[17/11/2013]
I just sent an e-mail to an organization that helps in training and examining sheepdogs and herding. There were possibles to "try" it, so I sent them a request. I hope I'll get a response soon!
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@projectingonleah
[17/11/2013]
I just sent an e-mail to an organization that helps in training and examining sheepdogs and herding. There were possibles to "try" it, so I sent them a request. I hope I'll get a response soon!
Little Leah is super tired today. We went out on our third dog walk today, and we totaled 45 dogs! Leah was stressed and scared at the beginning (the buses in town had left as soon as we went out and she thinks they're scary) but after that she relaxed. It was definitely our best walk yet! We also managed to make a new potential play date- a sweet 5 year old German Shepherd/Kelpie mix who needs an energetic play partner! So hopefully that'll go well.
After the walk, Leah and I went to the petshop and I sat with her for about 40 minutes there, since there were lots of people and dogs hanging out there and I figured it was a good time as any to get some social/environmental training done!
Yesterday, I took Leah to a football field and let her run loose. Today, I put her backpack on and took her for a walk. She comes almost every time I call her (there was just one incident yesterday where she didn't) and has been walking much better on the leash.
[29/10/2013]
So on Saturday, I took Leah to Bobbo's Hundskola in order to get a complete overview of her rehabilitation program and start off with some basic one on one training.
I really liked how Mats, the dog trainer, handled Leah and you could really see he knew what he was doing. He immediately asserted his dominance over her and he told me that she is naturally quite a submissive or lower ranking dog. He also told me that she had great eye contact (something that I'd been working with her on during our contact training sessions) and she kept making eye contact with both me and the trainer whenever an order was given. She did listen quite well though and generally only had to be told off once when she did something Mats didn't like (she barked when we left her for fika, for example, but with one "no" he got her to stop immediately.)
We did some training to make sure that Leah was calm before we took her out and so on. He told me I should only walk her once she isn't stressed out by the sight of the leash/the prospect on going for a walk as this will lead to a calmer walk (more of a buffer to stress triggers). He also showed me how to train Leah to get into her cage by herself, which is useful when people come over or if I want her to go do something around the house without her. I've practicing that at home myself and it's going really well.
Next, we went outside and did some exercises with Mats' golden retriever. It was some basic leash training and then Tuvar, the golden retriever girl, was supposed to be the distraction. I had to walk Leah past Tuvar, sit beside Tuvar, etc and Leah was not allowed to communicate with or try to sniff her. They had not sniffed each other before, and Leah was itching to do so, but she understood that she wasn't allowed to quite fast. Tuvar was very calm and just sat on the wet floor patiently until the exercise was done and didn't initiate contact herself.
All in all, it was really positive and I can see some real progress being made already, especially in how I handle Leah. Our next session will be on the 7th of November, and we will meet two other ekipages with problem dogs (a Rottweiler and a German Shepherd) so it should be interesting! Until then, I'm going to keep practicing with Leah at home.
Decided to grace this blog with a puppy picture of Leah.
That is an awesome harness (pictured in your most recent post about tracking)! Where did you find it?
Thank you! I bought it from Arken Zoo here in Sundsvall. It's a great harness from Hurtta that's both for walking and tracking, has reflexive material sewn into it so motorists can see Leah in the dark, and is fairly easy to put on. And it only cost me about 250 SEK (~40 USD).Here's a link to Hurtta's website. And here's a link to another online store that sells Hurtta products.
This morning, Leah and I went to the last part of the tracking course. Leah was super stressed out when she wasn't at work, and kept barking at everything. However, once I laid out the tracks (we used cow blood and deer/moose hooves for gametracking) and allowed her to follow it, she calmed down significantly and did a fantastic job. You can see her sniffing the deer leg she found in the second picture!
Wishlist:
Dog Hair Removal Sponge/Cube
Muzzle
Spray/Lotion for cracked paws
Finger Toothbrush
Today, leah and I went on a dog walk organized by Arken Zoo. It went really well, so I figured I'd do something nice for Leah once we were both well-rested.
Leah likes peanut butter and honey, so I ended up baking Peanut Butter Honey Drop Cookies for her (click the link to go to the recipe!), and they were a real hit! I did switch a few things though- I used butter instead of vegetable shortening and oatmeal instead of oats since that was all I had and the shops were all closed.
An hour later, and Leah's still trying her best to get some of these delicious treats out of her activation ball! You can see Leah looking at me expectantly in the pictures, waiting semi-patiently for me to give her permission to eat the cookies.
The Story:
A couple of weeks have gone by and I finally feel ready to talk about what happened without crying.
Leah has always been insecure. When I first got her, I remember she'd tremble from going outside and she refused to walk- as soon as I put her on the ground she would try to claw her way up my pant leg.
I have been seeing two dog psychologists, one over summer when I visited our summer house, and one that I've been meeting in the city where I live who has known Leah since she was 3 months old. At six months, the latter psychologist commended me on my effort with Leah, since she actually approached and sniffed her. By the end of our talk, Leah could be petted and she even gave the psychologist a few licks on the face.
I thought I was making good progress with her. Sure, her insecurities are still there, and she has met some bad people on some of our walks. In a couple of instances, her fear turned to aggression but I always have a strong hold on the leash and try to avoid people that make her uncomfortable or try to approach us.
During the last "active walk" I was on, the dog psychologist I was seeing regularly came up to me and dropped a bomb. She said that Leah's problem was probably genetic or as a result of something that happened during her first 9 weeks- before I got her. She didn't think there was much I can do. She told me that I had to look into the possibility of putting her down in the near future if her insecurity escalates.
This was a horrible shock for me, especially since Leah had made such progress during the walk itself. For example, she used to be too stressed to accept or search for candy, but she did so during all the moments she was expected to.
That weekend, I felt horrible. I was at a low point of my bipolar cycle and the news just made me feel hopeless and terrible. My psychologist told me that she believes Leah was my lifeline, the only reason why I was still striving to live. And it was true. I could not imagine a life without her comfort. Every time I looked at her, I started to cry. I cried all the time for two days.
As a last resort, I went to the pet shop in town where I had gotten so much help from. All the workers knew Leah and she had come to trust them. Thankfully, the one working at the time of my arrival was a dog trainer. And so I told her what had happened. Embarrassingly, I broke down in the middle of her shop and told her that I had no idea what to do. Someone I had trusted a lot with and looked up to for the last 9 months or so thinks Leah is hopeless.
The woman listened to my story and then told me, frankly, that the dog psychologist I went to was known to give up easily on problem dogs, even though that's supposed to be her specialty. She said the thought it was BS, especially since she had seen how much work I'd put into Leah and how much progress we had reaped together. She offered her help and recommended some other people to me, so I initiated contact with them.
After a few days of depression, I suddenly began to feel angry. Angry with myself for having almost given up so quickly and at having believed the psychologist's words. Angry at the psychologist for saying such things without really trying.
I have since then met a new dog trainer/psychologist who has gotten very good feedback from those he has helped. He came to my apartment and met Leah, and I've seen from how he handled her that he knows what he is doing. He has a program meant for problem dogs or as preventative measures for people who have just gotten a puppy, and I am enrolling Leah and I in it. Hopefully, he will help us move forward.
Leah truly has become my lifeline, and I am so happy that I have found someone who is willing to help us.
How to get Leah to let me kiss her.
[14/10/2013]
Leah and I have been sick this week, so I haven't been able to do much with her. However, this weekend, things got better for us and I tried to ensure that she released as much of her energy as possible.
On Saturday, I took her for a nice walk in the rare sunshine with her backpack on (I had doubled the weight to 2kg about 3 weeks ago) for a little over an hour and a half. When we came back home she was dead tired.
On Sunday, I went to an island close to Sundsvall where I met with a friend and her Sheltie, Freja. We went on a long walk for about an hour. Leah did a good job, though she really wanted to play with Freja and kept play bowing and trying to give chase. It was hard to get her to stick with the task at hand (i.e. "just" walking) but after the initial ten minutes things got better!
Tomorrow (today, since it's 4:30 am...), a new dog psychologist will be coming over to meet Leah since the old one more or less gave up on us. I wonder how it will go! The man seems very knowledgeable and I've heard a lot of great things about his rehabilitation of stressed/insecure dogs, so hopefully things will go well!
A picture of Leah with her treat ball!
I bought some Ziwipeak treats today, and Leah loved them. They were selling small bags of the Ziwipeak Daily Dog treats with Venison flavour for 13 SEK at Djurmagazinet, so I figured I'd give it a try. The bigger bags are quite expensive, but I now know what to use as super special/tasty candy for Leah's training!
If you want to buy some, click through the image to get to Animail.se, a Swedish website that sells pet-related things!
[07/10/2013]
Yesterday, I increased the weight I added in Leah's backpack. I now have two half liter bottles on each side (one liter/side). I will keep this up for a while before adding the next one (am thinking a month, as long as I walk her a couple of times a week with the backpack on).
The dog coffee nights were canceled last week, so that didn't happen. Instead, I did some environmental training with Leah today. We went on the bus to Birsta (the "shopping center" outside of Sundsvall), and I took her to a pet shop called Djurmagazinet. It's very large, and we stayed there for about an hour. I just tried to expose her to as many new sights and sounds as possible, and she got to sniff around after dogs. I even bought her some treats which she happily enjoyed once we got home.
Other than that, I've been filling up one of those hollow balls with treats in order to activate her a bit. It's really fun to watch her work with the ball and figure out new ways to get the treats out. She's now started picking the ball up in her mouth and dropping it so that it bounces. Some of the smaller treats jump out then. Such a smart girl!
On Friday (yesterday), I went on an active walk with Hundens Hus in Sundsvall. We were 8 dogs and owners, and we took a walk around Sidsjön (a lake in Sundsvall), stopping every now and then for some activation. This included a short tracking incident, making a "search frame", hiding treats in trees, and so on. As usual, Leah was barky, but she did manage to do all the activation exercises, which was a huge step forward for me. She is usually too stressed around other dogs to search for treats and it's been hard to get her to do that in the past.
The end of the walk did not go so great for me, but I will write a longer explanation on that later. The pictures were taken by Lena at Hundens Hus and I've provided a link to their Facebook page. Picture 1: Leah had to wait while we sat down for tea. She wouldn't stop barking though. Picture 2: The entire group. Leah was thirsty, so I took her to a puddle.
On Wednesday, my boyfriend and I took Leah on a hike up a small mountain. She got to run loose and show off her spiderman skills by climbing up vertical rock sides (I'm not joking). At the top, we did a bit of tracking. The first track I put out was too difficult, but the second one was shorter and easier and Leah followed it perfectly.
The picture was taken by my boyfriend (who is writing his thesis on lichens, hence his fascination with the beard lichen). You can barely see Leah in the background!