What a fascinating evening.
To let you understand what I was walking into tonight, this is the background information.
There are two dogs - a male brown and white Dalmatian called Dyson who is 6 1/2 and a 3-year-old rescue Lurcher called Zoe.
Both are neutered.
They have had Zoe for 8 months now and in the home they are very happy together.
However, Zoe is an independent sole who they want to understand more and who needs to understand that 'come' means 'come', 'stay' means 'stay' and wildlife and other dogs don't need chasing.
Dyson has always been a nervous dog who is all bark but cowers when he gets himself into trouble.
They need to understand them more and what I can do to ensure their well-being and safety.
A great description of the issues being faced and what follows is what happens and how the issues were dealt with.
The first thing I saw when I rang the doorbell was Dylan on the other side of the door barking very quickly at me.
Yet, when the door was opened, he had gone and I was let in.
The house is a three-storey town house so we went upstairs to the lounge where I was met again by a barking and growling Dylan and close behind him was the owner telling him not to bite me.
I asked her to relax but she said she couldn't because Dylan would bite me as he had bitten other visitors in the past.
She was clearly convinced this would happen and she found it difficult to relax and sit down.
Dylan, in the meantime kept growling and staring at me.
I just stood nice and relaxed and he quickly relaxed and went to sit with the other owner, but kept an eye on me accompanied with the occasional growl.
Our conversation consisted of details of the behaviour he was exhibiting, the lead pulling, and the panic of seeing other dogs and even people and Zoe's habit of hunting when on a walk.
As Dylan was already at home when Zoe was rescued, my focus was on him and his fear.
During our conversation and by careful questioning I discovered Dylan had been let off his lead as a young dog and had been submissive to other dogs and had been to puppy socialisation classes where he had been off lead with other dogs.
His owner was amazed when I suggested this was the cause of his aggression to dogs and people.
His aggression to people stems from kids and adults swamping him when he was a young dog which he made him feel trapped and insecure.
As Dylan was now relaxed properly, quicker I might add than his owners had expected, I wanted to crack on with retraining Dylan at the front door.
To do this, I put him on an extendable lead so when I rang the door bell his owners could walk upstairs, Dylan would follow them and learn to be more relaxed at the door.
I let myself in and Dylan barked at the top of the stairs, his owner clapped her hands and he went straight to her.
I repeated this several times and he just got better and better at calming down.
He still barked and we want him to but he was learning to listen to his owners.
Following on from this I moved into departure training, departure for a walk, that is and teaching the owners how to leave the house with calm and relaxed dogs.
Usually, they put the leads on at the front door and went straight out.
This just means the dogs and the owners were all leaving the house in a very stressed and wound up state of mind.
By putting the leads on upstairs, we created the opportunity to show the dogs if they went through the doorway first, the owners didn't follow, they had to go back to them and start again.
This proved very successful and we were soon out of the house, both dogs with one owner and slack leads.
We practiced walking up and down their street, one other dog did walk past and I showed the owners how to deal with Dylan, to be fair to him he only barked once, got an interruption and came back to his owner a much calmer dog.
They now have a couple of weeks to practice before I go back.
I will let you know how they get on.
To let you understand what I was walking into tonight, this is the background information.
There are two dogs - a male brown and white Dalmatian called Dyson who is 6 1/2 and a 3-year-old rescue Lurcher called Zoe.
Both are neutered.
They have had Zoe for 8 months now and in the home they are very happy together.
However, Zoe is an independent sole who they want to understand more and who needs to understand that 'come' means 'come', 'stay' means 'stay' and wildlife and other dogs don't need chasing.
Dyson has always been a nervous dog who is all bark but cowers when he gets himself into trouble.
They need to understand them more and what I can do to ensure their well-being and safety.
A great description of the issues being faced and what follows is what happens and how the issues were dealt with.
The first thing I saw when I rang the doorbell was Dylan on the other side of the door barking very quickly at me.
Yet, when the door was opened, he had gone and I was let in.
The house is a three-storey town house so we went upstairs to the lounge where I was met again by a barking and growling Dylan and close behind him was the owner telling him not to bite me.
I asked her to relax but she said she couldn't because Dylan would bite me as he had bitten other visitors in the past.
She was clearly convinced this would happen and she found it difficult to relax and sit down.
Dylan, in the meantime kept growling and staring at me.
I just stood nice and relaxed and he quickly relaxed and went to sit with the other owner, but kept an eye on me accompanied with the occasional growl.
Our conversation consisted of details of the behaviour he was exhibiting, the lead pulling, and the panic of seeing other dogs and even people and Zoe's habit of hunting when on a walk.
As Dylan was already at home when Zoe was rescued, my focus was on him and his fear.
During our conversation and by careful questioning I discovered Dylan had been let off his lead as a young dog and had been submissive to other dogs and had been to puppy socialisation classes where he had been off lead with other dogs.
His owner was amazed when I suggested this was the cause of his aggression to dogs and people.
His aggression to people stems from kids and adults swamping him when he was a young dog which he made him feel trapped and insecure.
As Dylan was now relaxed properly, quicker I might add than his owners had expected, I wanted to crack on with retraining Dylan at the front door.
To do this, I put him on an extendable lead so when I rang the door bell his owners could walk upstairs, Dylan would follow them and learn to be more relaxed at the door.
I let myself in and Dylan barked at the top of the stairs, his owner clapped her hands and he went straight to her.
I repeated this several times and he just got better and better at calming down.
He still barked and we want him to but he was learning to listen to his owners.
Following on from this I moved into departure training, departure for a walk, that is and teaching the owners how to leave the house with calm and relaxed dogs.
Usually, they put the leads on at the front door and went straight out.
This just means the dogs and the owners were all leaving the house in a very stressed and wound up state of mind.
By putting the leads on upstairs, we created the opportunity to show the dogs if they went through the doorway first, the owners didn't follow, they had to go back to them and start again.
This proved very successful and we were soon out of the house, both dogs with one owner and slack leads.
We practiced walking up and down their street, one other dog did walk past and I showed the owners how to deal with Dylan, to be fair to him he only barked once, got an interruption and came back to his owner a much calmer dog.
They now have a couple of weeks to practice before I go back.
I will let you know how they get on.
Source...