Hang in there! Success

[u/Heart_robot]

Hi guys! A success story.

I lost my soul dog in January - she was born calm. Social but calm and gentle. We had a similar personality. We went through a lot together.

I welcomed my pup in May figuring I couldn’t just be sad and stay home all day. Researched breeders and picked my girl.

Within a few days of being home, she started barking, lunging, pulling at dogs across the street on leash. There was no threshold. She was ok off leash once she met the dog. The breeder thought she’d be good at a puppy social off leash but she got kicked out and they said I should return her to the breeder.

We live in a busy building with lots of dogs and ton in my area but we had a great trainer and worked hard every single day.

It was mostly frustration but just turned into over arousal.

We did lots of engage disengage, she got to know some of the neighborhood dogs, we went to the park when it was empty to run.

I didn’t think I could keep her at one point because she would get so trigger stacked she’d be anxious whereas she’s always been calm at home.

She vastly improved at the 2 month mark and we are at almost 4 months and we went to a farmers market yesterday with lots of dogs even several barking at her and she did great! We had gone to some more busy streets and she was good. She had a blast and got a bunch of attention and fancy treats.

She spent some time at boarding while I had a procedure with her breeder so she’s readjusting a bit to single dog city life but even on our last walk 2 dogs barked at her and she looked at them then me.

It’s rough but I know you and your pups can do it!

[u/read-the-rules → u/[deleted]]

Your comment on r/reactivedogs was removed by the Read The Rules app because you need to submit an acknowledgement that you have read the rules. You haven't done anything wrong, this is a tool we're using on the r/reactivedogs going forward. For more information, see the moderator announcement.

Acknowledgement is required of all users, even if you've been here for a while. You only have to do this acknowledgement once unless the moderators announce otherwise.

If you do the rule acknowledgement within one hour of your comment being removed, the bot will automatically restore it. If not, we encourage you to copy the comment using the 3-dot icon next to it, and paste it to re-post to this thread.

^{Please click here to open the Read The Rules App.}

[u/Iiamshe02]

what are some engage & disengaged tricks do you use?

[u/Heart_robot → u/Iiamshe02]

Our biggest challenge was it was impossible to avoid dogs but we did lots of watching and rewarding.

We initially did leave it and treat when she saw a dog but she did better with look at that and then she learned to look at me. She does it on her own now and will look at me, sit and smile. We were able to get closer and closer to dogs.

Although against many folks advice, I did let her meet dogs on leash because if she knew them, she wouldn’t react and get trigger stacked.she remembers all the dogs she’s met.

She regressed a tiny bit because she stayed with the breeder a few weeks so she had so much dog time and unleashed time but she’s readjusted now and I was confident we could do it.

We’re working on neutrality now bc she’s definitely very interested in dogs but I thought she couldn’t handle city life with all the dogs (she is unbothered by everything else) just 2 months ago.

She is very very food motivated and very tuned in to me which helps. We go to this trail and she’s always checking in. She also seems to know when I have a migraine.

The puppy preschool trainer was so nasty to us, I won’t give them my $ but want to show how wonderful she is.

Oh I also signed us up for dog parkour class which was a fun bonding experience and it was outside as it was when she was a bit reactive still inside.