Willow is a challenge. That's about the best description of her there is!
Will was another of my failed fosters; I really am not very good at it. She began life as an accident, one of a litter born to a female who was shut outside in a shed during her season and got at by a nearby male. She's a tricolour farm collie, working lines and she certainly shows it. Endless energy, a complete ratbag and a total challenge!
Willow's first owner was a friend of a friend, with a nervous dog. She asked me and our friend for advice when she wanted to get a companion for her (nervous and not good with dogs) dog; both of us told her, 'do not get a bitch; do not get a puppy; do not get a collie.' So naturally, she got all three. It took all of 10 days before neither she nor her dog could cope, so Willow went to stay with my friend. 10 days after that, the woman tried her for another weekend with the same result and as one of my friend's dogs was not coping with her either, I offered to look after her. By this time she was 11.5 weeks and practically unsocialised, aside from two unsociable dogs, one OTT collie and the car, and a few chickens. The critical socialisation window for a pup is 4-14 weeks, and she was nervy so I had my work cut out: 2.5 weeks to get everything in.
I didn't succeed entirely, unfortunately. Willow is by nature not only a very nervous dog, but also a super-submissive one when it comes to other dogs - her first response at any hint of unpleasantness (which could be the slightest 'back of a bit, kid' grumble) is to go uber-wiggly, grin her face off, scrunch her eyes shut and badger face in the hope they'll realise she's a total worm and not worth hurting. Of course, the vast majority of dogs find that intensely annoying, so they told her off; that worried her, so the behaviour intensified. The reality is, with only 2.5 weeks left in that socialisation window, I simply did not have enough time to get her around enough calm, sensible dogs to overcome that behaviour at her pace. She is vastly improved now, at 16 months old, but it's been a long slog and with a long way to go.
What hasn't helped was the run of bad experiences earlier this year - in February, her and little Jolly trotted off to say hello to some not terribly stable dogs, ignoring my calls. They soon came back when they decided the mastiff X was too much to cope with, and I was proud of that decision; unfortunately, that particular matiff X has rubbish social skills (having been raised with a reactive GSD), so it chased them both and loomed over them, frightening the heck out of Willow. As we got past that dog, her two friends - both serious bullies - took over and frightened her more and just before they left to catch up with their owner, one of them tried to bite Willow and Jolly both on their backs. She did at least recall but the damage was done. Having *just* gotten Willow over the dog reactivity that was sparked when she hit her second fear period at 7 months old, she was thrown right back to square one and then some.
A week after that, a dog I've known for some time - River's twin in looks - came hurtling over to say hello to me while his owner walked off, oblivious to what he was doing. While I was trying to keep River still to protect her back (slipped disc), he was trying to climb up mine, and Willow was completely freaking out.
Then another couple of weeks after that, on a trip to Derby, an idiot with a rottweiler on a choke chain let it get right up to Linc, wrap its paws around his neck and nearly bite his face before the idiot got it off him. Willow went absolutely crackers.
Since then, being the nervous type she is, she's become highly reactive to dogs and it's been very hard work. She is beginning to make some progress now but it's very slow - being a collie, her reactions are lightning fast so often she is reacting before I can; but we are getting there.
She has so much potential - like any collie, she could turn her paw to just about anything but we have to deal with this dog problem first. I will not be one of those owners of a snappy, barely-controlled collie who comes over the last jump of an agility course and straight into the nearest dog because they've simply been distracted by the sport but never taught how to actually behave around dogs so the adrenalin takes over; so that comes first. But I have made enquiries and found a local training club who will let me hire their field and equipment so I can teach her and a couple of the others how to do it by themselves, then they will not have that stress when I eventually put them in a class situation.
But, dogs first.
Wednesday, 16 July 2014
Phoebe
Two years ago on June 18th, my life was turned upside-down. A little hairy collie called Meg, with more than a few problems - nothing short of a basket case, frankly - joined my rabble after I spent three months trying to help her last owners help her; sadly, four years of not far short of mental torture in her last home through a combination of too little input at the start, stress, unpleasant behaviour from her people and very bad training techniques had created numerous and severe phobias, one of which was traffic. As her last home was a country home but on an extremely busy country road - some 200 cars an hour on a quiet day, and the house right on the roadside - we had to concede defeat in the end and she came to live here.
She now goes by the name of Phoebe and two years on, is still basically a wreck of a dog but she has made a LOT of progress. Her phobias still dictate most of her and our lives; she still cannot go for a walk more than twice a week because of the severity of those phobias but she is happy with that. As her stress levels have dropped over those two years, individual triggers have become more clear and there is a long list of them - however they boil down to just a few things: mechanical/engine noises (farm vehicles, clippers, cars etc), sudden loud noises (thunder and fireworks) and handling. The latter means that n her previous homes she was ungroomable - she can and would bite if people tried,so the first owners sent her off to be groomed. Yes, they sent a car and handling phobic dog away in a van to be groomed. Sigh. Predictably this made her much worse, but landing here with me, with my grooming and behavioural experience, meant that at last she had the right approach and within 3 days of arrival, I had her de-knotted, trimmed and bathed properly.
Since then, each trim has gotten shorter until last year, when I decided to shave her in the heatwave as she was struggling. Best decision ever - she is MUCH happier with very short fur, not just because of the heat but because I only have to brush her out once a month or so; and because she has some issues with physical contact with the others and it was extended to her longer hairs being brushed or trodden on so with those gone, she is much more confident in herself.
The one thing that has been the key to getting her to where she now - and beyond - is melatonin. Between me and her last two homes, almost every preparation, herbal mix and a few prescription drugs have been tried to de-stress her, as progress was either painfully slow or non-existant because her stress levels were so high (fundamental law of working with damaged dogs: stress inhibits learning so you have to reduce that first or you will get nowhere). They either sedated her, made her worse or did nothing. One day I was trying again to find something new and purely by chance, I stumbled across a blog about melatonin and its use in storm phobias. In that blog was a mention of how it can be useful for dogs with chronic stress problems. Worth a try, I thought; the blog stated (with input from a veterinary behaviourist with considerable experience of it) that it offered no side effects and no sedation. No addiction. So I ordered some and it's been nothing short of a miracle. I was reaching the point where her limited progress has plateaued, and I was beginning to wonder if it would be fairer on her to call time; but when you can still see the potential in a damaged dog, you are spurred on to keep looking for the next thing to try. Good thing too or I'd not have found out about melatonin and she'd be a very different dog - and it wouldn't have helped many more besides her too. But more on that in another post!
She still has such a long way to go, and I don't think I will ever be able to walk her past 6am (7am on a sunday) because of her hoover phobia which is perhaps the greatest of them all: one hint of that whine on the air and she goes into a blind panic. As she is already dealing with many triggers when on lead, that one is simply too much and probably always will but but she has still made enough progress elsewhere that she is a hppy, if a little loopy, fluffball and that's what counts :)
She now goes by the name of Phoebe and two years on, is still basically a wreck of a dog but she has made a LOT of progress. Her phobias still dictate most of her and our lives; she still cannot go for a walk more than twice a week because of the severity of those phobias but she is happy with that. As her stress levels have dropped over those two years, individual triggers have become more clear and there is a long list of them - however they boil down to just a few things: mechanical/engine noises (farm vehicles, clippers, cars etc), sudden loud noises (thunder and fireworks) and handling. The latter means that n her previous homes she was ungroomable - she can and would bite if people tried,so the first owners sent her off to be groomed. Yes, they sent a car and handling phobic dog away in a van to be groomed. Sigh. Predictably this made her much worse, but landing here with me, with my grooming and behavioural experience, meant that at last she had the right approach and within 3 days of arrival, I had her de-knotted, trimmed and bathed properly.
Since then, each trim has gotten shorter until last year, when I decided to shave her in the heatwave as she was struggling. Best decision ever - she is MUCH happier with very short fur, not just because of the heat but because I only have to brush her out once a month or so; and because she has some issues with physical contact with the others and it was extended to her longer hairs being brushed or trodden on so with those gone, she is much more confident in herself.
The one thing that has been the key to getting her to where she now - and beyond - is melatonin. Between me and her last two homes, almost every preparation, herbal mix and a few prescription drugs have been tried to de-stress her, as progress was either painfully slow or non-existant because her stress levels were so high (fundamental law of working with damaged dogs: stress inhibits learning so you have to reduce that first or you will get nowhere). They either sedated her, made her worse or did nothing. One day I was trying again to find something new and purely by chance, I stumbled across a blog about melatonin and its use in storm phobias. In that blog was a mention of how it can be useful for dogs with chronic stress problems. Worth a try, I thought; the blog stated (with input from a veterinary behaviourist with considerable experience of it) that it offered no side effects and no sedation. No addiction. So I ordered some and it's been nothing short of a miracle. I was reaching the point where her limited progress has plateaued, and I was beginning to wonder if it would be fairer on her to call time; but when you can still see the potential in a damaged dog, you are spurred on to keep looking for the next thing to try. Good thing too or I'd not have found out about melatonin and she'd be a very different dog - and it wouldn't have helped many more besides her too. But more on that in another post!
She still has such a long way to go, and I don't think I will ever be able to walk her past 6am (7am on a sunday) because of her hoover phobia which is perhaps the greatest of them all: one hint of that whine on the air and she goes into a blind panic. As she is already dealing with many triggers when on lead, that one is simply too much and probably always will but but she has still made enough progress elsewhere that she is a hppy, if a little loopy, fluffball and that's what counts :)
Long time no see! Or, changing times...
It's been an age since I updated this blog and a lot has changed since then. So, here begins the update!
Looking back, I've not been on here since I posted about the drawing to a close of the Era of Tia. That was in February 2012; I did indeed lose Tia soon after, although she barged her way through another 5 months in her usual way. In the end, she died on July 5th, after a lovely final day doing her favourite walk.
By that point the old girl could not walk far; she was trotting along for all of 5 minutes before exhaustion took her and a week before that horrible day, she gave me that look we all dread that told me she'd had enough. Tia lived for her walks above anything and everything else in her life and although she was still mobile, although her wobbly old legs hadn't given out yet, losing those walks was it for her - she'd had enough. So I gave her one more week, took her to lots of different,new and interesting places for little potters and made the time count. When the end came she slipped away very quickly with a mouthful of ham and no fight at all - she was ready.
We didn't have long to recover, though; for three months I'd been working with a very troubled collie girl by the name of Meg, with serious noise phobias, in her new home. I can never give her owners there enough credit - they worked their backsides off to try and help her overcome her problems but ultimately, they were just too severe and the environment there too noisy (country lane but an extremely busy one, and traffic is high on the phobia list) so a week after Tia departed, Meg came to live with us! I will write her her own blog post in the dog section; since her there have been another two dogs as well (they will get their own posts too) so this one will get rather long otherwise!
Since her arrival I have gained and lost a small dog; and this year, which still breaks me utterly, I have lost both Opi and Remy, my first two dogs, only 3 months apart and both to cancer. River, too, was diagnosed inbetween them, although hers was only a small lump and removed immediately; however tomorrow she is in surgery again as there is either regrowth of the cancer or reactive tissue of the wound from the last removal and as the cancer itself was of a particularly aggressive form, time must not be wasted. I cannot lose three dogs in just over three months, I just can't, so my poor girl will go through the mill again.
I'll update again soon; there is so much more that's happened, and more still to happen, that I won't get it all in one post without boring you all to death so I will try and do it in chunks!
Looking back, I've not been on here since I posted about the drawing to a close of the Era of Tia. That was in February 2012; I did indeed lose Tia soon after, although she barged her way through another 5 months in her usual way. In the end, she died on July 5th, after a lovely final day doing her favourite walk.
By that point the old girl could not walk far; she was trotting along for all of 5 minutes before exhaustion took her and a week before that horrible day, she gave me that look we all dread that told me she'd had enough. Tia lived for her walks above anything and everything else in her life and although she was still mobile, although her wobbly old legs hadn't given out yet, losing those walks was it for her - she'd had enough. So I gave her one more week, took her to lots of different,new and interesting places for little potters and made the time count. When the end came she slipped away very quickly with a mouthful of ham and no fight at all - she was ready.
We didn't have long to recover, though; for three months I'd been working with a very troubled collie girl by the name of Meg, with serious noise phobias, in her new home. I can never give her owners there enough credit - they worked their backsides off to try and help her overcome her problems but ultimately, they were just too severe and the environment there too noisy (country lane but an extremely busy one, and traffic is high on the phobia list) so a week after Tia departed, Meg came to live with us! I will write her her own blog post in the dog section; since her there have been another two dogs as well (they will get their own posts too) so this one will get rather long otherwise!
Since her arrival I have gained and lost a small dog; and this year, which still breaks me utterly, I have lost both Opi and Remy, my first two dogs, only 3 months apart and both to cancer. River, too, was diagnosed inbetween them, although hers was only a small lump and removed immediately; however tomorrow she is in surgery again as there is either regrowth of the cancer or reactive tissue of the wound from the last removal and as the cancer itself was of a particularly aggressive form, time must not be wasted. I cannot lose three dogs in just over three months, I just can't, so my poor girl will go through the mill again.
I'll update again soon; there is so much more that's happened, and more still to happen, that I won't get it all in one post without boring you all to death so I will try and do it in chunks!
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