Scaredy Cat

I was asked the other day if Rhyme was spooky & it reminded me that he had been and still very occasionally got worried by something.

In my mind there are 3 kinds of spooky things

1 everyday things that will cause a dog stress if not sorted  e.g  strangers approaching

2 things that will affect my dogs agility performance e.g  the seesaw moving when they are on it.

3 unusual things that they may see in strange places e.g  a cat RSPCA collecting tin that upset Devo in the vets waiting room.

It is important to me to deal with 1 & 2 by carefully thinking about why those things create a reaction and how to counteract them.

Rhyme is a strong dog that likes to be in control of the situation so anything he doesn't know and therefore control would cause a reaction. People appearing, people appearing wearing hard hats, workmen in holes and even a lady in a mobility scooter were all cause for alarm as a puppy. Luckily he is so adorable that all these people could be persuaded to spend time with us and give him treats and fuss him. Now unknown people are all desirables. I may do that differently with any other puppy and ask these people to ignore him and to give me things to give him. In that way the approach of a stranger means good things but the provider of them is still me as Rhyme's recall suffered as he thought people were rewarding.

His recall is sorted now and I do like that he loves people so much.

With more reactive dogs it can be hard to encourage the dog to take a reward and the approaching person to give it. In that case it is good to drop handfuls of treats just past the dog's nose to distract and to help the dog understand that they are not required to react to strangers.

It is key to understand your dog and how much it can cope with before introducing too much into their world. I was lucky with Rhyme that strange things all occurred when I walked out with him as a pup so it could be dealt with then. Once a dog gets older it can be much harder to address but not impossible it just takes a lot more time and well thought out plans.

Obviously strangers & strangeness is a large part of agility so careful socialisation is important to give a young dog skills in coping with adapting to their environments.

Each weekend a new challenge in a new place. For a spooky dog agility may not be all that fun after all.

I am confident that Rhyme is up to the challenge now. He has learnt to have great fun and to not worry too much about what else is happening while he is working.

To me helping dogs deal with spooking is all part of foundation training.

Particular spooks affecting agility performance are challenging and again it helps to understand what caused the fear/dislike. Rhyme has done wobble boards etc and I worked slowly in introducing the seesaw but he does not like it tipping. At the moment I am going to change tactics on it but it may be a while before I will do agility rounds. I will not force my dogs to do things they don't like and greatly admire people who make the decision not to compete with dogs that are nervous or scared of it after they have tried ways to counteract it but the dog still dislikes it.

That said I am a determined person and I confident I will find away to help him think it is a fun thing to do. 

Things like Devo's collecting box can be counterproductive to trust if you try to force them to accept something alien and they will never need to worry about again. As soon as the vets receptionist moved it out of site he settled down :)