Frustrating behaviour - update!

[hmarraner]

I thought it was time for an update! I am pleased to say that we have made some progress with Brandy so far but we are a long way from being out of the woods yet!

We had our visit from Lynne Davies at the end of July and she suggested we make some immediate changes by "sacking" her from her role (as she saw it) as "potential pack leader"!

We were advised to purchase a crate for her to sleep and eat in. Her meals now are fed to her in the strong black kongs so that she has to utilise her brain in order to get the food out. She also wears a remote spray collar permanently and I wear the remote around my neck at all times so that I can interupt the barking/attacking the letterbox/jumping up behaviours etc immediately (the downside of this is that I look like "an OAP with a panic button round my neck in case I fall over" - I have had a few funny looks from delivery drivers and neighbours but as long as it works I don't really care! ).

I also have to make every walk a "training walk" and walk her on the gentle leader, getting her to sit and ignore cars/other dogs while stuffing treats down her mouth to reward her for ignoring the distraction. We still have a way to go to master this technique though!

On the whole, Brandy seems a lot calmer already and, after a shaky start where she didn't empty the kongs properly for the first few days, she now gets really excited when I make the kongs up and runs into her crate in anticipation! She has pretty much stopped barking at our neighbours when they pass in the car and even (mostly) when they walk past with her arch enemy, Yoshi!!!

We are really pleased with her progress so far but we still have a lot to do! We (myself, my husband and Brandy) are booked onto Lynne's residential course in September and I am certain that this will be the making of us - I feel that we need one-to-one experience in controlled situations, especially where other dog tolerance is concerned.

Brandy is a fantastic and intelligent dog and I KNOW that she will one day emerge as our perfect family pet!!!

Many thanks for everyones comments and support - it is much appreciated

Thats all for now - I will post again after our residential course in September.

Kind Regards,

Hazel
(Apologies if this is the second time you are reading this -I orginally added it to the end of my previous thread but as it is a long thread I thought I should strat a new one instead)

[LOVEGSD]

Hi Hazel

I am so happy that Lynne Davis' visit has helped, it really sounds like you're making great progress and I can't wait to hear all about your experience in September so please come back and let us know.....I had heard really good things about her.

lol....I did have to laugh at you feeling that you look like an OAP with a panic button, but like you say if it works who cares.

Good luck and keep up the good work, you're a credit to Brandy

Lynn & Diesel...xxx

[hmarraner]

Hi all,

It's been a couple of months since our residential course with Lynne Davies so I thought I'd write a post with an update on Brandy's behaviour.

First of all the course was really helpful and Brandy has made improvements (allbeit slowly) ever since then.
Most of the people on the course had one dog each but Matt and I were working as a "tag team" with Brandy which was quite interesting actually as it meant that we were able to observe Brandy's (and each others) improvements - not so easy when you are in the thick of it doing the training on your own. One of the draw-backs of us taking turns to train Brandy though was remembering to switch over the "reward" toy each time - I will never let Matt forget the time when I realised that he still had Brandy's ball-on-a-rope while I was training with Brandy. The idea (as I'm sure you already know) is that the toy is presented at the end of each training exercise as a reward. Anyway, Matt decided to be really helpful and threw me the ball for Brandy - However (and they say women can't throw properly!) he completely mis-judged the distance and the ball went sailing past me by about 25 metres........Brandy is completely obsessed with her ball! I was therefore dragged accross the training field in view of everyone else while she retreived it - how I managed to stay on my feet is a miracle

We were so impressed with Lynne and the rest of the trainers that we signed up for extra training sessions and have been making the 130 mile round-trip regularly at weekends since then.

We are so grateful towards Lynne and the team as they are helping to make a real difference to Brandy's behaviour.

I can't believe that we have had Brandy for a year now!
It isn't going to be plain sailing and we have a long road ahead but we are on the right path and will get there in the end!

That's all for now!

Hazel

[LOVEGSD]

Well done you!!! This is fantastic news and you should feel so proud of yourselves for tackling this issue and succeeding

I can't believe it's a year already - how time flies!!

LOL...I loved reading the ball on a rope story.

Keep me updated as I love hearing how well you are now doing.

Lynn
xx

[Joe]

well done

You seem to getting over the hard first stages in your retraining schedule.

Keep at it and you will get fantastic rewards. speaking from experience.