My aunt and uncle are up from Texas, to visit my uncles brother who has pancreatic cancer. Not a great time for any of us, and with covid only one person is allowed to visit per day. Works out for my aunt because she can visit all of her family with the extra time. It’s also a good opportunity to work with Har a bit on strange humans in her home. Yesterday she was in her kennel while they were over; I wasn’t up to bringing her out and it was only a couple of hours so it wasn’t too bad for her to be in her kennel for the duration. Today they came over around 2pm or so, and so Har needed to have a potty break at the very least.
The first thing we did, my dad was helping at this point because I was in the kitchen, was being her out on a leash, on the other side of the pen fencing we use to subdivide the living room for her potty break. She was not too pleased to see the strangers, we had a bit of growling but her hackles didn’t go up and she was easily redirected to going outside. I decided that we could try a little free time downstairs, without her on leash but muzzled so that we wouldn’t have any issues with an attempt at biting if it came up. Before they’d arrived, I’d already talked with my parents about this, and I’d made predictions that she would like my aunt but hate my uncle, based on their personalities. We also had consent from my aunt and uncle for this; they were begging me yesterday to let her out so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
I brought her down after dinner in her muzzle, letting her move freely so that she could go at her own pace up to the different people and watched how she did. She went straight up to my uncle, paws on his lap, asking for pets. She then went to my mother, then my father, and then got up on the couch with my aunt, where she started to bare her teeth inside the muzzle. She then attempted a bite, though with the muzzle nothing actually happened. I then sat down and put her in my lap to keep her contained. She really did not appreciate my aunt moving around and doing things next to us, and had several more displays of teeth and attempted biting. I worked a bit with her on focusing on me rather than everything else, about ten minutes where I had to manually turn her head and waited until she made eye contact with me to let her turn back. After that, I returned her to her kennel with a bit of chicken jerky for her effort, where she was much quieter about barking than she was last night.
I learned a lot of things about her tonight, and so while she is not anywhere near where I would like her to be, I still consider it a good exercise. Firstly, I think I now have a better understanding of what kind of people she will be more open to, and which kinds are likely to set her off. My aunt is a sweet little old lady, shorter than I am and even less imposing. My uncle on the other hand is fairly tall and is a veteran, which affects his demeanor. The difference though, and what I think is important, is he carries himself in a much calmer, firmer way. My aunt can be a little high key and is understandably jumpy around a dog who isn’t exactly friendly. My uncle however was able to keep his cool, and has worked with dogs like this in the past, and he made her obviously more at ease. It’s important that I make these observations, because picking the right people to socialize her to will go farther than spending more hours with people who make her uncomfortable. It was also eye opening to realize that I had it pegged wrong; I thought she would like my aunt more because she is much less imposing, but Har prefers someone who isn’t afraid of her and will remain collected and relaxed. Which, looking at it now, makes more sense because if she’s nervous, it matters more that the humans are calm more than anything else.
I also learned we need to work on her focus lmao. Like, big time. I need to get her in to see the vet so we can switch her diet and I can finally have treats for her again, because manually turning her head sucks and will take longer than if I have a way to bribe her. And let’s be real, bribing her will make this whole process easier because she has little other motivation to work towards this goal because she’s happy otherwise by herself with us. I also need something to bribe her with to get her in the muzzle; our muzzle training in the past has been less than spectacular and it’s a hassle to get her in one at this point. I’ll also be working on her spending time in it in non stressful/bad situations in order to make the muzzle mean less bad and more good.
I also learned that she’s not against new people. She’s just really scared. Her little heart was beating so fast the entire time, and she was whale eyeing at me a whole bunch while she was sitting in my lap. But she’s not the freeze or flee kind of dog when she’s afraid, she is going to pick fight until I help her learn that she doesn’t have to.
She’s been super cute now that they’re gonna and she has free movement in the house again. Wants nothing to do with cuddling with me though, and I don’t blame her. She’s been rolling on her back and rubbing her face everywhere, happy to be free of both the kennel and the muzzle. Harley surprised me a bunch tonight and it was a good learning experience for both of us.
