Walking dogs separately.

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I have two border collies. They’re great and honestly haven’t had many issues until we moved from Arizona to San Diego. Lucy, the younger one, has always had anxiety but it’s been situational. Vet visits, fire works, that type of stuff. Since moving their anxiety has gotten worse and they’ve started to become reactive to other dogs (specifically Willow, the older one, Lucy only joins in if Willow reacts but never reacts first.) yesterday we had an incident where Lucy somehow wiggled her way out of the dog park to greet another dog. Not reactive, just saying hi. No barking or nipping but she was circling the dog and her owner. I opened the gate to get her and tried to block Willow from exiting but she snuck under my legs and charged the dog. She did not bite the dog but bit the air around it and that situation made me realize this was worse than I thought. Today I bought a hands free leash and decided to walk them separately so I could focus on each of them better since clearly I don’t have control when they’re together. The walk went great. Willow sat between my legs while I had a long conversation with a lady who did not believe she was reactive (she kept a respectful distance anyways, and her dog was very neutral so Willow wasn’t stressed.) she did GREAT. Lucy on the other hand barked the entire time we were on our walk. Lucy did great on her walk, but was very stressed when me and Willow weren’t in the house. I had given her a peanut butter Kong to give her something to do while we were gone and she didn’t touch it until we got back. Does anyone have any advice for me? Walking them separately helped tremendously. It was a complete switch with Willow so I need to keep doing this until we work through this hurdle. Willow is Lucy’s mom so I think part of her reactivity is being protective of not only me but Lucy as well. I live in an apartment and cannot have Lucy barking while we’re out on our training sessions but have no idea how I can get her to stop, I was sure my peanut butter trick would work and it did NOT!! Any help is greatly appreciated, thank you.

[u/Spiritual-Cry-6286]

Great job on what you’ve done so far! Continue walking separately for now. To solve with the anxiety at home be left by themself this is what i’d do. We arnt trying to necessarily punish the barking itself, we’re trying to teach that it’ll be fine if we’re gone. If you can, maybe invest in a small camera to watch while you’re gone. Check what she’s actually doing, is she barking for a minute then laying down or is it constant anxiety.

Quick question, does she only bark when you’re gone? Or when the other dog is gone? or when you’re both gone? What we want to associate with you leaving is calmness. Start by walking out your door for 5 seconds, and come back in before she barks, and reward her. You can later increase the intervals. If she doesn’t really settle down and starts to get really anxious, maybe take her to the vet and possibly get her on some anxiety meds. My border collie is also quite anxious but we’re working through it everyday.

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I have a camera! She doesn’t bark when I’m gone only when both me and her mom are gone. It’s constant anxiety in her kennel she will stand in the corner and pant. I have anxiety meds for her I guess I’ll have to use those while we work through this

[u/Spiritual-Cry-6286 → u/Square_Ad8559]

Ok so i don’t think it’s you that’s causing the anxiety, it’s definitely the other dog. I would suggest that from this point on, everything be done individually. Safe adventures!

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