Going to the Vet with your Fearful Dog!

I have the most perfect "fearful" dog. She is an absolutely wonderful companion to me and my husband. She is funny, silly and loves to play. She snuggles with me when I don't feel well. She makes me laugh and takes away my pain. She is absolutely perfect in every way, except for two things. She is afraid of strangers reaching for her, to the point she will flail at the end of her leash to try and get away. (She has never growled or snapped at any human. All she wants to do is get away from them.) She trusts the people she knows to a point but is mostly uncomfortable being handled by anyone other than myself and my husband. Her other problem is that she is afraid of large dogs and she can be a little or a lot reactive with them depending on the situation.

Phoenix, cuddling with me.

Phoenix when I first got her. The most worried dog on the planet.

When I brought Phoenix home from the shelter, I groomed dogs at a vet clinic. I had a very generous boss who allowed me to bring my dogs to work with me every day. I knew I had a problem when, for a routine exam, my new dog scrambled up my body and jumped off my shoulder to get away from the approaching doctor and proceeded to flee the room. Three to four days a week, I loaded the girls up and they went with me to work. I had every opportunity to train my dogs there. I had access to tables, equipment and veterinary technicians, who are still to this day my friends. We worked, too.. We worked really hard.

I began by counter conditioning and desensitizing Phoenix to me handling her at home. She got very good at allowing this and even liked it. We played lots of games and had fun. Then I started working with her at work. At work they were crated in their own crates upstairs while I did my job. They just hung out for half the day, resting. I did not work full time but some days were longer than others. If we were having a longer day, they'd get a break about half way through.

 Phoenix and Zoe in one of the runs at work.

I started by just treating her for being near the treatment area, feed her treats and then go home. Then I'd put her up on the table, feed her and take her down, go home. When she was okay with that I'd have a tech walk up and I'd feed and then they'd walk away and we'd go home. We worked on this for about 5 months, 3-4 days a week. I would love to tell you that it worked beautifully and that Phoenix is okay now and everything is totally fine. It's not. She did not make much progress at all. She was always nervous any time she was in a room or the treatment area but able to cope with it. She was okay on the table as long as no one approached her and she was getting continuous feedings. She was even okay with techs approaching if they had food or being able to go up and sniff them. The problem was the reaching towards, any sudden movements and actual treatment.

Now, maybe it was my training. Maybe I didn't split it down enough for her or maybe I did too much, but I honestly don't think so. We'd train for maybe 5 minutes and then do her favorite thing, leave the vet clinic. At one point I decided that it wasn't worth it to continue. She still went to work with me and when the techs had time, I'd have them give her treats. She still got treats for being there but I stopped actively trying to fix her when it comes to vet stuff at the vet clinic.

I do think that sometimes you just can't fix everything with every dog. Dog Training is not black and white. There are a lot of grey areas and you have to decide how far you are willing to go. With Phoenix's past trauma and history it just wasn't worth it to me to continue traumatizing the crap out of my dog on daily basis for treatment she would only need maybe once or twice a year. I think it's important to know when to stop. Look yourself in the mirror and ask is this training really worth it? Is the dog benefiting from this? Can I just manage it instead? Is it really that important? How is this effecting our daily life together? Is this benefiting our relationship? Or is it hurting our relationship? Does this dog need a smaller world? What can I do to make this dog feel better?

So I started educating myself. I learned how to do a lot of vet tech stuff by myself. My tech friends taught me how to vaccinate, how to hold off veins for blood draws and how to handle a dog that doesn't want to be handled. I watched them work whenever I had a free moment and also asked them tons of questions. I also started watching some videos on vet handling that Sophia Yin has and found some even better ones by Chirag Patel where dogs learn to offer vet behaviors like you would teach a zoo animal.

I did more training at home. I taught her how to be still for fake vaccines, how to let me do a bordetella up the nose, to allow me to place her on her side and to be comfortable with me holding her there. To offer these behaviors on her own, without me touching her. We still work on handling every day but in an environment she was comfortable in. That's the most important part. Little to no progress can be made if the dog isn't comfortable in the environment. I can vaccinate her myself and do all the normal husbandry things a dog would need.

 Zoe & Phoenix both doing the "calm chin rest" which is very useful for giving a Bordetella Vaccine.

So what do I do for those pesky vet visits that I can't avoid? I hold her for the vet. It's as simple as that. She does not like strangers holding her and why should I put her through that if I can hold her myself and know how? It can be a bit challenging explaining this to a new vet but most of the time they are understanding and let me do what I need to do. Phoenix still does not enjoy the vet visits but we get through it. If she needed something more invasive done where I couldn't help I'd choose to have her sedated.

Recently I was talking to one of my vet tech friends, kind of agonizing over a future vet visit. Phoenix would need a blood draw and I wasn't sure how she would do. I was worried she'd struggle and end up hurting herself. My vet tech friend recommended that I ask for them to draw the blood in a back leg. It made perfect sense! I could hold her and cover her eyes and they could still access her back legs to get the blood. That vet visit has come and gone. Unfortunately, due to an illness, my husband had to take the dogs. This has never happened and he's not as well trained as I am. I explained to him and then showed him what I wanted him to do. The next morning, he loaded them up and off they went. He reported that he held her, covered her eyes and that they were able to get the blood no problem. She did great. He said she was still nervous the whole time but it was over with very quickly and she got her treats and it was okay. Not great, not perfect but okay and sometimes okay is all you need.

If you do have a fearful dog and you need blood drawn, I highly recommend you ask that they do it from a back leg and I am very thankful that my friend told me to do it that way. It is less invasive and easier on the dogs!

Sometimes with fearful dogs, you just have to get through stuff. The world is not full of rainbows and butterflies and sometimes things happen to them that suck. Even with all the training in the world, sometimes you just have to get through it. You can't always make everything better. I think it's important to try, though and to teach them how to deal with stress. Both of my dogs have learned that sometimes things happen that suck but Mom (and sometimes Dad!) is always there to make it better and you get cookies! We have not stopped any of their training and I still work very hard to counter condition them to the stuff that bothers them but I've come to realize that I cannot prevent every scary thing 100% of the time.

Phoenix says, "I like COOKIES!!"

***Just as a side note. We are still working on Phoenix's "stranger danger" fear and handling. She is doing pretty good with it. She is never going to be one of those happy-go-lucky "I want to meet everyone" kind of dogs, but she is still the perfect dog for us and we love her so much.

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