H MORRIS

Superb response. Your advice has been invaluable Adrienne and we will definitely come back. You seem to really understand dogs and have a terrific insight into their needs. We intend to fix Finn if at all possible and with your help he’s already making good progress. Here he is training with me on the beach. FullSizeRender.MOV

More superb advice. We’ll try using the delay tactics with the eating. A little bit every day to try and get him to wait until we’ve finished. Fantastic! Yes, we’re increasing the recall criteria slowly. We’re still making the occasional mistakes but progress is definitely being made. Love the money analogy, it explains it perfectly. With respect to your last point, that’s the most difficult with a dog like Finn. There’s been so many issues with him, because of his excitement and anxiety, that you can easily become overwhelmed by the amount of training required. We just had to prioritise, but of course as you pointed out, leaving any one issue just causes him to rehearse. And that means more work later.

Really helpful stuff. Many thanks again. Love the Premack principle. Meal times were a real problem. While we were eating he’d beg and hassle us. If we put him behind a gate or in the other room he’d bark frantically because he could smell the food, even if he’d just eaten. Now we have him in the same room and he lies on his bed near our dining table. He has a kong and occasional pieces of chicken. He doesn’t move while we eat until he gets the free command. It’s taken a lot of work, but he’s very good now and just stays on his bed. It may not be the best solution but meals are peaceful and he’s still, quiet, and in one place. Finn doesn’t actually get any meals in a bowl. He has to work for all his food. It wasn’t what we wanted, but he’s made such progress. We can take his collar on and off, groom him, and inspect his teeth and ears, put a harness on him . . . all things that were unthinkable at 1 year old. He sleeps nicely in his crate and does all kinds of tricks. A lot of the time he walks well on the lead and his recall is quite good unless he’s over threshold. He’ll drop items well and we’re working up to food, and his leave it is really coming on. He seems happy too and is coming for more cuddles. The beagle we had some up years ago was so calm, so chilled, so loving that Finn has been absolute shock. As a pup he was like a wild animal. He would most likely be in a shelter now with most owners, but we’re determined to love him and fix him if it’s at all possible. His last few problems at 2 and a half are arousal barking, excited greeting, eating poo (hence the leave it work) and wildly scratching the floor/ furniture with both paws when unsettled. But he’s calmed significantly though and is very much on the right trajectory.

Again, that's fantastic advice Adrienne. We'll work at the treat retreat in the hope he'll be less over aroused when people come. I understand it's more for fearful dogs, rather than over aroused dogs who are desperate to meet the guest excitedly, but it'll probably apply just as well. The sit and wait method we've tried isn't really working and seems to get him more wound out to bursting with anticipation, even though he tries very hard to sit and wait. We've had him at the vets and there's no physical problem. In fact he was toilet trained really early on and we never have any accidents, other than this. And it's only tiny amounts that leak during the excitement, he doesn't cock his leg or squat at all, in fact you wouldn't know it's happened but for a few drops on the floor. He does pee a lot on walks, though not so much locally on walks he knows these days. But go somewhere new and he scent marks all the time, which clearly shows anxiety. Yet he loves going out in the car to new places. Incidentally he's coming on really well with your brain training games. He can do the jazz up and then sit game in 10 s and after a lot of work he has door manners every time we touch a door handle even if he takes a few seconds to process it. Other more difficult ones are still work in progress. Most of his problems are excitement mixed with some anxiety and some fear and we've overcome so many of his issues. The main ones left being wild greeting and peeing, and arousal barking for noises and when we have guests (particularly children). We had a BBQ for family recently and he played with the little children beautifully, not knocking them over and letting them take things from his mouth, but when people stopped to sit down he barked continually, which made things very stressful. I had to take him out for a walk to calm him down and let somebody else take over the cooking, but returning he was much the same. We're working so hard to fix him, we just wish we could tell him to calm down. Lol. Thanks again for really helping us.

Thanks to a lot of help from you, Adrienne, training with our very excitable 2 year old is progressing well. We regularly do the brain training and other stuff, determined to fix his problems. One area we are struggling with is his excitable greetings where he squirts out a bit of pee. We try to meet people outdoors and have worked very hard on trying to get him to sit by me and rewarding him for not jumping up until the person gets close enough to pet him calmly. Of course the lock down didn't help. But we're getting little progress. He's fine with my wife and I in the mornings, just wagging his tail and rolling over. But when my sister stayed recently he's over threshold waiting for her to come down in the morning. Barking constantly at the sound of her moving around, and trembling as she came down the stairs. We had to take him outside to meet her on the patio each day. It's the same when other people come or when he meets the neighbours on our driveway. It's not much pee but enough to need him outside. Strangely if he meets strangers away from the house, we don't get that problem, he just wags his tails and rolls over. Any help appreciated.

Many many thanks, I'll keep you posted.

Thank you so much for this. Sorry for the late reply we've had issues with our internet router. The detail you've provided is amazing and I can see that there's a lot more to work on. We've been down the medical route with our vet, full bloods, scans for bone problems and more. When he was a pup we were very worried that all his anxiety was as a result of pain, he could never settle and relax, always moving from place to place every few minutes. He also sits a bit strange without his two back legs not being parallel, puppy sitting or slouching. The vet assures us he's healthy though, no hip problems and thinks he's just an anxious dog. We wondered if he might sit like that because a lot of our floors are polished wood and it's a way he's learned to sit without sliding. We didn't have him neutered until 24 months, holding off to let hormones kick in and mature him as much as possible. He's now 28 months. If I go in the front room to relax and read, he comes and settles on the rug. If I get up and walk out he does the same. He's always watching me like a hawk. He rarely settles near us, always a little away. Very occasionally he jumps up and wants to sit directly on me. We've lined our seats with covers in case he wants to jump up. He doesn't follow my wife quite the same because she doesn't spend the time training him. But he's not a one man dog, he's always excited to see her and frequently walks up to her for a stroke and cuddle. She loves him as much as I do. One positive, he's always slept in his crate downstairs in the kitchen, right from day 1. He feels safe in there and each night we put him in with a small frozen kong and a dental chew and he goes and sits by himself, even before we're ready to close the door. It's his safe zone. It's got a cover, just the front uncovered. He never barks at noises outside in there or whines. It's a big success with him and we're very reluctant to use it for anything else, incase it spoils. We can go to bed and relax without him barking at noises outside. He can hear us upstairs and he seems happy. We really can't do with jeopardising our one sanctuary where everything is calm for him and us. Interesting you mention 'place'. We've been working on that for months and he will stay on a raised platform in another room for up to a minute now with distractions. It's been a long road though. We currently give him a calming supplement every day L-theanine and we're not sure whether it's effective or not because there's so many variables, but we have a feeling it takes the edge off. There's a lot to digest here and as with all the other things we're doing we'll give your protocols a real go. Anything to help him be happy. Love is clearly not enough for dogs like this. We'd have thought after 2 years he'd be able to trust us completely but his brain is working against him. Many many thanks Adrienne.

Thanks for your kind words. Another issue we could do with some help on is his separation anxiety. Since the lockdown in the UK finished, he's very stressed at us leaving. So we've watched the training videos and flagged up that we're leaving, put him in the utility room, put on relaxing music, given him a chew and are leaving for just a few minutes at a time, increasing duration very slowly. We return and take him out immediately as a reward. It's been hard. The whining and crying is difficult to take. But it's now led to a side effect, if he sees either of us go anywhere near our shoes he goes absolutely mental, barking, spinning, jumping, even if we're just going out to take the trash. We've tried doing it quietly whilst he's in another room but he can hear us. This has only just started since we've been doing the separation training.

Thanks for an extensive and brilliant reply. Lots to think about. It’s good to know we have some balance in our activities. We’re also doing your brain training games during the day and he loves them. He’s incredibly bright even though he’s very anxious and reactive. We’ll try the ‘hear that’ and work harder on ‘place’ to try and get him to relax when we’re getting on with other things. Nobody tells you if you get an anxious puppy, it’s the route for a whole variety of unwanted behaviours, not just one or two. Barking, lunging, wild greeting, struggling to relax, resource guarding, pulling on the leash, hyper vigilance and aversion to grooming. The amount of training and research can be incredibly daunting if you’re not a trainer or behaviourist. It’s been a long and sometimes stressful uphill 2 year battle and we haven’t won yet. But we’re determined to help him succeed and he’s improved a lot. Our previous dog hardly needed a treat to behave beautifully, this has been a real eye opener. Much appreciate your superb insights.

Adrienne, we’d be really interested on your take about the amount of activity for our anxious hyper dog. Reading around there seems to be a split of opinion amongst the dog trainers and behaviourists. Some advise lots of activity to tire them out. Some say that activity hypes them up, particularly games of fetch, chase or tug, which further arouse them. These trainers advise a ‘do nothing’ protocol to try and get them to calm down so they have to mooch about without rehearsing. With Finn our border collie cross, he has 3 short toilet break walks down the lane for leash work, about 1/4 mile there and back. He also has two 20 minute exercise bouts in our paddock, chasing balls, fetch, frisbee work and at least one session of find a scent object off the lead. As we’re retired we often go for longer walks and take him to parks, woodlands etc. We’ve also done a lot of socialisation stuff walking around busy car parks, town centre, eating at cafe’s etc. But at just 2 years old he still struggles to settle, particularly in the evening when we watch TV, listening for any noises outside, barking when he hears anything. He moves from position to position and frequently scratches the floor or furniture. Wonder if we should do less?

OK you’ve definitely made me realise that I need more imagination to find those in between steps. A superb reply that’s full of interesting advice. I tried a stick of celery this morning and when I said ‘get it’ and ‘hold’ he held it in his mouth. And then the ‘drop’ was perfect. Later I tried to give him a small piece to eat but he wouldn’t eat it. Drat, no wonder he was so good. So the hunt is now on for something he only just regards as food but will drop, or a treat he can smell inside a container, or a higher value food that’s harder, so he can’t bolt it down to give time for the drop command, mark and treat with high value. I’m on it. Meanwhile keep practising with toys. Thanks again.

Thanks very much for the suggestions. He’s not big on vegetables or fruit and tends to leave them but he will eat banana and apple pieces. They’ll definitely be on my list.

Thanks again, great videos. In those two vids, when the dogs are given food (albeit low value) there's just a long enough pause for the trainers to give the command 'drop', mark, and produce the high value treats. My dog Finn is superb at drop with just about any object after a lot of training, it's become reflex. But as soon as it comes to food however low value eg bread or kibble, and even though he knows I've got chicken waiting to give him, I can't even get a pause before he turns away and devours it and returns wagging his tail for his high value treat. He's a very excitable dog and I guess this is all part of his condition. I'll continue with the games and impulse training and just hope time will calm him.

Thanks again. Great stuff! Just what we’re looking for. Finn will eat anything as long as it’s food but paper, plastics, socks etc he’ll chew but won’t swallow. Which is good. We’ll try to up the anti on ‘leave it’s’ Just like you show, but I’m not holding out any hope for dropping anything food related out of his mouth, even though he’s getting very good with different objects.

Thank you again for a thorough reply. We’ll up the ‘leave it’ and ‘drop’ work and hope it helps. My dog loves bread, in fact he loves all food, even fruit like apples and bananas. I’m going to have to find a food that he’s not so keen on, somehow, in order to make the transition from objects to food.

Thanks for a very comprehensive reply. He's a very lucky boy and gets Eden kibble, chicken and pate every day for training. Making the pieces smaller is obviously the way to go. Really look forward to your thread about bridging the gap between objects and food for the 'drop' command. Many thanks.

One of the big problems with high energy anxious dogs is that they display a lot of these unwanted behaviours such as barking at noises, barking in the car, wild greetings, submissive urination, pulling on a lead, possessiveness etc etc. We’ve tried a lot of the videos and they’re starting to work with our border collie, but the dog is starting to get over weight from the treats. And there’s a limit to how small you can make them. Currently we’ve switched all his food to training in the hope it helps. And secondly in some cases we’re struggling with progression. He’s getting great at drop now, but if he finds something on a walk he still won’t drop it. This is because objects to food is a massive step with no in between. He’s done dozens of different objects in different locations, but as soon as he gets a bread stick or similar, whatever treat you have he’s going to eat it! Any help appreciated.