[Wanted Border Full Movie
Luther Lazaro
My 2.5 yr old chocolate boy has BCC. We live 3 mins away from the beach and have 3/4 of the year in tropical climates. Due to the BCC during most months the only way to run my boy off leash is in and out of the water, even in winter I have to be by a tap.
That's the health background, the trauma started after Elwood's 4 th dog attack (all at our beach, all by tourists dogs) the full contact attacks were all by Staffys and pit bulls so flesh was broken yet no stitches required. Some of these attacks I also was bitten. Our last episode was being chased by 2 x leashed bull mastiffs that dragged their owner 200m thru our local park trying to get both of us.
From day 1 he has been a biter and I tried every "technique I read, watched or suggested by the first trainer we tried....nothing stopped him nipping my fingers or chewing stuff. He gets bones, an tellers, Kong,and other chew toys when earned.
I started off reading The Dog Whisperers Raising good dogs I think it was called, by Caesar Milan before we got Elwood. Used all his techniques and I instinctively stopped as I saw he was building resentment in me.
I switched to VICTORIA Stillwells puppy book and tried positive training, which I preferred and incorporated the clicker early on after reading Don't Shoot the dog. Karen Pryor. Elwood started to bond again, Phew!....doing exceptionally well. Very sociable with other dogs, very much a boysterous dog than dominant. Very well behaved and then I taught him to fetch the ball when I broke my foot and everything has been unravelling ever since, or so it seems.
We don't have any separation anxiety issues, yet he seems anxious Whenever he is interacting on a personal level for eg being petted, yawning and scratching. He refuses to get up on the sofa or sleep on the bed always preferring his crate or be under the bed to sleep. Ears go back and head down when my husband or I gently chat to him.
I feel your pain. I just put my sensitive guy in a reactive dog class because he was becoming defensive after being accosted by more off leash dogs (there is a leash law here--I'm in the US) than I can count. On Sunday, he was charged at a dead run from several hundred feet away by a dog that had broken away from its handler in a REACTIVE DOG CLASS. Thankfully, no physical harm done because my guy and I had the presence of mind to freeze. If my dog or I had reacted, this encounter would have turned into a cluster#$%@
Honestly, at this point, I think that the only real action to take is avoiding places where there may be loose dogs. I've gotten into many verbal altercations with the owners of these dogs (not on Sunday because that was an accident and the owner was clearly upset) and I am starting to think that the fun of using these facilities is NOT worth the risk of confrontations with owners and the risk to our dogs. Sadly and unfortunately.
I am so sorry you are going through this, we also are dealing with post attack stress, fear, and reactivity in one of our dogs. I have been researching it constantly since and one thing that I've read is that if something stresses him out stop doing it and go smaller/backwards/to the basics because they don't learn in that stressed state. Are there any things that he seems excited and not stressed doing?
With our non reactive but fearful BC we were having a hard time training because when he got stressed he would shut down, so our trainer had us play a game where we sat down with treats and a clicker and anytime he offered us ANYTHING (read: moved a paw, sniffed, layer down etc) we clicked and treated. This made him confident and he was rewarded and playing a game that had zero pressure (as you play it more you can start clicking for things that you want to transfer into a trick and name). This might work for you because he could learn that there is no pressure and "everything" he does is fun and "right".
I have also been trying out "Training Positive"n YouTube which got me to the point where I can run Elwood on the beach when the local dogs are around . If a dog gets in his face and won't back off he will give a warning snap then a bite and will back down when I tell him to "Leave it". A different story when the beach is full of stupid tourists with untrained dogs.
From what I am reading he sounds like a dog that does not want to go to a dog park like setting. Many many dogs don't want to socialize with strange dogs they don't know. I don't see that as a training problem. I don't want to hang out in large groups of strangers and I feel no need for therapy.
Both my border collies don't thrive in a dog park/beach setting either. They both are dog friendly but mixing with groups of dogs they have never met, with different play styles, in an intense location isn't their thing.
These situations you describe sound stressful for your dog (snapping, biting at dogs is not him enjoying himself). I would suggest finding more positive places to take him to exercise where he does not have to fend off strange dogs, let alone be full on attacked. Maybe go out right at dawn when no one is out or find wooded parks, trails that are cooler and shaded.
Thank you Gentle Lake, it is a consideration I have been hoping to avoid due to the nasty side effects of anti anxiety mess. Having said that, it can possibly open a window of time for him to create new neural pathways for adapted behaviour.
We do go to other places to run alone and we never go to dog parks, all the articles I have read all state that isolation creates a stronger issue being around other dogs...just like we do. So I do mix it up and we walk the streets, go to bushland paths etc.
I want to see him happy playing with other dogs again and want to learn how to remove the "anchors" of the beach associations with the ball etc without the attacks. We have also tried a calming cap, and that didn't help at all.
The BCC causes us to need water for walks in summer as its 60-100% humidity here for most of the year from 6am so in full summer we can't even walk the streets, it's just too hot for him and he collapses.
Dear Wick and Artoo, there are many things that excite and not stress him. Fetch and tug always excites him, yet if we call him over for a pat, he gets anxious. He will wake us up in the morning by jumping on the bed giving us a lick, yet if we try to cuddle him he yawns anxiously, so we don't touch him unless he is on his back wanting a belly scratch.
The other day we were walking along the street and without any warning he jumped across me and nipped a woman on the arm. He hasn't bitten a human since he was a puppy and hasn't since. This was very worrying yet I haven't given it any energy and he has been great with strangers since then.
There is a kelpie at agility that always use to growl and try and attack Elwood, I would calmly click and treat him each time it happened, now that dog is the only dog he will willingly play with, they are great friends now. This same training hasn't transpired to other dogs yet.
What about some of the non-pharmaceutical products? Not sure what's available in Oz, but here in the US we can get a number of things that contain L-theanine, B vitamins (especially B 1) and things derived from milk proteins (casien).
There's a product called Zyklene (with casien I think) available OTC in North America and the UK. Solliquin has mimosa and Amur extracts, a milk based ingredient (probably casien) and L-theanine and I think is only available from vets.
That's wonderful thank you Gentle Lake, I'll look into any made here. Melatonin is not OTC here and we would need a blood test first to determine if he is low so that is also another avenue to investigate.
We met her in Nogales, Sonora, on the northern border of Mexico opposite Arizona. She was living in a shelter for deported people, where she told us of her brief and difficult stay in the United States.
She'd come all the way from southern Mexico, and crossed the border into Arizona early this year. Then her group of migrants was spotted by the U.S. Border Patrol somewhere outside of Tucson. How did she escape? "I ran," she said simply, but she was separated from her group, and was soon lost in the desert.
"I kept seeing lights," she said. "I'd walk toward them but get no closer." She was, she said, "dying of hunger." And she might have actually died except that in all that vastness, she discovered a discarded cigarette lighter.
Some of the most severe territory is also some of the busiest: near the Tohono O'odham reservation that straddles the border. Here we met Malcolm Lewis, the public safety director for the Tohono O'odham Nation.
He has a chart depicting scores of dead people found year by year on tribal land. "Our highest was 125, which is really a real burden on us because of the possibility of it being a homicide," he said.
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