I know I mentioned in my introduction that our pit Robin is a bit leash reactive... I'm going to amend that to generally anxious and fearful of the world at large.
However, I have hope! This is not new for me. Our much older dog is a fear biter who shows only very subtle signs of discomfort until he snaps at the hand reaching for him. I now know the signs, and once we learned all his triggers, we were able to both manage and work on minimal counter-conditioning. He can now successfully be around visitors to our home. However, I began working on him after it had already become a serious management issue-- and at 15 with pretty severe arthritis and possibly spondylosis, some of his reaction is possibly due to being in pain. So we focus, at this stage in his life, on management and lots of understanding.
With Robin, I don't want it to be a management only situation; I recognize that she may always need special handling and consideration, but she is young enough (~1 year) that it's definitely worth working with her fears and not only managing her. She was a stray when we found her, had never had a collar on, and crate trained pretty much immediately-- combine that with her fear of EVERYTHING-- she barks or backs away from posters on the wall at the drive-thru coffee shop, at trash cans, at something I couldn't even find on the ground last night at the park
in addition to people, especially people that stare at her, which is primarily kids-- it all makes me think she spent the first 10-12 months of her life in a crate/cage or otherwise confined. Now if people come to our house, she's sweet as pie and outgoing, though she gets overstimulated pretty easily if she wants to play and mouths/nips. She's met children and adults with canes and been great in any place she feels comfortable. The only exception is when a friend of ours walked into our house without knocking while we were in our back bedroom; she was barking and backing up, but he gave her a treat and she warmed up immediately.
So it seems pretty clearly reactions to fear and not aggression. We will be consulting a behaviorist who works in the area; she clicker trains (which Robin has been very responsive to) and is versed in TTouch, is a CGC certifier, and does therapy dog work, and claims to particularly specialize in shy/fearful/aggressive dogs. And she's recommended by the holistic vets in the area. I've read most of Cautious Canine, but it wasn't much new info; I'm ordering Nicole Wilde's book today, and in the meantime, we go to the park where she can see people and I click and treat when she looks at the people without barking; if they stare though, it can be hard. Would Control Unleashed be something worth having in her situation?
Any other reading that would do me good? We'll get with the behaviorist soon, but Robin is currently recovering from spay surgery, and has a huge seroma that may require her to be opened up again. I don't want to start something that has to be put off in the middle, so some meantime reading and recommended games would be fantastic!
) seroma... Fingers crossed!
I don't even know how he got to it, but I was a little afraid the proverbial bricks would literally be coming out the other end!). I feel like he is wired to be a little anxious over loud noises, new people, etc., and we didn't help things by not socializing him properly and by using traditional aversives. I'd like to think I know better now, 15 years later!
so I'm hoping I can keep her home today.