Anxiety

[dogsareme]

Shadow came from a very sad condition. There where 52 dogs tied up on 5 ft chains in gross conditions. They where mal-nourished to the point of almost starving. They where all under-socialized, mating with one another and eating the babies
I took Shadow in as the rescue had more then they could handle and asked for help. Being a small home based rescue I could only take one. For two weeks he would not come in the house and stayed under our patio where I fed and watered him. Gradually we gained his trust and allowed him to proceed at his own pace. We never forced ourselves upon him. Now he is a very confident dog, though not overly fond of strangers he is no longer running away. This is to give a brief history background on Shadow.

Shadow is maybe 2 now, still young. Well he has impeciable Dog Social Skills and is every good with people now, he has anxiety issues.

When I take him for walks on leash for the first 10 minutes of walking he is WHINE, WHINE, WHINE, WHINE, WHINE, prance, jump, prance and whine. Once he stops that he is very much un-able to focus on me and is fixated on everything around him. I have to stop and wait for a minute before he can even look at me. I try food but sometimes it works and sometimes it does not, even very rewarding food.

Then when we see another dog he is WHINE, WHINE, WHINE, jump on me (which he never does other wise ever) jump on my other dogs, prance, do circles in the air, WHINE . until we are well past. He is even starting to set off my other dogs now which is not good.

Other then this Shadow is fantastic! He has an amazing recall on him so he can go for off-leash walks and come when whistled for. He can even meet other dogs off-leash give a sniff and when I say "lets go" he disengages and comes running. When I do call him to come he only hangs around for 10 seconds before taking off-again to explore, but the time is increasing. His biggest problem is his anxiety when on leash and I am getting very frusterated. Winter is almost here in Canada and it is getting dark early, and stays dark until later in the morning that I will not be able to take him on the trials for running anymore except on weekends.

What can I do about his anxiety? Is this a normal greyhound behavior when not released to run? What about the constant pulling? Normal methods to stop it are just not working (stop and wait till he gives slack, or turn and walk the other way until he slacks up). HELP

[Nettie]

I think you need to work on the look at me command, teach him to look at you at home first. A way of teaching this is to get a treat as he focusses on the treat bring it towards your nose (as long as you're sure he's not going to lunge for the treat) as soon as he's looking at you, give him whichever word you want to use for this command and then give him the treat, practice this a few times a few times a day, then practice without the treat. Move this to training to outdoors when he's on the leash in your garden, more repetitions and practice, then move it to the street and practice when there are no dogs around, and then try when he does see dogs, it may take a while but distracting him from the other dog is what you are trying to do.

With regard to his pulling, what are you walking him in - collar or harness? I have had really great results with the walkezee www.dogtrainingharnesses.co.uk/ harness with one of my lurchers although its not great if they hang back but a double ended lead, one end on the collar and one on the harness has given more control. They are quite pricey but worth it. I'm not sure whether they will ship to Canada but if you're interested you can always ask.

[Flaperoo]

I had this problem several months ago with Roo.

I was advised to walk him seperately from the others for a while, keep him on a short leash, walk him behind me, use lots of praise when he walked past another dog and did not react and if he did to keep moving forward and ignore his behaviour, as soon as he settled and was calm again give praise.

It sounds simple but it worked. It took about a month.

You may not be aware of it but now that he is behaving like this you could subconsciously be transmitting anxiety down the lead to him. With hindsight I now know I was, so it really helped me to just walk Roo on his own, that way I felt I had complete control of him and could focus my attention just on him without having to worry about how the other dogs were going to react as well.

Good luck

Mx