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Hello all, my name is Katelyn and I used to have an account on here a few years ago when I first adopted my border collie. I've found myself back on the forums as I have had even more free time lately than before.

 

I work at a humane society in Kansas and I adopted my dog, Ryleigh, from there in 2011. I was (and still pretty much am) the only person that she would bond with. The first two years of her life she was tied to a tree while her owner's other dogs would pick on her and steal her food. She was never properly socialized. Since adopting her, the changes in her personality have been monumental. I can now walk her on a leash - she even gets a little too excited and has a tendency to pull, whereas before she would plant herself and refuse to walk out of pure terror. She is friendly with my mom and will seek her out for attention. I can take her with me in the car to go hiking and swimming. She plays with stuffed animals, lays in the yard, and loves to play with the neighborhood cat.

 

The issues she does have though, are still something that we deal with every day. She showed no signs of anything other than being scared when I first brought her home, but I think she was just too scared to do anything but cower before. While she is completely herself with me, she has fear aggression toward strangers and other dogs. She snarls and barks at both on walks and when she is in the backyard. I do believe that if given the opportunity, she would bite out of fear. I know that she will never be completely without her quirks, but I am looking to correct the issues she's developed from her fears. I am going to be coached by the dog trainer that has helped at the humane society in June to see what she thinks I should do to work on the problems. I have also asked her to do some private sessions with Ryleigh and myself because I feel like she has finally come out of her shell enough to handle a trainer being in our home (even if she does spend the whole time hiding).

 

Who else has dogs with severe timidness and what small things do you suggest doing to help curb the problems in addition to training?

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Look up control unleashed the book. As well as on YouTube for videos. "Look at that" game can be great for reactive dogs on leash. Working in person with your trainer is the best though as they can see exactly what is going on with your dog and coach you and fine tune your skills.

 

I would also suggest searching on these forums using the search tool for these terms as well as reading up on keeping a dog under threshold during training (working with her on those exercises before she is at the point of barking, snarling, basically reacting negatively). It's hard to work their mind effectively when they are essentially freaking out mentally. :)

 

I wish you luck! She is lucky to have such a caring owner.

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I have attempted clicker training in the past, but she was always terrified of the clicker.

 

I have had that issue with a couple of rescue dogs. Try putting the clicker in a pocket when you click it or try a pen that 'clicks'. After a few positive reinforcement sessions, they generally begin to get used to the normal sound of a clicker. Also, some clickers are louder than others.

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Hi, I check in to this forum now and again as I have been dealing with a fear aggressive border collie for a year now. It is a lot of hard work and I feel like we still have so far to go but we have also come so far! Just today, I had him walking on a 50 foot lead around a park so he could make choices of where to go and feel "off leash" but we still had control. There were people around and he just stayed right with us, did what we said 100% of the time and never chose to focus on any of the people. When he was a puppy, he would run up to a person and bark and once he ran up and bit someone (that was our wake up call that we had a real problem on our hands!). What we have found that has been working is - 1) medication- he is on Prozac and Trazadone, the Trazadone has really helped! 2) Consistent behavioral therapy - we do all sorts of behavioral therapy including BAT, Look at that, Four steps to focus, parties/rewards when triggers come in view, etc. He has gone from a level 9 aggression to a level 6. We still struggle with dogs and people can't touch him or he would probably bite but we work on both of those every week and keep him under threshold in all situations. If you want to talk more, just pm me.

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