The purpose of these lessons is to work one-on-one with a professional dog trainer to help Annie overcome her feelings of fear – fear of strange dogs, people, and places. It would be great if working through this would help Annie enough to feel comfortable with doing therapy dog visits with me. This may or may not happen – but either way, the work is necessary to help her become a well-adjusted, happy canine. There is much work to be done. Some scenarios work fine… Annie has no fear of strange people coming into our home – but that’s because she’s surrounded by her canine family members who make her feel secure. The same is true when we’re out walking… if I’m walking James along with Annie, she’s fine when approaching another person – and even pretty good with another dog. You can almost see her mind thinking, Oh, James is going right up to that person and her dog. They’re greeting each other. Must be OK. On the other hand, if Annie is out walking with me alone, she puts her brakes on and refuses to move as the person and dog come within about 20 feet. This, actually, has improved… she used to apply her brakes as soon as she caught site of a person and dog walking in the distance. We are taking baby steps to improve this further. And, slowly we’re making progress. Patience. I’m willing to be very patient.
Last week, our trainer lent us a book titled On Talking Terms with Dogs: Calming Signals by Turid Rugaas, a Norwegian dog trainer. It is excellent. A short read, with photo examples of dogs employing their calming signals. I read it a second time before returning it – and ordered a copy for my reference library. I have been using the calming signals with Annie – and with James and Trudi. Very effective. I would recommend this book to everyone. Reading it gives you an excellent understanding of how dogs communicate with one another.
This week, the strange training room space and unknown person (our trainer) are no longer a problem for Annie. She went right in the door, looked around, tail wagging; walked right up to the trainer, tail continuing to wag, as much as to say, Hi, I’m here and I’m happy to be here!
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