We have a "Shy Dog" any advice?

[Charlie Mopps]

(moving this from another thread)

 

Background

My wife and I have wanted a border collie for a very long time. And recently we started looking for one. We tried rescue places first, but had bad experiences with most. But we finally found a breeder that was very nice and had 1 puppy left from her last litter. His name is Patrick.

 

Now, right away, you're thinking "Why only 1 puppy?" and we were to... Well, the breeder bread working dogs and trained them. She also has classes in her area where she trains other peoples dogs, that sort of thing. Patrick was 6 months old and had NO interest in sheep at all. He's a typical "Shy Dog" in that, he wants to be in his parents laps more than anything and is not at all interested in herding, jumping through hoops, or anything else that your typical working dog would want to do. So she was looking for a "family home" for him. Which was perfect for us.

 

Patrick has turned out great. He's a "Mellow" dog (well, at least compared to other BCs) He's 9 months now and VERY well behaved. He goes right into his crate when asked. He plays with Tennis Balls and Frisbees in the back yard... by himself. He doesn't get the whole "bring them back" thing yet. He has chewing issues, but as long as we keep well stocked with Pigears he's fine.

 

My wife walks him for an hour a day. I play vigorously with him in the backyard for about 30min a day (he's on a full tilt run most of the time) and he also plays on his own outside quite a bit.

 

The Question

The only problem is the thing that makes Patrick unique. He IS shy. When new people come into the house, he is ears down, tail tucked away. We have them feed him treats and he warms up a little. If there are a lot of people in the house (thanksgiving) he has no idea what to do.

When we take him to the dog park he LOVES it. Running without a leash, sniffing all the dogs. But he sometimes jumps and trys to bite their necks. I believe this is related to his insecurity. He wants to put them down on the ground. Especially the little dogs.

We are specifically worried about children. He is afraid of them, despite being around them regularly. They just approach him in a very bad manner, usually yelling and sometime "Hitting" him (they think they are petting) he has tried to nip at them several times. It's only defensive, but its not acceptable.

 

We just started an obedience class, but my wife picked out one at Petsmart. And it is terrible. They don't have a clue what they are doing. With all the barking dogs and noise, we could barely hear anything and poor patrick was scared and growling. Whenever another dog trys to sniff my wife he gets very possessive.

 

Does anyone have any tips for us?

 

Thanks!

[Lora]

Oppsss....I put my response to you under training.....and now I don't know how to move that...so it is still stuck over there. Sorry.....

 

L

[haleigh]

Skip PetSmart. They are crap. They have no clue what they are doing. Pick a training class that is ONLY positive reinforcement. NO corrections at ALL. If they say you are required to bring a prong or choke chain, hightail it. You can't risk it with this dog.

 

I train my dog with the Third Way. My mom has trained with the founder of this training method, and a master trainer. Ma used to work at Call of the Wild...if you live near chicago, I greatly recommend you going there. Third way training combined with some corrections (which I shouldn't be doing...shame on me) has helped Joy blossom into a fantastic, well rounded dog. With the exception of her crippling fear of vacuums. And inability to think straight when there is a tunnel around but that's typical agility junkie behavior Clicker training works well to.

 

Start teaching a good release/drop it/give. Once he will drop anything, start playing tuggy. People will tell you this builds up dominant/aggressive behaviors. This isn't true. As long as YOU are in control of the game, nothing will happen. Play tuggy for a while, then tell the release cue. If he doesn't spit it out like fire, game is over and you can't play anymore for 10 minutes. This timeout is telling him it's NOT ok not to give the toy up. Same if he nips or bites, even accidentally.

 

If he does let go, give him the toy back and keep tugging. Let him win. do thew 5:1 ratio- for every 5 games he wins, you have to win 1 game.

[Charlie Mopps]

Oppsss....I put my response to you under training.....and now I don't know how to move that...so it is still stuck over there. Sorry.....

 

L

 

its cool, Ir ead it in the other post. Very helpfull

[Kate@JIm]

"We are specifically worried about children. He is afraid of them, despite being around them regularly. They just approach him in a very bad manner, usually yelling and sometime "Hitting" him (they think they are petting) he has tried to nip at them several times. It's only defensive, but its not acceptable. "

 

You're right, this isn't acceptable. You need to teach children how to behave around your dog, Tell them that all dogs are not friendly, and need to ask the owner if it is OK to pet your dog. If you don't want your dog approached, please tell the children to "leave this dog alone". " not all dogs are kid friendly. I had a dog that was OK with gentle children above toddler age. I always supervised children petting my dog, a brief time was "enough" for her and I gently tell the children it was enough. Later in years she didn't like any children and we would just tell children not to approach. There's nothing wrong with that, not all dogs are kid friendly.

We did work with her, using treats and short petting time with kids, but realized, she just didn't like kids and I respected that. This also teaches children, that it's not OK to run up to any dog. They NEED to learn this. My dog was "managed" that way her whole life with no problems, because WE didn't let it happen. It can be managed, just tell the children and especially the adults present.

 

I had a dog that didn't like large crowds of people in the house - holiday, birthdays. I made sure she had plenty of exercise before company came and fed her and put her in a bedroom. No need to stress her. Some dogs it's just better.

 

 

 

 

"We just started an obedience class, but my wife picked out one at Petsmart. And it is terrible. They don't have a clue what they are doing. With all the barking dogs and noise, we could barely hear anything and poor patrick was scared and growling. Whenever another dog trys to sniff my wife he gets very possessive. "

 

Drop out now, don't even bother with the class, find another in your area.

 

Kate & Jim

[Ruger's Dad]

Here is my two cents worth about getting a dog used to being around small children. Once I got to the point where I had Ruger fairly well trained, he started going to the ball park with me while my daughter was playing softball. He was a little over a year old at that point. I started letting the small kids play fetch with him. The kids loved it and more important, Ruger saw them as a potential thrower rather than a threat. He is great with the crowds. He will bring the frisbee or ball back to a different person almost every time. Everyone is obligated to throw for him.

 

For us, the ball park has turned out to be the ulimate place to socialize our dogs. Casey our Springer grew up at the ball park. She loves kids and hates being around other dogs. Ruger goes a lot as well but the outings at the ball park are going by the wayside as our kids are older and one married.

 

Ruger is so well behaved now that he was invited to a birthday party this past summer. The kids were around 5 years old. He loved it and so did they. Last year at the previous party, the kids lined up to soak Ruger down with the garden hose. They had a blast but more important to me, Ruger loved getting soaked.

 

This was certainly a strange training lesson but it worked for me. Hopefully it will give you a few ideas.

[juliepoudrier]

I agree with the other poster who noted that it is *your* responsibility to protect Patrick from children who don't know how to behave appropriately around a dog. Allowing kids to harrass him is just setting someone up for a bite, and unfortunately if it happens it will be Patrick who pays--most likely with his life. Not all dogs are automatically kid friendly, and if the kids are little monsters and you already have a shy dog, you are just setting him up for failure by allowing kids to yell or hit him, however interested and well-intentioned they are. There are regular discussions on this board about why many rescues don't like to adopt dogs out to homes with small children and your description of what's going on with the children is the very reason many make that rule. It's a two-way street: the dog shouldn't be expected to do all the taking while the kids do the "giving." If you want him to be well-behaved around children then start by allowing only well-behaved, dog savvy children around him. If he's shy, this is crucial. The more bad experiences he has with children who don't know how to properly approach a dog, the greater his fear of children will become. Think about it like this: If every time you ever met a red-headed short man he was allowed to pinch you, you would soon develop an aversion to red-headed short men. If you were afraid of such men to begin with and yet you were forced to interact with them, it wouldn't take you long to figure out that there's a good reason to be afraid of red-headed short men: they hurt! Now consider Patrick's POV. He's already shy, and probably especially shy of children. And yet he's forced to allow them to come up and scare/hurt him. What's he learning? That kids are scary and they hurt. What you want to teach him is that kids are not scary and they don't hurt, but you're not going to be able to do that with your average sampling of children in the general public. At first you'll need to choose wisely the children who interact with Patrick and only much later (and never unsupervised) allow him to interact with other types of children.

 

Remember that the border collie's working heritage means that they will be reactive to noises and to quick movements, and children, of course, are both noisy and move in quick, often jerky motions. Even the most child-friendly border collie might respond in inappropriate ways to children just because of the hard wiring in the dog. I would never allow a child alone with any dog, and especially not with a shy one. If you have lots of kids coming in and out of the house, I'd make sure Patrick has a safe, child-free place to go, like a crate in a different room. And then the children need to be taught to respect Patrick's safe zone.

 

Dogs can be taught that children are okay and should be respected, but you need to start with children who are quiet, well-behaved, and know how to properly pet a dog. It will take some work on your part to find appropriate children to start with, and it will also take time to undo some of the fear response that has already been reinforced by the more typical children he's already been exposed to. Also, it's important to understand that not all dogs like children. I have made a point of socializing mine as much as I can with kids, but the fact is that most of them really don't want to have anything to do with children unless the child is throwing something for them to fetch, and even then, they'll drop the item and step away while the child goes to get it. If Patrick happens to be one of those, like mine, who will tolerate kids, but don't want to be handled by them unless I am right there holding them, then you'd be advised, in my opinion, not to force the issue.

 

Good luck.

 

J.

[mbc1963]

I have to echo everyone else's advice. I have a very shy dog, who originally looked a bit aggressive. He is very easily startled, by sudden movement but especially sudden, loud noises. Both these things are chronic when small kids are around.

 

I do take Buddy into situations where he'll get treats from small kids, but only when it's a really safe, contained situation. He loves kids in strollers, and small kids who are also timid and approach very slowly. He'll actually let them hug him and pat him. He just can't handle getting surprised by them... or their suddenly waving a stick at his head. ::Sigh::

 

Above all, my advice is what everyone else said: make your dog feel safe! My first (great) trainer told me that I needed to get Buddy to trust that I would keep him safe in any situation... and I think that was the key. He will almost always listen to me about how to act. If we meet a sudden, random scary thing (bike coming out of nowhere, kid running at us), I try to just get some space between us and the scary thing, so Buddy can decompress.

 

Good luck!

 

Mary

[WyoBC]

Above all, my advice is what everyone else said: make your dog feel safe! My first (great) trainer told me that I needed to get Buddy to trust that I would keep him safe in any situation... and I think that was the key. He will almost always listen to me about how to act. If we meet a sudden, random scary thing (bike coming out of nowhere, kid running at us), I try to just get some space between us and the scary thing, so Buddy can decompress.

 

Good luck!

 

Mary

 

You have to think of your new pup more than anything. You may make some people mad because you don't want them petting your dog, but you have to understand it's your dog!! No one sould be able to make him or you feel uncomfortable for any reason. I also have a shy rescue BC and it took me almost three months of training and working with him before he finally started to trust me. He actually started to really trust me after his back started to go bad. He knew I was going to take of him because when ever it would hurt he'd run to me to fix it. So you really need to work on trust and keep other people interactions really good and fun. One bad experince with other people could really mess him up towards other people and even make him aggressive.