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pansmom

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Everything posted by pansmom

  1. Forgive me if this advice is too basic and you’ve already tried it, but can you carry a REALLY high value treat and offer it only when this sound comes? She may not take it at first, but over time an association between the ice cream truck and food might form which could lessen her anxiety. —Mary
  2. Thank you both! I will research Look at That. The situations that I’m talking about are usually when a stranger or another dog is near our property. I don’t mind the initial warning—that’s great actually. Even though we live in a city neighborhood, if he wants to be a guard dog, that’s cool with me. But the problem is, when I come and see what it is and tell him it’s fine, he still won’t stop. Ultimately I want him to take cues from my behavior: alert me to the potential problem, sure, but when I say it’s fine, believe me, don’t keep going on about it. I’m wondering now that I type this up if this isn’t a result of not enough socialization due to COVID. He is really confused about why we are social distancing I think. He’s pretty skittish around new people even when I throw them treats from six feet away to give to him. We got him March 1; he probably doesn’t remember much from before the pandemic.
  3. Does anyone have any advice about how to teach a BC not to bark? I’ve never had a very barky dog. Our 5 month old, Maldwyn, is getting quite vocal; he sounds like Scooby Doo. Do you just attach the word bark to the act and then add NO? Or is there some other better strategy?
  4. Vala lived about two years with congestive heart failure. At the end she was on Enalipril Enacard and Lasix fluorosomide (sp?), and she had a heart attack before we could get her on the vetmedin. Our terrier is on that now in addition to the Enalapril and Lasix and Spiradosone (sp?); he was given six months to live when we got him; he is now on month nine.
  5. Flora & Molly mentions some great basics, all of which I've taught my Maldwyn by 4 1/2 months! Other things I think are useful for teaching a pet BC puppy an off switch and to be calm in the house: - "Kennel up" (I use this term when feeding in kennel and then, when Maldwyn was misbehaving for attention or to amuse himself, ask him if he needs to "kennel up" and follow up with a few minutes of crate time with a toy to let him calm down--I've seen others use the term "time out," I'm sure that works too) - I don't remember what this is called, but basically catching the dog sleeping calmly on the floor and throwing a treat at him so he learns you get treats for calmly relaxing in the house. - Watching for behaviors you like (sit, down, relax, touch, etc), giving a name to them, and then teaching the dog to do the thing on command. It's been my experience that BCs as pups can learn vast vocabularies of words and that they enjoy learning words and figuring out what you want, keep it positive - Hide and seek game (teach the dog the names of toys, and then to stay, and then you can tell them to stay and go hide a toy in another room. Come back and ask the dog "where is _____(name of toy)?" It will take a sec to get it the first time, but if you help him look the first couple of times, they will pick up real quickly and then you can progress to harder and harder hiding spaces where the dog will literally spend 15 minutes methodically and obsessively looking for a toy you have hidden in the corner of the couch under a pillow. Just make sure you get SUPER excited when they find it. I flip out with joy and say "YOU FOUND ____________! OMG WHAT A GREAT DOG YOU'RE SO BRILLIANT [immediate hugs, pets, huge smile]" I find this game really helps to tire them out mentally, which is super useful in teaching them to be calm in the house -Stay calm and do not react if they get anxious or react to strange sounds. Eventually they will look at you and follow your lead, and you can basically teach them don't worry about that. BC pups can be very sound reactive or anxious, so it's important for their handler to be calm To give you an idea of the type of things they can do, by 4 1/2 months, Maldwyn can: - 100% recall off leash for a special whistle (taught by BIG treats and HIGH praise every time I use this whistle, and never using the whistle when I think he won't come the first 50 times because I needed him to understand that this is a special thing and a great thing whenever it happens--now when I use the whistle he stops whatever he's doing--it's a two note whistle, and on the first note he freezes and looks at me waiting for the second note and then comes running) - Hike offleash - do basic agility tasks like jump on things on command and even run an obstacle course putting his paws on various playground items at the park (a suspension bridge of little circular steps, go down the slide [????????? he taught himself that watching kids do it], etc.)
  6. Yayyyy! So relieved to hear this. Give that guy a hug from me! I want to thank you again for sharing your journey, because it inspired me to move all my meds from the counter to a really high shelf where I used to keep cookbooks. My Maldwyn is getting super tall and has stolen various items off the counter already (an apple from a bowl, a plastic straw, a napkin). It was only a matter of time before he could reach the basket of pills, and this guy likes to savage things and eat plastic, and we have psychiatric meds, antinflammatories, and god knows what else in that basket. It could've been horrible!
  7. Oh, I don't mind him being big at all, and I will love him no matter what for sure! I'm already completely smitten with him, and he with me. He's a really kind and beautiful dog--he walks like a jaguar with waggly hips--and he's whip smart and so eager to please. (During the past couple days he even seems to have finally grokked the idea of walking calmly on leash. I've been working with him on this since he was 2 months old, doing the whole stop and stand like a tree every time he pulled, but last week I taught him heel, and yesterday instead of getting overexcited and distracted when a leaf blows by and pulling, he proudly pranced at my side intermittently looking up at me as if to say, "See how good I'm being? I finally figured out what you want I'm so proud this is fun!") I love working with him, and we're very bonded. He's sleeping on my foot right now. I just wanted to know if 50 pounds is something that can happen with parents who are both about 35 pounds (I met them). It's good to hear about others' similar experiences, especially the 70 pound dog with 48 lb and 36 lb parents. He's just going to be a big guy!
  8. Thanks, everyone. Maldwyn is the best-behaved puppy I've ever met. He wants to please so bad and is sooo treat- and praise-motivated it's just so easy to train him. He doesn't chew on anything but toys and treats anymore in the house--granted, the floor is scattered with chew toys and bones at this point, because we had to buy a bunch of different textures to redirect him from eating the kitchen table, the coffee table, the throws on the couch, and our clothes--but he likes playing hide and seek with his toys, knows the names of his toys (Squeaker, Rope, Bottle, Squirrel, etc.), and his vocabulary is amazing for only 4 months (Are you hungry? Do you want to go for a ride in the car? Use the restroom outside? Upstairs, downstairs, off, out, sit, down, stay, shake, the list goes on). His recall is so solid after two months of practice at the local park that we went hiking today with him dragging a leash and he did perfectly fine, checking in visually with me every time he got about ten feet away from us and always coming to me when I whistled for him (I have a special super-serious recall whistle that always results in lots of praise and treats--it's the praise that matters to him most). He did lots of really fast running in circles at about a ten feet distance from us, like he was running an agility course over fallen trees and hills and the like, stopping and waiting for us to catch up before he ran off again. (We went to a really remote park to hike. We are in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan and there was no one around, so social distancing or worrying about him running into a road wasn't an issue.) He is getting HUGE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Does anyone else have any 50 lb+ male border collies? What were their weights at 18 weeks? That's what he is now and he's 27 pounds. He was 25 pounds at his 4 month vet check, and unless he's growing really early and is going to plateau, according to the growth charts, he's going to hit 50#. His birthday, according to the breeder, is supposed to be January 5. The breeder says pups from these two parents usually reach adult size by 9 months instead of one year, and she wouldn't expect him to be 50 pounds since both his parents were only 35 pounds. But here is a recent pic for size comparison. He's HUGE! The terrier I'm holding is 25 pounds. This was 2 weeks ago. My last BC, Vala, was 27 pounds full grown? Maldwyn is the same size at her and no way he's finished growing at only 4 1/2 months... And he's already taller?
  9. Thinking of Cody here this morning. Hope he is doing better! Please let us know.
  10. Oh my goodness, I am so sorry this happened! Wishing you and he the best. This is so scary. Keep us posted and sending good thoughts. I have a four-month-old BC pup (almost five!) and he is big too and already a counter surfer. I'm going to move all our pills to the top of the fridge or something so he can't get to them! We have tons!
  11. I'm not sure if anyone will remember me, as I haven't been on these boards in quite a while. My beloved border collie rescue, Vala, passed away this summer from congestive heart failure. She was somewhere between 12 and 15. It's hard to say how old she was, because when we originally got her, the vet could only estimate that she was between 3-5. We had her for ten years and she was an amazing dog and excellent big sister to my daughter who is now nine. I'm attaching the last picture I ever took of her on our very last walk together. The whole family was devastated when she passed, so my daughter and I started volunteering at the local animal shelter. We ended up fostering, then adopting a huge terrier mix named "Rizzo"--he looks like a Yorkie, but he's 25 pounds--who showed up there with congestive heart failure; since we had already dealt with it with Vala, we thought we could make sure he had a good end-of-life. He is still with us--six months in. Here's a pic of him. Rizzo is helping me raise the newest addition to our household, our 9-week-old border collie puppy, Maldwyn. I got Maldwyn from a breeder up here in Michigan, where we live now. His mom is a very calm and loving pet who comes from working lines, and his dad does agility. (I got to meet them and they were both amazing animals.) I love Rizzo to death--he's a great dog, terriers are such wonderful staunch little creatures, steady as you go--but I nearly cried tonight when Maldwyn came into the living room, bumped me with his nose, and went to lie down. This is the first time he's ever done that--and I'm thinking it's probably because we did a couple hours of training today, working on "sit" and "down" and crate training, as well as a bunch of housetraining stuff and walking on leash. But I remembered how Vala used to do that, and my first BC mix, Pan, when things were going well. I absolutely love the way this breed is so present with you. I have really missed that. I thought I would sign in and share this update, because I googled the nose bump to see if it was a breed-specific thing and the first hit that came up was a 10-year-old thread on these forums where I posted a comment talking about Vala and Pan doing the nose bump. It is so good to be working with a BC again. <3
  12. Glad to hear Bobby found a new home. I was coming here to say--and I'll post it in case anyone else needs the advice--that an easy fix for dogs that bite whenever you touch their collar or harness is that you hold a treat in your other hand and treat them immediately after they let you put the lead on. Putting on the lead immediately becomes a positive experience for all, and the pups quickly learn not to be reactive to it. Learned this trick from a veterinary behaviorist.
  13. Well-bred is key, or for a first border collie, maybe an older rescue (3-4 years) with lower drive. This is why I say well-bred is key: I had a poorly wired BC-lab cross puppy who needed 2-3 hours of training and behavior modification and a 6.5 mile bike ride daily... and it still didn't really help with her anxiety and aggression and energy, poor thing. Super high energy dog. She was really really smart, but we couldn't teach her to relax in the house, she was sound reactive and bouncing off the walls and fear aggressive. She also barked at everything and wouldn't stop. But she was an "accident"; her dam had gotten out of her house and mated with a mystery dog, and I certainly didn't go to a working breeder like everyone recommends here (hindsight is 20/20--if I ever get another puppy, that is what I will do--I was not very educated back then about dogs). So I would say, if you are really good at finding well-bred working dogs and can pick puppy temperaments or can go to a highly recommended ABCA working breeder who can match you up with the right pup, then go for it, and explain how much exercise you can give up top and they'll help you out. (People probably can give really great recommendations for working breeders here.) But there are also tons of sweet-as-can-be older BCs in rescue who have proven stable temperaments and need homes. I now have a 3-5 year old BC rescue, whose sweet and more calm personality was already set in stone when I got her (puppies change so much as I'm sure you know!) Vala (picture below) only requires an hour of exercise in the morning (urban agility and obedience on the walk to a field where she goes off leash, chases squirrels with permission, and does directed running). In the evening we usually do about fifteen minutes of tricks and backyard agility for fun, as well as some mental games like hide and seek. Every night before bed she gets a reduced fat peanut butter stuffed kong. In the house, she has several corners that she likes to lie in, as well as the bed and under my feet, and that is her default behavior--she just relaxes indoors (you can help this along by treating a newly rescued dog randomly when they relax in your house--they learn, ooh treats fall from the sky when I'm relaxed, this place is awesome and I'mma do that more often!). Vala seems very content with this life, she is very attached, has never tried to run away, and always wants to go back indoors when it's time--in other words, she's not bored. But she's smart, she loves kids, loves people, loves walks, trains super easy, and is so eager to please it breaks my heart. Except for a bit of mild thunderphobia, she is a dream dog! Everybody loves her. She's an easy dog and a sweetheart.
  14. Here is an example of how to work with reactivity when the dog is under threshold (don't know what the technical term for this is, but it's what my veterinary behaviorist told me to do). It's very simple and not hard. Pan had sound reactivity. Anytime she heard a new sound she hadn't heard before (once it was the sound of a paper clip dropping on the counter, so it could literally be a pin dropping), she got excited. She'd bark like crazy and go over threshold, barking. The sound reactivity seemed to be separate from her fear aggression--she wasn't showing fear signs, at the sign of these new sounds, she was just reacting to the new sound, going on alert and barking over and over. However, if I taught her through desensitization that that particular specific sound was good--as in, two reps of the new sound, for example, dropping a paper clip on the counter, but followed immediately by throwing her a treat--she would immediately stop the reactive display and simply wait for the treat. For that sound, from then on, she would be cured. My current dog Vala had some mild sound reactivity, and some reactivity to me moving my arms around or dancing in the house or singing. Even watching TV at first made her run away and hide. Anytime I made a weird sound or danced or moved quickly, she went on alert and ran to me and started barking like can I help? What can I do? What's going on? Yahhh!!! (She's a nervous sweetheart.) I worked through all that with her by ignoring the alert behavior, telling her "no" if she got in my space, and only responding to her when she went calm. And also praising her to high heaven when she was calm when I did these things. She got used to these triggers pretty quickly. Now she lays down and stares at me like are you crazy if I dance in the house. Or sometimes she'll happily dance with me. Depends on her mood. But she doesn't bark or seem nervous anymore. More on the difference between reactivity and fear aggression: my experience has been that reactivity is relatively easy to work through with desensitization and ignoring. My experience has been that fear aggression is much, much harder. Pan's fear aggression, in the end, I couldn't work through, because she went so over threshold it was insane. With the sound reactivity, let's say she was like a 6, where a 5 is threshold. Her fear aggression was like an 11 on a scale of 1-10. She turned into Kujo, would wet herself at the same time as lunging at your face or hands to bite you (and she could jump really high and was like 50 pounds). She did not have good bite inhibition and would bite us, her owners, breaking skin, when in this state. In the end, that is why we made the heartbreaking and very difficult decision to put her down (mostly because we knew we wanted kids and although I knew I could spend 3 hours a day for the next two years and probably make her behavior manageable to live in a house with two adults, I did not think I could ever help her to the point where I could safely keep her in a house with kids, and she was scared to death being outside, so I couldn't help her, and couldn't rehome her--because she had bitten us so many times). This is why I say the labels are so different, and so useful. I would never adopt another fear aggressive dog (sorry, but my heart has already been broken once). But I happily adopted a dog I knew was reactive, because I saw how respectful and sweet she was to all the people she met and how much she loved them, and because I saw what she did when she was scared--ran away and hid. A reactive dog that hides is easy to manage, so there's not a name for that. A reactive dog that turns aggressive--there's a name for that, "fear aggression," because it's pathological and possibly even dangerous (esp. if the dog has low bite inhibition and is large and has no compunction about showing aggression toward humans). This is not to say that all dogs with fear aggression need to be PTS! On the contrary the reason I tried for eight months with the help of trainers and then a behaviorist to save Pan is I had heard many wonderful success stories of people (many of them here) who had learned to manage their dog's behavior. I think, in the end though, that Pan was a very severe case. But she doesn't make me wary of all "reactive" dogs at all. I actually don't mind at all working with reactive dogs of the non-fear-aggressive variety because it's easy and rewarding.
  15. Mr. McCaig, I am curious. I would guess based on what I know of your background -- and please do correct me if I'm wrong, I'll admit I haven't had the time to read your work yet, unfortunately -- but it seems to me that in your dealings with (mostly? all?) well-bred working border collies, you might have come across less "reactive" dogs than people in the rescue world or pet world do (where we don't know a dog's lineage, and dogs may have really screwy genes from having some or both parents conformation-selected, so are thus less likely to have sound temperaments). Again, I apologize that I haven't read your work, so I don't know how much you may have worked with "problem" BCs, if at all. Shoot, I'd be willing to hazard a guess that even genetically flawed BCs that work are less likely to become problems because they get to be in the zone, doing what they were bred to do, for much of the day! But still, would you say that as a working border collie handler, it could be possible that, although you don't have need of the label "reactive" yourself, interacting with dogs in the way you do -- which must be drastically different from the way someone like me does, with an active but primarily companion type home -- the label could be useful to others who have BCs as companions? Coming from my perspective, because these words help me understand how to treat a very intelligent and sensitive dog who lives as a companion in my home, I believe "fear aggressive" and "reactive" are useful labels each. So what I'm asking is, would you agree that although the label of "reactive" seems only "vague to meaningless" to you, it might be more meaningful to others who offer the dogs a drastically different role? And if not, I'm very interested to what extent you have dealt with behavioral problems, if any, in working dogs, and whether you attribute that to breeding or handling! And if a combination of both or primarily handling, I'd love to hear an anecdote or two about how you handled it! Thanks!
  16. Vala exaggerates her feelings for others' benefits too. Strangers walking by she wants to pet her (going into this almost invincible cute puppy routine that will even stop serious joggers)--but when she is allowed to go up to the people, like Odin, she's COMPLETELY CONTROLLED, sitting calmly... You should've seen her the other day with the neighbor's three year old toddler in the park, she was so sweet and gentle, first with her head down to show she just wanted love, and then when the girl opened up, staring romantically into the little girl's eyes and getting pet, checking back in with me with eye contact every five seconds for encouragement (this girl had a puppy dog stuffed animal with her at the park and clearly loved dogs, and Vala loves children so much!). When we got her she was extremely expressive about her fears too (esp. in the beginning when she wanted to be comforted, she would shake or make this really sad scared whimpering sound, which was so heartbreaking I simply had to swoop in and pick her up to save her from whatever situation--usually if she was scared of another animal--this was when she was feeling really sick). And of course she is super expressive when I ask her if she wants to go out, she will dance in circles and telegraph euphoria in no uncertain terms! I love that dance. She's learned not to jump on me during it, and she'll stop if I ask her "what do we do?" and sit calmly to get her leash on, so what do I care if she does a jig when she realizes we're going for a walk? The interesting thing about her (and my last BC mix) is they not only radiate emotion, but also pick it up. For a while there we were having trouble getting Vala to kennel up at night because she didn't want to go and was communicating that by going to other places she'd prefer to sleep instead (like in the bathroom or on the bed) but then about a week ago I started making a conscious effort to tell her to kennel up in a super happy tone and it was startlingly effective, wish I'd remembered this tactic sooner--immediately she started doing exactly what I asked, prancing happily to her kennel, like since I was saying it so happy kenneling up must be fun! I really love how tuned in to our emotions, and expressive, she is. She's so happy most of the time, it makes for a lot of smiles.
  17. Flyer, that is so interesting! Thanks for the tip! Any idea where you read it? We'd like to read the article... But it seems on the mark. She does seem better since she started hiding in the bathroom (basically, yes, pressed up against the tub).
  18. The board-certified veterinary behaviorist who worked with my last dog (who had fear aggression, sound reactivity, territorial aggression, misdirected aggression, and resource guarding to humans) quoted articles in veterinary and veterinary behavior journals that say 95% of "aggressive" dogs are actually "fear aggressive," which is a particular type of "reactive." Only 5% of aggressive dogs are actually "dominant aggressive" which is the problem that most people try to treat when dealing with an aggressive dog (the treatment for which can actually make fear aggression much worse). That being said, the reverse doesn't necessarily apply (just because most aggressive dogs are actually exhibiting a form of reactivity, doesn't mean most reactive dogs are aggressive). I honestly doubt most reactive dogs are fear aggressive (thank goodness)! My BC, Vala, I would characterize as "reactive" because she fears thudding noises and thunder noises, and had several silly phobias and reactivity to other noises when I got her, including an inexplicable and very sad fear of frisbees. But apart from the thunderphobia, she has responded really well to desensitization, partially because she is quick to learn, very trusting, and EXTREMELY eager to please. And her reactivity basically just involves getting to a safe spot like her kennel or the bathroom corner (at first she ran, pell mell, but over time as she came to feel safer in our home she has come only to just sort of calmly trot into the bathroom at the sound of thunder; where she used to shake and slobber, now she only just lays still and waits it out). I think simply "reactive" dogs are much easier to help work through their issues than "fear aggressive" dogs (esp. fear aggressive dogs that are fear aggressive toward humans or worse yet their owners). The way I see it, "fear aggression" is so much worse a behavior problem than run-of-the-mill "reactivity" that I think it would be very misleading to call a "fear aggressive" dog simply "reactive."
  19. I would guess Lab/BC too, after the six-month pictures. That's exactly what I was thinking!
  20. Glad Mel is opening up, but I second the above, and I don't think it's really very compassionate to let Sam work the cats either. Vala has the instinct to do a similar thing for me but I don't let her, after folks here reminded me of what I'm about to remind you. Imagine how the cats feel in that situation. Imagine how Mel feels. It is your job to interact with the cats or Mel, and to do it positively and without scaring the other creature(s). Even if Sam is being nice, you're using him as an intermediary and enhancing his status while detracting from theirs and possibly scaring them. He's barking, stiffening up, etc. That is not very nice to the cats or Mel. Cats and Mel are not stock. Also please do take Mel to the vet to see if she's pregnant! She sounds like I feel...
  21. The parallel walking I've done and seen done is yes about 3 feet apart. If you do it every day for twenty minutes for a week (or maybe even the whole time Tilly is there) maybe they will come to trust each other better. It seems important to have them doing organized activities together at first, closely watched, and sharing things, so maybe they can learn neither is a threat. But this sort of thing does take a couple months from what I understand, to get dogs truly used to one another. And of course, if Bess went ballistic at Tilly's crate, I wouldn't be surprised that Tilly growled! Poor Tilly's world has been disordered and new for a long time now!
  22. Has Tilly had a full vet workup? Maybe she isn't feeling well - maybe it's more than a pinched nerve or maybe the nerve is still causing her pain - hence the personality change. Maybe she is stressed around other dogs. Vala used to be VERY nervous around other dogs when she felt really sick; she would even snark a little if they got too close, because she was scared and wasn't feeling well and knew she couldn't protect herself. But now she is much calmer around other dogs though she still prefers human interaction.
  23. Yeah maybe what ItsaDogsLyfe said above first, then the treating - but yes, even when Vala is really nervous she will still eat a bit of smelly salmon for example. Thank you! Yes Vala is looking and feeling very well these days! And she is getting less and less timid all the time - though still polite of course (erm, for the most part). She is even learning the names of her toys and doing minor tricks and enjoying helping around the house. Very exciting, for a dog who never lived inside before or learned very many verbal commands... Here are larger version of the photos, which my husband took - not to hijack, sorry - but Mel does remind me of Vala a great deal (similar issues, background) so you can probably look forward to this sort of fur health and gorgeousness in short order! Although Mel is looking pretty great and settling in quickly already! I think you are doing the absolute right thing by not pressuring her and indulging her and taking it slow! Forgive the stare in the second picture - she used to be VERY afraid of the camera, because she is thunderphobic and it flashes, and she has figured out it's not a threat now (no more shaking or running) - but she still alerts at the sound of the camera zoom. Incidentally, the way she got over her fear of the camera is a few weeks ago she watched DH take pictures of me from the next room, coming in to see what was going on and watching out of curiosity... We ignored her though we both saw it, and now she seems to have picked up that there is nothing terribly alarming about cameras. So there really is something to ItsaDogsLyfe's advice! OH AND ETA: Regarding the fear of the leash. Try grabbing the leash without coat first and treating. And then putting it back up and doing nothing. And then again, slowly building on the action, treating intermittently, breaking the action of grabbing leash and coat and putting leash on her into TINY TINY component parts, treating intermittently all the while, until you have the leash on her and she is excited. Then treat and take leash off. And then slowly build toward the door, in and outside, the garden first... just basically in very small 5-10 minute sessions a couple times a day you may be able to take the edge off the fear. If at any time she does the submissive urination or freezes up, stop the exercise and next time go back to a place where you know she won't freak out where she is happy and relaxed. It's been my experience that desensitization can work wonders with shaping behaviors and reassociating the positive with previously perceived negative patterns.
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