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We got our puppy in December and haven't been able to socialize her as much as we'd like because of the pandemic. We've been taking her on walks around our neighborhood and encouraging her when she stays calm around other people/dogs (she gets curious and whiny but not aggressive) but that's still not a lot of exposure. Today, she bolted out the front door and charged at a group of kids across the street. She didn't bite any of them, just ran up to them and barked, but that's small consolation. What can we do to curb this behavior? I think for starters I’m going to spend some time with her on the front porch every night to teach her that people walking down the sidewalks aren’t threats. Tiny Timbs fucked around with this message at 03:09 on Sep 14, 2020 |
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Sep 14, 2020 02:44
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| # ¿ Apr 26, 2024 23:32 |
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kalthir posted:If it's fear-induced the basic steps are to manage situations so that she reacts as infrequently as possible (because the barking is a self-reinforcing behavior; she's scared, she barked, nothing happened, so she'll go with barking the next time as well), and to do counter-conditioning and desensitization (exposing her to uncomfortable situations, but at an intensity where she won't feel the need to react; and while doing so rewarding her so as to have her associate the uncomfortable situations with a positive stimulus). If you do miscalculate and she does react, don't punish her, just get her out of the situation as quickly as possible (the reasoning behind this being that punishment might suppress the behavior, but you don't know which behavior will replace it). So you're on the right track with the porch idea. That said, it might be something completely different, and getting a trainer to do an assessment is probably a good idea. Thanks for the advice. She's been acting a lot calmer and barking a lot less since I started spending time with her on the front porch. A couple of our neighbors were nice enough to meet us in the driveway so we could do some interactions up close. She started off barking a lot just seeing them approach, then (with the encouragement of a lot of treats) became calm enough to lie down within 10 feet of them and shift her attention to other things. She did growl a bunch when they approached her but I'll still call that progress.
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Sep 18, 2020 02:10
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MadFriarAvelyn posted:My vet also recommended waiting until Teddi was a year old before neutering him, and I only just got him neutered a few weeks ago at about 1.5 years old (delayed a bit due to COVID-19 and all). My girl just hit a year old and when I asked my vet for a spaying appointment the receptionist said there was a long waiting list, and then got lovely and refused to answer when I asked how long it was. So uh, I think I’ll just wait until after we move states in a couple months.
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Sep 29, 2020 23:47
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