GregoryGraves

Thank you very much! We'll start putting your advice to use right away. Thankfully, Shadow hasn't shown any signs of growling or biting with anything yet. I still remain vigilant and keep an eye on his body language in all situations we encounter. If he shows any aggression, we're ready to commit to finding a professional for help. I'm hopeful with some of the progress we've seen thus far though. I nephew stayed the weekend and Shadow was even listening to him. Before Shadow even put up the first paw, our nephew would tell him "off" and Shadow stopped and went to do something else. We just need to establish a much more rewarding activity for him to do at these times. We've already got a Kong, but we've got to restock on the stuffers for it. We'll work on the longer stay duration and the "go to your mat" command. He's staying for about ten seconds for me in a calm environment so far, so we still need to work on that for him. He's also been doing very well with his target. He even jumps up to hit it with his nose already. He's been a joy to work with as he learns some of these things so quickly. It's amazing to see just how smart he is. I think that as long as we give him the time, patience, and attention he deserves, he'll get there, and it'll be most rewarding just to see him less anxious and stressed. I'll be sure to keep you updated. Also, some good news is that he barked at the neighbor dog twice but then came running back for his toy ball earlier today. He's often more reactive toward other dogs, with a much farther threshold, so that one will likely take longer for him. I'm super vigilant for other dogs when we're out on our walks, and it's funny just how I've become with most of the neighborhood now. I know which houses around us have dogs and how to stay at a proper distance from them when walking Shadow for the meantime. We also had another good counter-conditioning walk today, about five stranger sightings without any barking, usually remaining about fifteen to twenty feet or more away. Also, thank you so much for your website and all the advice you offer. It has been a blessing for us in working with Shadow. He deserves the best, and we want to help him get there. It always hurts to see a dog that had to go through the trauma of losing their family and being surrendered to the shelter. We fell in love with Shadow even though it took some time for him to warm up to us, but he seems happier with each passing day. So with your help, I know we're on the road to seeing him even happier still! Thank you, Greg

Hello Adrienne, I'm quite new to the site and this forum. First, I'd like to give a bit of background. My husband and I recently (a week and a half ago) rescued a three year and nine month old German Shepherd mix. He is mostly German Shepherd and we are unsure what the mix may be or what potential percentage. His name is Shadow, and he's such a lovable guy once he's warmed up to you. The history that we received from the shelter is as follows: His first and only family, before us, had him since he was a puppy. The father had a regular 9-5 work schedule, and the mother was stay-at-home. They had three kids, the eldest around five or six while the youngest was still crawling. The reason the family gave for surrendering him to the vet was that Shadow was nervous peeing when the father came home. This created problems with the youngest sometimes crawling through the urine. Also, at the shelter, he displayed nervous, fearful, and reactive behavior, especially toward men. In fact, it took four days before he did not bark at us upon return to the shelter, which I was happy to see that he was actually glad to see me return on the day we finally adopted him. He also knew very basic obedience in terms of sit, down, and shake. Other than that, we got to see that he was highly motivated with playing fetch, and was as nice way for us to warm up to him. That's all we were able to learn before adopting him. After adopting him, I looked up training programs online and came across yours. Other than starting a routine of three walk and three fetch play sessions during the day, we also got him brushing up on his obedience 101. He is leash reactive, so we've been working on keeping him under threshold and doing desensitizing and counter-conditioning on our walks. We even had a very successful session with our nephew yesterday. We had our nephew sit in the field at the High School a block from our house. We walked a half circle around him at first, giving treats liberally each time he was "alert" to our nephew. Slowly we approached, but even if he barked once, we were still able to distract him and get him to do a command. Eventually, we were able to approach our nephew where we pulled out the ball he loves, had him sit and lie down, and then offered the ball to our nephew to toss. With just one or two bark, Shadow warmed up immediately to our nephew. Because of that successful session, I think we're making progress. I still remain aware that I need to be cautious and methodical though. I want to avoid as many setbacks as possible. We just have an issue when we have people over at our house. For example, our nephew came back to the house with us, and we had him play fetch with Shadow for a while in our fenced backyard, thus securing the positive association. When we finally entered the house, Shadow remained extremely excited. Usually with us, he'll spend his free time chewing on his favorite ball. He brings it to us, but we just set it down for him as we don't want "fetch" to be an inside thing. We also do our best to capture calm moments when he's inside. However, when someone new is over, he remains excited and potentially anxious. If he is not distracted with something, he tries to mount the new person. He also did this for the first four to five days with us, usually around the hours of 5-8 PM. What I've been doing is telling him "off" as a command and then get him to sit. I try and wait about a second and a half before I give him the treat, but I'm still worrying that I may be creating a chain command that involves the mounting. I have seen him go to do the mounting, stop, and then look at me. Again, I'm worried that that may have been a sign that he was learning to do that to get a treat. Also, it is rare, but every now and then, during what we call his "anxious hours" (5-8 PM), he tries the mounting with us still. It is definitely not a frequent as it was those first four nights with us. If it occurs with us, I ignore the behavior and get him to do a sit command instead. This is something I am very embarrassed about, but I know that he's still new to us and we're new to him, so he needs time, patience, and consistency. I'm curious about your thoughts on this mounting behavior and what you think would be the best approach for it. He's doing well with his brain training, and we're on to elementary for him. Other than that, I think we're making some progress with the reactivity, especially with the successful session with our nephew yesterday. However, we still have to work on securing it in several different environments with different stimuli, but we're taking it slow for him. Hope all is well, Greg