothes. If it was summer I could gradually train this but not now.

Thanks for any ideas.

If the rewards were working, I'd go back to the rewards. Behaviors have to be enforced and reinforced for a pretty long time for them to become second nature. I would use the same process with the clothes and perhaps find a very, very high value treat that she only gets when putting on / off her collar and her clothes so that those events become especially special to her.

Barbara,
about how long? A moth, two, six? I just don't want to be in a place again where I think all is great and it's not. I don't mind doing things for a long time, in your experience how long do you think I should do this?

thanks so much for the reply!

I would keep up with inermittent rewards for this behavior forever. Why not? It works.

 Quote: Linda West

Barbara,
about how long? A moth, two, six? I just don't want to be in a place again where I think all is great and it's not. I don't mind doing things for a long time, in your experience how long do you think I should do this?

thanks so much for the reply!

There isn't going to be an exact date or length of time - every dog and every training objective is different. As Melissa said - keep it up as long as needed - but perhaps not every single day / every training session. Once you are comfortable that the concept is trained, skip a day of treats but then go back... Let her know that the reward is still there, but as she matures and gains more experience, the rewards can be stretched out a bit longer, etc...

Thanks so much! I will do that.