Way To Go Texas!

Mom sometimes tells me, that i gots nothing good to say, don't say nuffin. I don't ever listen to her but sometimes, like today, its kinda good advice. Cause I got nothin to say. 

Mainly cause mom has something to say about me. 

Um... yes thanks Texas. As I've written before, Texas has been very reactive to strange things, people in our yard, etc.. but has increasingly gotten better as time went on. It was gradual, and I think we've settled into the fact that Texas will never be "normal". But we love him anyway. 

Our morning routine, normally proceeds thus: I drag myself out of bed, grab some clothes and let the dachshunds outside to potty. However, yesterday morning as I opened the door, I was surprised to see two trucks in my driveway, and upon further inspection, men crawling all over the roof of the church next door, as well as trucks in their driveway and people walking around. 

To my surprise, though Texas went out barking (something he does regardless) he had ABSOLUTELY NO reaction to the activity a mere 40 ft+ away from him. You could have knocked me over with a feather. 

I'm so proud of my little guy! We've come such a long way!! 

David....was another story. 

Speaking of success stories, one I forgot to mention happened a couple of weeks ago. Texas is very defensive in the house, so when a group of our girlfriends wanted to come up for the weekend, I "claimed" one of the girls whom had met and stayed with Texas before. However what I wasn't prepared for was that the other girls would visit us often throughout the weekend. 

I normally tell people to ignore Texas for as much as possible during the first few minutes in my house, however my warnings were moot as the little stinker proceeded to behave as if he was the worlds friendliest dog. He was great the entire weekend. I was so proud of him! 

Guess that's another goal we can cross of the list for this year!

*tap tap*

GASP! Its been 5 WHOLE DAYS since I posted last!! Believe me, my Google Reader is scary! (200 unread pots!)
Yeah, we're still alive and kicking, its just been an extremely hectic week, if you follow my personal blog (I Should Be Studying) you know, that my schedule has been crammed with our church's annual camp meeting, work, school and keeping Texas from biting our few hundred guest traipsing around our yard.

For my new followers here's the back story on Texas (Reactivity  and How We Got Texas)

It wasn't as much of a job as I'd imagined (read:stressed about) it would be, but there were several times I did have to give out some strong warnings, to people NOT.TOO.APPROACH. Though he did latch onto a surprise house guests shoe, no harm was done, and we were able to reintroduce them properly and haven't had any issues since. Texas is a dog, you can't "make friends with" and have to completely pretend he doesn't exists. Thankfully Laura, was not intimidated by Texas's initial greeting, and complied to the rules PERFECTLY. By the next morning Texas hopped on the couch (where she was sleeping) and woke her as only a dachshund can. Yep with lots of kisses. That pretty much lets me know he's as comfortable as he can get, he continued to demonstrate that over the weekend, and installed himself in her lap whenever possible.

*phew*

Now I do have to warn you all, now that school is starting to move into 2nd gear, posting will be very sporadic! As much as I'd love to convince myself I can multitask...sometimes its not possible! That and their won't be too many dog photos (gasp!!) as my camera will be other wise engaged.

Blast from the Past

Tuesday Training

Too Much Too fast.
Since taking Texas out to parks and such like, can be a difficult affair by myself, when a friend of mine brought over their dog, I decided what a great time to work on Texas's "On Leash" reactivity.
I was sadly mistaken.
I should have stopped while I was ahead, but I really wanted to work this as we hadn't had this opportunity, with a strange dog, that wasn't going to live with me.


First mistake, Pompeii and Bubbles had been out interacting with the dog earlier, Pompei was enamored and was following said dog all over the yard. So as I was getting Texas geared up (treats, clicker, harness...) they were also getting geared up. To bolt. And as soon as Texas and I attempted to leave the house, the both dash out as fast as possible. Now Bubbles and Texas feed off of each other, and while Bubbles doesn't have the same "issues as Texas", she does like to hear herself bark. So her barking set Texas off much as faster then had he been by himself. And before I knew it there was a tangled mess of dogs, and humans running every which way.


Once I corralled Bubbles and Pompeii, and got Texas back out, it was pretty hopeless. Even walking two yards (literal peoples yards) away was still too close. This part of the "reactivity" is much harder to work with, as I don't have many people with dogs that are willing to work with this. I'm beginning to think i need to start making friends with some local trainers. :)) 
Oh well. 
Back to the Drawing board.

REACTIONS

All dachshund owners will tell you, that owning a dachshund is a noisy affair. So when we brought Texas home, hearing him bark at everything walking past our house, strangers in our yard, people in our house was all part of the "joys" of dachshund ownership. Or so week thought.

It wasn't long before, we realized what we were seeing, was not your typical dachshund behavior.

• First was watching him tear from the back of our (at the time) half acre yard, too chase some kids walking past our house. When they asked if he would bite was when some flags were raised in my mind. But I knew Bubbles had done the same thing in younger years, with no intention of harming anyone..but this...something was different. 
• Next was at work. At the time I was working at a doggie daycare and in the evening we'd let the "staff dogs" into the office while we waited for the remaining few to be picked up. Texas was quickly banned from the office during this time, for shrieking at new customers and snapping at people who were trying to pet him. (Though why anyone continues to try and pet a barking dog is beyond me.)
• Then in the car, we noticed that he would continually bark and snarl at people "approaching" my car. On the weekends, my job gave us a two hour break so Texas and I would go grab some lunch and sit in my car for a while. I soon began to leave him crated in the building as he was so stressed and overwrought with sitting in the car with me.

This behavior had me completely mystified, as he was only a 4-5 month old puppy! Why is this dog reacting like this at this age?! I tried to talk to my boss, who was a "trainer" but she had absolutely no advice for me. So I kind of let it drop as me just overacting, but for the life of me I could never remember Bubbles acting this badly.

Life went on, we moved to TN, I got a job working service dogs, and began to enter deeper the wide world of dog training.  I began to learn more about the positive methods of dog training and realizing what I was doing was not working (dominating etc..), and we started to see a little bit of progress, in Texas...as he had other issues as well.  I started clicker training with Texas and soon realized how smart he really was. Alas it wasn't until he actually did bite someone before we started realizing how serious his behavior was. 

But when I mentioned it, a lot people had many anecdotal stories about their dachshunds doing the same etc..that Did NOT help me, but just sunk me into a funk, of trying to figure out if Texas was really a dog I should keep, could keep or even could work with. 


Thankfully I follow a ton of trainers on Twitter, and when I posted my panicked "OMG MY DOG JUST BIT SOMEONE" message, they responded with lots of helpful advice. I began studying up on aggressive dogs, causes of aggression, and  soon realized that's not what he was, but "reactive". 

A reactive dog, is a dog that reacts in a fearfully defensive or "aggressive" manner, when faced with certain triggers.  
Looks like: Barking, Growling, Lunging, Snapping, Snarling, wants trigger to go away generally. 
Triggers: Other dogs, strangers, situations and prey

I quickly realized that Texas reacts fearfully in any situation where he feels he can't escape. Examples include: Behind a door, or fence, on leash on in my car.When he'd get in the "zone" there was not stopping him, unless he was removed from the situation completely. The bite occurred, at the door...when he slipped out behind me, and nipped the first foot he saw.

Once I realized this all of his outings stopped. He did not leave my property. He spent a lot of time inside, unless I was positive there was no one outside. Our yard maintenance guys  were also HUGE triggers, and I had to wait until they'd been gone for at least 30 minutes before going outside with him. Let's not even bring in strange loose dogs. Dogs that we intro'd in a controlled situations were fine, but random dogs? No so much.It was tough, he had to be crated when I had strangers in my home, and my stress levels were extremely heighten if we decided to venture out to a park or somewhere.


Between YouTube and Twitter I found some great resources and began working with Texas to help change his emotional reaction to these "fearful" things. We learned how to introduce Texas to new people; He doesn't feel threatened if he's allowed to approach the situation, rather than someone approaching him. I also learned to teach people a "new" way of approaching dogs. "No Touch, No Talk, No Eye Contact." This was quite difficult since people have it ingrained in their heads, that you must "make friends" with the dog, by sticking your hand in their face.


But Like this, Texas was able to make many new friends, and realize the world was not such a "scary" place after all.

Now you can understand a little bit more, why we had such a hard time, during the 4th of July Holiday. Basically Texas we were in the worst situation possible, for a reactive dog, but we all made it out alive, and un scarred. But I think my family will now believe me when I tell them why I don't take Texas out of town.

So anyway I said all of that to intro you into today's situation. Today was our annual church clean up, and we had people all over the place for about 7-8 hours. The dogs were of course in the house as they would have just been in the way, and I wouldn't have gotten anything done.

Last year, I really couldn't have let Texas outside period, until EVERYONE was gone. He wouldn't have been able to focus on doing anything but letting the "intruders" know they needed to be gone. 

Today this is what we get:  

Video Description: Texas, Bubbles, Pompei and Lacy are in the "left side" of my yard, across the parking lot are people, cars, kids on bikes roaming around. Texas is wandering around the yard sniffing, his body language is very relaxed. He does bark as one child whizzes by on a bike, but is quickly redirected by me.






To all of you, this is normal dog behavior, for me this is hUGe...as I keep saying in the video. We've made a lot of progress, but still have a very. long.way to go still. But at this point any progress is awesome. Will he ever be "completely" normal? I don't know, I have my doubts but we're working hard to make his day to day life as pleasant and stress free as possible.

Erin &


P.S. (What I want everyone to take away from this is: SOCIALIZE, SOCIALIZE, and SOCIALIZE.  As early as possible. Your dog will thank you, and so will everyone who comes in contact with him.)