Toby, the Reactive Rescue

[OntarioSheltie]

The beauty of Shelties... my trainer says... just add water... and then you have a Sheltie doing agility LOL

I had not practiced anything all week, go to class Saturday and voila, mini snooker class course DONE and won best in class
Last week.. same thing.. not trained nuffin... mini gamblers course... won best in class again, lollll

You don't have to get a dog to run in nationals, just one to have fun with I betcha Ginny would be a handful, Sadie a velcro dog and Toby would take time to develop the bond with you and then be contained and powerful energy

The problem isn't with training the dogs, its with training myself.

I've been told that all three of them would be great agility dogs. Ginny is bossy but I can handle her.

Toby's foster mom took him to agility classes with her and her trainer said he is a natural. Agility would be a great way to help him gain confidence and learn to trust me.

I'd have to be really careful with Sadie because of her back legs now. She can jump and do tunnels no problem, but the dog walk, a-frame and teeter might not be good for her. Her legs are weak and her balance isn't the best. But she LOVED agility so it would be fun to do a class with her again at some point.

 

[OntarioSheltie]

Toby's First Obedience Class

Toby did well at his first obedience class. He was definitely a little overwhelmed at times with all of the noise and chaos, but he did really well. He was tolerant with the other dogs, even the ones being overly exuberant.

Before the class began I walked him around the training area so he could sniff and see everything, so there were no explosions, that night anyway. I explained to our trainer that it doesn't mean he won't freak himself out some other time.

Looking forward to his next class.

Toby is doing about the same on walks, I need to get my husband to help with his training by driving our car near him and starting it with Toby near by. Hopefully tonight we'll have some time to work on that.

Toby is also making good progress around men. He cuddled on the couch with my dh a couple of nights ago and has been happy to approach our friend down the street with the rest of the dogs. At the obedience class he voluntarily went up to the male helper on his own for pats, although he was REALLY after the treats in his pocket.

 

[danisgoat]

Sounds like Toby is starting to feel more secure in his surroundings. You guys are doing a great job with him. He will be a really great dog in no time!

Thanks for the update.

 

[OntarioSheltie]

Setback with Toby

It has been very windy in our area for the past couple of days, which has had Toby really on edge. He's been jumping up and barking like a maniac at every sound, then whining and pacing around.

I've been trying to be patient with him and mainly call him to me and make him lie down. If his whining continues I put my hand on him till he's calm or try to massage him.

Things got significantly worse in the evening when the smoke detector went of while my dh was making toast. Toby was simply beside himself with panic over the noise, while I tried to calm him and fan the smoke detector with an oven mit.

He's been even more anxious since then, barking at every little sound he hears. I was home sick yesterday and he just about drove me nuts.

I'm trying to be patient but Toby's frantic barking is starting to shatter our nerves as well as Sadie's and Ginny's.

I emailed my trainer about him, in hopes that we could discuss his anxiety issues at class tonight, but she felt that they were so numerous that we'd be better suited to a private lesson some time.

Feeling kind of discouraged today. While he's made good progress since we brought him home, his lunging on leash has reached a point that it isn't getting any better and now his fear in the house is even worse. I'm not sure if what I'm doing is helping him or making him worse at this point.

 

[OntarioSheltie]

On a more positive note...

Toby has stopped trying to hump everyone and seems to have figure out his place in the pecking order. There's also a lot less grumbling about toys.

His obedience training is going well and he's finally starting to listen to the 'down' command. Stubborn little bum knew the verbal command but was fooling me by choosing not to listen. I managed to solve this by ignoring him for a few minutes, asking him to down again and giving him a jackpot for listening.

If only I could get the noise anxiety under control! He's such a sweet boy, I hate that he's so anxious at times!

 

[Toffee's Mom]

...

If only I could get the noise anxiety under control! He's such a sweet boy, I hate that he's so anxious at times!

It is totally understandable it is going on your nerves.
I can talk about the smoke alarm (nevermind your DH BURNING toast... lol) because Toffee reacts the same way, but he doesn't have quite the confidence issues Toby does.

How I FINALLY got Toffee under control, is realizing quite by accident that I had made it worse instead of better...

My smoke alarm goes off too much, LOL So I kept on being all in a rush about it, grabbing the towel fanning the thing, trying to control Toffee being a nutcase... all at the same time, and being peeved off that it happened in the first place. So then comes my reactive Sheltie to my rescue, in his HAVING to control movement and noise zone, lol
In reality this was too late to do anything but wait him out, which OF COURSE I did NOT do... oh no I hollered instead, got more upset, tried to control HIS movement just to frustrate him even more and it continued to escalate.

So THEN I said the hell with this, let me get the clicker out and try to figure out how to shape a different behaviour... So next opportunity I heard the alarm and ignored it because I was going to find my clicker ... but in the meantime ... can you guess Toffee did NOT even make a sound, because I didn't react to the sound... he just ran to the alarm and looked at it... what had always set him off was MY reaction to it!

So then because he was quiet I could go ahead and click and treat ... then quietly go get towel and click and treat while waving the darn thing, and silencing the alarm... took so much less than I had anticipated, if that makes sense.

Makes so much sense now.. but I dunno why it took me months to figure that out

 

[OntarioSheltie]

It is totally understandable it is going on your nerves.
I can talk about the smoke alarm (nevermind your DH BURNING toast... lol) because Toffee reacts the same way, but he doesn't have quite the confidence issues Toby does.

How I FINALLY got Toffee under control, is realizing quite by accident that I had made it worse instead of better...

My smoke alarm goes off too much, LOL So I kept on being all in a rush about it, grabbing the towel fanning the thing, trying to control Toffee being a nutcase... all at the same time, and being peeved off that it happened in the first place. So then comes my reactive Sheltie to my rescue, in his HAVING to control movement and noise zone, lol
In reality this was too late to do anything but wait him out, which OF COURSE I did NOT do... oh no I hollered instead, got more upset, tried to control HIS movement just to frustrate him even more and it continued to escalate.

So THEN I said the hell with this, let me get the clicker out and try to figure out how to shape a different behaviour... So next opportunity I heard the alarm and ignored it because I was going to find my clicker ... but in the meantime ... can you guess Toffee did NOT even make a sound, because I didn't react to the sound... he just ran to the alarm and looked at it... what had always set him off was MY reaction to it!

So then because he was quiet I could go ahead and click and treat ... then quietly go get towel and click and treat while waving the darn thing, and silencing the alarm... took so much less than I had anticipated, if that makes sense.

Makes so much sense now.. but I dunno why it took me months to figure that out

Toby is sensitive to noise even if we don't react, he's constantly scaring us. He would have freaked even if we hadn't rushed to turn it off. Plus I have three dogs barking, not just one. The problem with him is he's so worked up that he will not take treats, he's beyond thinking. He'll some times just race around, barking, whining, panting and pacing.

 

[Toffee's Mom]

Toby is sensitive to noise even if we don't react, he's constantly scaring us. He would have freaked even if we hadn't rushed to turn it off. Plus I have three dogs barking, not just one. The problem with him is he's so worked up that he will not take treats, he's beyond thinking. He'll some times just race around, barking, whining, panting and pacing.

yes, he is very sound reactive... its different for Toby. I wonder if he will settle down more once he is more secure in where he is, here is to hoping that that's all it is. He has a very low threshold so I wonder continuing rewarding and handfeeding and so on.

 

[SheepOfBlue]

Have you tried to desensitize him by taking noises and making them progressively louder? For instance a siren played on the stereo at 2 then 3 then 4 etc. It would not take care of his whole spectrum but might help in general

 

[Justicemom]

It is totally understandable it is going on your nerves.
I can talk about the smoke alarm (nevermind your DH BURNING toast... lol) because Toffee reacts the same way, but he doesn't have quite the confidence issues Toby does.

How I FINALLY got Toffee under control, is realizing quite by accident that I had made it worse instead of better...

My smoke alarm goes off too much, LOL So I kept on being all in a rush about it, grabbing the towel fanning the thing, trying to control Toffee being a nutcase... all at the same time, and being peeved off that it happened in the first place. So then comes my reactive Sheltie to my rescue, in his HAVING to control movement and noise zone, lol
In reality this was too late to do anything but wait him out, which OF COURSE I did NOT do... oh no I hollered instead, got more upset, tried to control HIS movement just to frustrate him even more and it continued to escalate.

So THEN I said the hell with this, let me get the clicker out and try to figure out how to shape a different behaviour... So next opportunity I heard the alarm and ignored it because I was going to find my clicker ... but in the meantime ... can you guess Toffee did NOT even make a sound, because I didn't react to the sound... he just ran to the alarm and looked at it... what had always set him off was MY reaction to it!

So then because he was quiet I could go ahead and click and treat ... then quietly go get towel and click and treat while waving the darn thing, and silencing the alarm... took so much less than I had anticipated, if that makes sense.

Makes so much sense now.. but I dunno why it took me months to figure that out

Do you live at my house? LOL I finally ripped the darn thing off the ceiling one night. Seriously water boiling water will set it off. I wonder why my dogs hate the sound, I stay so calm.

Sound sensitivity is hard. Jazz was very bad with it. Best thing I could do was not react all. Just let him go though it and figure it out and praise when he is calm. As long as he isn't hurting himself let him be. Seriously I tried everything with Jazz and that was the only thing that worked. Any reaction on my part made it worse. Also I had to make any effort to quite worrying about it as that made her worse. Dogs read us like books if we are nervous, worried and upset so are they.