This sweet little girl is Zoe.
Zoe is sad because she is on a gentle leader. Zoe’s mom (Marcie) is sad because Zoe is afraid of other dogs and in order to protect herself Zoe maintains the “I’ll get you BEFORE you get me” attitude.
Marcie and Zoe attend the Thursday night drop in obedience class at our local training facility. I fell in love with Zoe the first moment I saw her.
So last night when I dropped into class and saw Marcie and Zoe, I couldn’t wait to get my hands on her.
I restrained myself for about 10 minutes, then ran up to Marcie and said, “May I?”
As soon as we had our first pause, I slipped the gentle leader off….
Sarah got in behind me to work the big baby German Shepard, as we rounded the corner of the room, Zoe saw the Shepard behind us and made her move. I snapped the leash and brought her back to me telling her “No!”
At the potty break I gave the leash back to Marcie, I felt miserable, like I had failed Zoe and Marcie.
A little back story on Zoe, Marcie has had her about four years, she did not have a problem with other dogs when Marcie got her; one day Marcie’s sister’s dog was over and while Marcie had her back turned there was some sort of altercation. Marcie is not sure what the tiff was about. Ever since that incident, Zoe has been aggressive with other dogs. She can do a quick sniff and go, but it has to be quick.
I thought I should throw this out to blogger land and see if any of you have any thoughts or suggestions on how to help Zoe and ultimately Marcie.
I feel like I have had success with Delilah but I don’t know how to transfer this to help Zoe or Marcie. How can we help Zoe overcome her fear aggression? I know as Zoe grows more confident Marcie will as well.
Look at this sweet face, let’s help take the sadness away.
Author’s Post Script: You may notice the fine white markings all over these pictures, that is deliberate. It is a watermark I am using. I heard from Sheltie Times that some of her pictures were stolen.
One woman I met gave rewards for looking at other dogs. An entirely just for aggression-training type treat (makes it extra special), that she only got when she looked at another dog nearby and didn’t react. it started off as quite a distance away, and worked closer, until the dog was being rewarded for watching a dog walk past, or watching a dog on-leash as it stood or sat nearby. I ran into them a lot for a few weeks, and you could see the improvement in this dog. The last few times we ran into each other, she and gwynn did the sniff-thing, though the dog still got uncomfortable if Gwynn tried to play with her.
Sounds like you were doing the right thing with the snapping-leash correct, though. Not coddling or reassuring her, just telling her “nope, this isn’t an option!”…
Thanks Lexy! I had thought of the treats, the thing is that Marcie is so nervous and I think she projects some of that onto Zoe. I have to figure out how to get Marcie to relax a bit more too. 🙂