Help with Second fear phase

[Emmy985837]

Many of you have great training knowledge, and your info on another thread(by another poster) helped us get over Abbey's mealtime barking, so I have great hope that you can help us with this.

So Abbey will be 8 months tomorrow and has appeared to have entered the second fear phase. About 2 weeks ago we were on one of are normal walking routes and on the way home she panicked and practically dragged me the rest of the way home. I am not sure what initiated her panic, we were walking on a busy street with lots of cars and noise, but we do this walk about every other week, (we go through a lot of training treats). Since this happened I have started to walk her on quiet streets and we always take the same route, but any noise that might occur can and has caused fear. Each day we are able to walk farther before her fear sets in, but it still occurs. On the first few walks the fear set in after about 5 min, now it sets in after about 15 min.

We are trying to focus on training on these walks with sits, downs, find the food on the ground game, a name game, and loose leash walking. But once the fear sets in I can not even get her to respond to her name. She is like a bucking bronco/sled dog with me as her sled. She gets an almost glazed over look in her eyes and can not focus on anything but getting away fast and far.

Some of the things I am trying are: I have started to walk with a friend and her dog which seems to help, but she still gets fearful but not as strongly. We don't go right home once the fear sets in, but she does not seem to be able to get completely over it she is more on alert and things we have already walked past at the beginning of the walk scare/startle her at the end of the walk. I try not to use a coddling voice, give her treats or praise her unless she does a command I ask for.

If I should change, add or modify what we are doing I look forward to all your advise.

 

[blaue_augen]

Suki is only a few days older than Abbey, and she is our first puppy, so I am no expert. But when I talked with out trainer about things Suki fears, her advice if Suki is afraid of something that I KNOW is safe, then just force her to get through it. Suki was afraid of the big alcoved doorways at school. I knew they were OK, so I just kept forcing her to walk up to them and sniff around in the alcove. Now she is fine with it. But the trainer said if she is afraid of something and I'm not sure it's safe (like walking through the woods and there could be a snake hidden that I can't see), then it's OK for me to trust Suki and turn and go back the other way. She did say not to coddle her to get her through her fear, just be matter of fact. If I'm telling her "good dog" and petting her and trying to soothe her while she is afraid, what I'm really saying is "Good dog for being afraid of the alcoves at school."

I don't know really what to say about your walks were she is fearing something and you can't tell what it is and then she power walks you back home though. It would be easier, I think, if you knew what was frightening her. But I'm sure someone else will have some great advice for you.

PS I like your avatar picture! You pups are so cute.

 

[ElvisTheNewf]

We've struggled a lot with Elvis and his confidence. We didn't know about this second fear thing, so sometimes I wonder if we caught it early enough if we could have helped him better. We used a combination of intense training (and refresher courses) and immersion therapy. He spent a week living with his trainer to get some intense one-on-one refresher time by someone who won't baby him - I can't resist his face and would give in too easily.

His number 1 fear in the entire world was motorcycles, but he would also jump at any loud noise. If a car door slammed, he jumped. If I sneezed, he jumped. If my husband set the remote down too hard, he jumped. We felt terrible he was becoming so skittish. It wasn't fun for anyone.

During the week he was with his trainer, he actually went to a motorcycle garage. He started by looking at them from the car, then at a parked one, then sniffing a parked one, ect.

After the week of training (and 3 more sessions for US to learn how to react) he was doing so much better. I had to learn not to react or start to stress - I had a bad habit of tensing up when I heard a motorcycle - and how to power him through it.

For Elvis, the best thing was a long, firm, reassuring stroke down the length of his body. Some how, that worked better then just petting his head. Then we kept on going.

He still has his moments, but is so much better than he used to be. I should mention that he's almost 4, but most of this happened when he was 2.

Good luck!!

 

[Bucephalus]

After the week of training (and 3 more sessions for US to learn how to react) he was doing so much better. I had to learn not to react or start to stress - I had a bad habit of tensing up when I heard a motorcycle - and how to power him through it.

This. When we first started working with Bo, I had to learn BIG TIME to monitor my body language. Dogs will react strongly to our cues. Is it possible that you're tensing up, even if you don't know what she's afraid of, and this causes her to be more afraid? Or maybe you're anticipating that she'll be afraid? When Bo gets nervous now, we just keep walking, confidently, back straight, face forward, as if nothing is the matter and he'll follow along. It's easy to want to reassure, but that only encourages her to think it's okay to be fearful. If he balks or turns into a bucking bronco, we bend down and say, "Let's go!" in a really cheerful, high-pitched voice, with lots of "Good boys!" as soon as he settles down and moves his butt of the ground. Don't know if this will help, but worth a try

 

[2ndchance]

Hi I am sorry I am kind of weaving my way back here since joining years ago and there are some I am not familiar with. How old is the dog that has the fear? Also do you notice any difference when you walk on different footage, such as green grass vs black asphalt, white tiles vs black tiles etc?

also what type of collar or harness are you using?

 

[Emmy985837]

Thanks everyone for the tips. will have to pay more attention to the sounds that really seem to set her off initially. But to me their seems to be no consistency in the sounds one day it was people talking in their front yard, or car door shutting, leaf blower.

2ndchance:
Abbey turned 8 months today, and this started about 2 weeks ago. The initial incident started in the middle of a cross walk on a busy street on a normal route we take. Now I am walking her on sidewalks on quieter streets to me it seems to be sound related vs surface we are on because sometime she wanders onto brick or grass in front of other homes.

 

[mrsnamsherf]

Is she nervous the whole time? Or is she completely at ease and relaxed and then totally freaks out? It would be helpful to know if she is nervous to begin with and something pushes her past the point of no return, or if it is just a random spaz. You might watch and see if she is super-alert, always looking around, startling easily, very distractable.

When she does become frightened, is it possible for you to move away 10 feet or so, stand still, and wait for her to relax, then move on back past the scary spot? Dispensing treats the whole way. Be sure you have something REALLY good, that she loves, for this part.

I know very little about dogs in heat, but could she be in season, or approaching her first heat?

There is an excellent video, called Control Unleashed, where the instructor explains how to work with your dog at home to give her skills for handling a stressful environment away from home. She does a wonderful job, and her techniques are very positive. I rented the video from the library and was very impressed.

Marie

 

[R Taft]

There can always also be medical reasons.....if there is not, it could even be that she might soon be in season.......Clicker training might also help.......Katy also had a little fear period, but because we have made clicker training so positive for her, it was easy for her to to re-gain her confidence quickly. I now often find Katy look at me when she finds something scary, just like Annabelle does when she is loosing her confidence....When they look at me I click ( or "yessss") and treat ( can be happy dance and petting), or I click and do some training that she is really good at to get her attention on me. I also do the really happy silly thing, in a stressful environment. We play and distract....it is often the handlers behaviour that is also part of it. you expect problems and tense up....that is why we do the singing and being silly. It works so well on a lot of dogs.....get rid of the tension, make it fun. they all go through it and if you keep it light, they will get over it.
You do need to be able to walk your dog, without the pulling....Sometimes you may need some equipment to help you. I use the front attach harness when I have handlers/students that have pulling dogs. Some people use halties. But I like to teach loose lead walking with the clicker, which I find works fine, but it really requires hands on teaching. There are just hundreds of books on it...Even some great E-books on Dogwise

http://www.dogwise.com/ebookhome.cfm?AffiliateID=45001&Method=1