Angst and excitement- a recap
Amika at 6 weeks old
Those who have followed the blog may recall that I started with an over-excitable puppy, graduated to an out of control teen-wolf and had a horrific conditioned emotional response (CER) stitched on by an incompetent dog trainer. And all before Amika was 1 1/2 years old. Falling in a hole for a year included, it has taken me until the beginning of this year at just over 3 years old to get back to “excitable” again.
I’ve had a tremendous amount of help and encouragement from the online reactive dog communities. I’ve also learnt a ton from some great books on the subject. And I have practised. The things that helped the most in the past year are a) joining the class so I have a regular ‘controlled dog’ practice session each week b) Chinese herbs and c) restored personal confidence and persistence.
In Feb. I went on holiday and had to leave Amika in kennels. Very not-good, but I could find no other workable option (cancelling holiday not an option!) I went to a local holistic vet who put Amika on “Xiao Yao San” and some other herbal formulas to help in general and with kennelling. We also switched foods for more ‘cooling’ ones. I remember the vet saying “Xiao Yao San” had “sedating” properties. Yeah, it sure did initially! It almost seemed to depress her. So I’m not sure if it helped or hindered the trauma of the kennels.
The day I got back and picked up my (now emaciated and reluctant-to-eat) girl, I decided to “just do it”. The next day we started short suburban walks again after a hiatus of over a year. Lots of management and distraction got us through. As she came out of the stupor of whatever the kennels had done (gradual over two weeks) the walk routine was already in place. I figured if she was already as flooded as she could be, I may as well push past it. She was still on her Chinese ‘drugs’ through this time, and I noticed that before we went away there was a diminished intensity to her reactions to things and general excitability.
Amika having a snooze
I stopped putting herbs in Amika’s food at the beginning of April. They seemed not to be doing much and she was doing lots better. It seems like the herbs showed her how to be relaxed, and once she got that they weren’t needed. Classes were going well, and tracking was starting. With these and walks and runs at the park, she seemed more at ease with the world. I kept noticing and keep noticing the lack of desperation and anxiety in her reactive outbursts. We even went to a sheep herding trial, and she did good!
My next target is to get her more comfortable working with other dogs around. She’s showing good signs of this already (more in next post). What I dearly wanted from her last year was proximity to other dogs, and it just wasn’t working. Now that I have been trained, and her focus has improved, I can start bringing that in as part of our work. It will start as brief trips into class followed by ‘switching off’ further out. Duration, it must be remembered, is an additional criterion!
