Wish you all a very Happy New Year! Kickstarting the blog by introducing a new series where I document our journey of how Sky, a reactive dog, and I battle her reactivity.
Introducing Sky – a spunky two years old, extremely adorable and sassy indie female, who has been reigning our house and lives since she entered it at around 40-45 days old. She started showing reactivity signs once she turned 4 months old.
Life has not been easy, however, we have evolved and created a system which works for us. A lot of changes are still pending but then this is work in progress. We share our story in the hopes that our successes and failures may make your life easy!!
Exposure over Weekends and Holidays
The socialization period was not very socializing for Sky. She did meet people and had been out, however, I was not aware of how the habituation to different places and situations should have been done and due to certain reasons, daily walks have never been part of Sky’s routine.
To improve on these issues, we decided to go for outings at least every single holiday I get.
We explored a few parks and we went to 2 new parks in the month. We saw loads of squirrels, stray dogs, traffic, sounds, big and small vehicles, got into the auto again.
Daily Management
Any reactive dog you meet will mostly be hypervigilant. They do not know how to relax most of the times so we started with management techniques to help her relax in her downtime.
We started with her sleep quality and managing the situations to keep her calm as much as possible.
She sleeps in the crate in the day time. Being in the crate helps her sleep peacefully and she gets less disturbed there when compared if she was sleeping outside. Over the course of month, we have created a routine where she will go to crate for 2 hours. Some times she does not sleep but we still crate her to relax her.
During the time she spends outside the crate, we draw the curtains post 11AM blocking her outside view and running a white noise in the background. She does run to the window for every noise she hears, however, over the month I have seen less stress and more curiosity. I don’t think we can take out the guarding behavior out of her but as long as she is not getting stressed, we are good.
We have become lax about these protocols for the past two weeks and we can see the differences. Good management really helps!!
Her barking intensity is a lot better now and when she is barking, if we go and stand beside her, she feels more reassured and calmer. She even checks in after her first bark to see we got her alert which is where we bring in the “Thank You Protocol“.
However, I have to add she still goes crazy at the door bell ringing and when strangers visit, but she is a lot better with house guests. She doesn’t keep barking incessantly. This is work in progress.
Thank you Protocol
Basically, it is acknowledging the guarding and alerting behavior of the dogs instead of asking them to stop barking entirely. If interested, please google to read more about it.
I have been practicing this with all her meals for the last 15 days and it has definitely helped with her focus and we have had small wins to get her to disengage in a comparatively low distraction situations.
Relaxation Protocol
This is basically getting her comfortable with settling on her mat when she is outside. So, we had started with indoors first and then graduated to outside. Over the outings, she was given a choice to choose the mat instead of pacing up and down.
Being still and settling down is very very difficult for her so this is a long term project but I can definitely see she is choosing her mat while people watching at home.
Consistent Training or Engagement
This time around my approach included a consistent training routine with her meals and snacks. I stuck to it diligently and it has definitely improved her focus and attention. Of course, it is a long way to go.
I have also observed that not playing with her regularly leads to her not focusing on me. Please treat this as a motivation to play with your dog starting NOW.
Apart from training, play is a huge part of our routine though we are not very consistent yet. Tugging and ball fetch are our favorites.
You would see that daily walks and enrichment activities are missing from the list. That is because of Sky’s reactivity towards community dogs. Enrichment is more of built in the day and I am not very consistent yet. This is another area to improve upon in this month.
Also, Being Consistent for whatever activities we are doing has worked really well for us in helping with her reactivity. Our eventual goal is to have a balanced dog who can be neutral to any situation, if not thrive. We will be back with the next edition next month.
Please do say hi to Sky and wish her the best in the comments!! Ciao and see you next week.
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