Phoenix Does The Tunnel! Training Tuesday

Things are going a lot better the past two weeks at work with Phoenix. We have only had one new dog join the group and she's getting along okay with him. She also learned a new skill this week: Going through the tunnel! 

A post shared by Lauren Miller (@zoepheedogs) on May 16, 2017 at 5:59am PDT

A few years ago, there was no way she would do this. I'm pretty happy with her progress. She's doing really well and she's such a good girl. She's trying really hard to figure out how to dog with other dogs. 

Phoenix's favorite friend from work is Percy, the border collie. We spent some time last week doing agility with all the dogs. They got to do the jump, tunnel and our pause table.

A post shared by Lauren Miller (@zoepheedogs) on May 15, 2017 at 10:45am PDT

As you can see they really like all the training they get to do!

A Work In Progress...

Today we've got a Phoenix update! Phoenix goes to play group once a week on Mondays and she is doing pretty well with our established group. We don't see her playing very often yet but she's able to hang out with the other dogs and she does try to play with a few of her favorites. She's just not sure how it all works yet. "How do I get these dogs to play with me?" (That doesn't involve chasing and nipping or third wheeling.) Attending play group has also helped her with her dog interactions in the real world. She has been doing great when we go to the off leash hiking park. She's even solicited play from some random dogs we've come across out there!

With all the good stuff, Phee still struggles sometimes when she meets new big dogs. Greetings can be stressful and she gets scared. We had three new dogs start yesterday and she had trouble with one of them. I guess one out of three isn't ridiculously horrible but sigh... The greeting was not what we usually do with her, the dog showed up early (new dogs are supposed to come in last) we didn't control our antecedents very well and we had a snarky incident. Nobody was hurt but it wasn't pretty. Then the rest of the session, Phoenix struggled with that dog being in close proximity to her. Eventually everybody did settle down and everything was fine but it was not her best day.

Everyone at my work is very supportive and we think these are issues we can work through with her. There are other dogs that come who used to have way worse issues and they've been worked with and are doing great. I keep trying to remind myself that all dogs have good and bad days, just like us! Training takes time and she is only able to go once a week. My co-workers tell me that she is doing better each week and she also does better when I am not in the room with her.

When things go wrong, it's so much harder when it's your own dog. I can watch other dogs have their grumpy moments all day long but when it's my dog, it really gets me emotional. My boss has given me a mantra to repeat: "Conflict is normal". So I try to remember that shit happens, they're animals. We just do the best we can and that's all we can do.

So that's my Phee training update. She's a work in progress! Overall she's doing well so I'm trying to look at the bigger picture and not let an occasional off day get us down.

I also just wanted to let you guys know that I've been having technical difficulties with my computer and camera so it's been making it hard to blog and visit blogs. So this is why you guys haven't been seeing much of me.

Never Say Never! Phoenix Does Play Group!

Do you guys remember a year ago, when I first started my dog training job? Phoenix snapped at my co-worker's dog and I said she would NEVER learn how to be social or do the play groups my work offers? Well... I was wrong. After a year of working at my work, helping teach classes and working with the dogs in our play groups, seeing other dogs overcome their discomfort and fear of dogs, I overcame MY fear and booked Phoenix for a behavioral evaluation. Phoenix has been helping out in our reactive dog classes, which also helps her out, she gets counter conditioned, too. She's not leash reactive but face to face greetings are really hard for her and that's something we don't work on in a class environment. I really want to help her to feel more comfortable when we encounter other dogs out in the world while we are hiking.

Phoenix helps reactive dogs learn to relax!

My boss is a behaviorist and because Phoenix has never injured another dog, he agreed to working with her and trying her with our work dogs. My boss has also spent several months working with me and helping me to normalize conflict and snarky behavior. It's just a part of life, dogs have no other way of telling each other they don't like something and injuries rarely occur. Which is what we've seen with both of our dogs. Although, I will tell you it's much harder watching my own dog get snarky. I can manage a group of dogs all day long and not feel the anxiety I feel when it's my dog.

So her eval day arrived and it was time to take the bubble wrap off of her! Oh boy was I anxious but I am happy to report it went better than I expected. The face to face greetings were hard for her and we also decided she has what we call "problematic herding behavior". She has a weird hereditary drive to chase and nip the other dogs when they are running. With the bigger dogs we saw some snarky stuff because she's fearful of them but our play group dogs are really social and well behaved. They immediately understood that she was scared and they didn't push her. The younger dogs running makes her want to chase and nip but she did not hurt anyone and none of the dogs seemed to be bothered by her. She played with a few of our smaller terrier-type dogs which was great! One of our big grumpy old dogs actually liked Phoenix and tried to get her to play. Phoenix was not comfortable enough yet to play with her but it was cute to see her try.

Here's a short video of Phoenix with Percy. She really likes him! https://youtu.be/PZI_-K0S6ys

These are photos from her first full 4 hour play group:

At first, all she wanted to do was hide in the corner!

BUT, she was comfortable sharing her corner!

Everyone here is sharing the momentary sun!

Phoenix gets brave enough to mingle and sniff Nigel!

My boss decided that we could keep trying Phoenix on Monday mornings and we are hoping to increase her comfort level. Right now she doesn't really know what to do but she did do some playing with a couple of different dogs and that made me happy. I'm hoping that she can learn how to be a dog. I'll keep you guys updated!

Never say never and don't give up!