Category: Rescue to Rehabilitation

Lucy took her first trip to the park today. She was very excited about the whole thing. She loves going for rides, and was eager to get into the truck. We used the opportunity to work on threshold stuff before I let her into the truck. Once we got to the park she patiently waited for me to let her out of the truck. Her excitement at this point was a little higher. She would sit, then stand, then sit, then stand, then sit, then stand…Once I got her to sit and stay for an extended period of time, we began working on heel.

When we first got to the park, and through the first lap of walking it, there was nobody there. The things that bugged her initially was walking under a flag pole. The flapping of the flags in the wind scared her a bit. Then as we began walking, she began scanning like crazy – looking for anything that she could get excited about. I corrected this form of loading with a pretty high correction. At this point, we were already in the 70’s on the ET-300 mini educator e-collar. The fact that nobody was at the park made things extremely easy. However, I forgot that today was an early-out day for the schools…

As people started showing up, Lucy would occasionally perk up her ears and give attention to the children. As long as we were walking that last lap, we were far enough away to make correcting her easy. When it was time to leave, we had to walk towards the playground and the children. This really excited her. I ended up turning the settings on the e-collar all the way up to 100 to get her to pay attention to me at all, and we were at the point that I would tell her to sit, hold stim on her e-collar, and guide her with the prong collar. There was nothing aggressive in her at all, but to train the right attitude and respect into her, I need to have Lucy’s full attention.

All of this being said, I have definitely decided that we need to order a more powerful e-collar. If there had been something at the park that had really triggered her, I would have been in pretty big trouble. I am ordering the ET-800 Boss. I have already talked to customer service, and it sounds like it is exactly what she needs.

All in all, today’s trip to the park was pretty successful, and Lucy came back exhausted.

Yesterday as we were watching some t.v., I allowed Lucy to have a little freedom. She decided to lie against the foot of the couch. Marv was lying on the couch, but he wanted down. Lucy had lifted her head up to look at us, so Marv licked her – as I’ve seen him do with the other dogs numerous times – to ask her to move. She gave him a little snap. Although it was her way of saying no, and she really didn’t intend to harm him with it, it is one of those little things that, if left unchecked, can develop over time into something bigger. She had her e-collar on (of course) and got a correction for her reaction. I had her lay on the floor for a couple of minutes more in a calm, behaved manner, then I sent her to her crate.

I have not been moving as quickly with Lucy’s rehab when it comes to small dogs. It hasn’t hurt her at all to be slow, but I want to get the ball rolling. 🙂 One of the things that have slowed me down is waiting on my daughter to be available to help out. Our little Pomeranian, Raina, really is Erin’s dog. With that being the case, I wanted Erin to be the one handling her while I handle Lucy. Today, finally, we were able to take that first step.

We took both Lucy and Raina outside on leashes and just worked on Lucy’s heel for a while. During the heel, we crossed paths with Raina and Erin several times. After Lucy had proven to me that she was not interested in anything other than walking with me, I decided to put her in a position where she had to pay more attention to Raina. I put Lucy into the sit command, and had Erin and Raina come jogging up to Lucy. She became very interested in Raina – I think because she was moving quickly. Anytime Lucy showed signs of loading, she was corrected. She only had to be corrected twice. When she began to have softness towards Raina, she was rewarded. We tried the exercise again with Lucy lying down. That was a little more difficult, and will have to be repeated again the next day we are able to work with them.

The more I work with Lucy doing this, the more I really feel that the issues she had before with smaller dogs had to do more with resource guarding. Whether she was guarding food, a toy, or her owner – if she felt that the little dog could get to the item that meant so much to her at the time, it was valuable enough to her to fight/kill over it.

In our next session, I’m hoping to have Lucy on leash, and Raina off. Right now, everything is very structured and locked down. I want to slowly work towards more freedom for both dogs. I want Lucy to be making decisions on her own instead of knowing that I’m at the other end of that leash waiting on her to make a mistake, but helping her to make a good choice.

(Please forgive our early morning pajama’ed state.)

While I have been finishing up training with Lucky and dealing with the hundreds of unexpected issues that have popped up the last three days, Lucy has been able to relax. 🙂 There has been no real formal training, but she has continued to be held at a higher standard. She is still required to sit in her crate and wait for permission to exit, and the same is true for the back door when going out and coming in. Lucy’s time in the crate is spent lying down and sleeping – this shows a calm state of mind. When she is out of the crate and has time in the house, she is allowed to go drink water, say hi to family member, and then she is in the place command for the rest of the time – usually sleeping. In the last three days, I have not noticed growling or bad attitude from her towards Raina.

 

Lucy has also gotten quite a bit of outside time. We try to do fun things with her, like playing fetch and jogging with her. Up until Friday, her activity and excitement levels have only lasted less than 5 minutes. We might throw the ball 3 times, then she’s tired of it. I can get her to run a little with me, but it is less than a minute. She hates bubbles. But Friday we found something that she absolutely loves.

My daughter brought her bicycle into the back yard and started riding. Lucy gave a little bark and ran up to her. I’ll admit that I was a little concerned. I had Faith stop the bike and talk to her. After sniffing her and realizing who she was, Lucy was thrilled to just jog beside Faith as she rode her bike. She never tired of it. She was physically tired, but mentally she wanted to jog alongside the bike all day long. This is the most exercise she has had since arriving. Needless to say, she slept like a rock when she came back in.

Lucy is doing pretty well with the bigger dogs. Shoshi and Marvel have had enough time with her that they sneak up behind her and sniff often. When they are out in the yard playing, especially when one of them is lying on their back, Lucy goes to check out what is going on. She will normally sniff the one that is lying down and walk away. If they meet passing on the porch steps, they may sniff each other nose to nose, but that’s as far as it goes.

She absolutely loves Goober. It is really quite a funny thing to watch. From day one, Goober has been very careful and respectful of Lucy. (I have never seen him like that with any other dog.) If Lucy sees Goober playing with the other dogs, she gets playful and tries to convince him to play with her. This worries him quite a bit. It reminds me a lot of the Dragon and Donkey on the movie Shrek, and is really pretty cute. I may try to get video of this later.

I have noticed Lucy’s appetite has increased. I feel she is at a healthy weight now, and feeding her more has not added to it. Wednesday was her two week mark of being on the Nzymes, so her dosage was reduced to the normal recommended daily amount (half of what she was taking the first two weeks). I have noticed Lucy has been itching her ears quite a bit, so I decided to take a look. They had begun to get gooey again, so I brought the ACV (apple cider vinegar) out again. I have a feeling this is going to be a regular occurance for a few months until her insides get healthy.

Her leg, on the other hand, is trying to heal. The bottom half of it is growing hair again, but she has created a sore on the top half. I am constantly telling her no when it comes to licking and itching, but overall, her skin and coat look so much better.

After doing some research, I have decided that it would be a good idea to add vitamin C to her daily supplements. This will help a lot with her ears and the skin problems. I will try to find what I’m looking for at one of the health food stores this week. If I can’t find it, I will order it online.

(You will find two videos below.)

Today was a day of unexpected happenings and rushing to get everything done. I ended up with no time to do any formal training with Lucy. Instead, she had time to hang out with Aaron outside for quite a while.

Because of the placement of Lucy’s crate, all of the dogs have to pass by from time to time. When it was Raina’s turn, there was no reaction from Lucy – no growling, but no avoidance either. I am hoping that there will be opportunity in my busy tomorrow to work with Lucy and Raina one more time before next week.

We had another good training session that included Lucy’s attitude towards Raina. Lucy showed a lot of avoidance, but afterwards when Raina came sniffing around her crate, Lucy growled at her. The only correction Lucy had before was two days ago with only one e-collar on the highest setting. I felt that this wasn’t effective enough as she didn’t seem overly concerned with it. Luckily, I had gone ahead and put two e-collars on Lucy this morning.

She growled at Raina, I pushed the button and nothing seemed to happen. She continued growling, so I said no. When I did, Lucy turned her head and suddenly got the full impact of both collars. There was a yelp of surprise, but the aggression stopped immediately. Raina had walked away, and Lucy had been effectively corrected.

When Raina walked back toward the crate again, Lucy actually got up and went to the opposite end of the crate and curled up so that she could be as far away from Raina as possible. Now I can begin having more and more positive conversations with Lucy.

I was pleasantly surprised today by Lucy. After having a day of correction yesterday and good night’s sleep, this morning as Raina walked passed Lucy’s crate I noticed Lucy turn her head away from Raina and avoid looking at her. This is exactly what I am looking for. After a correction of the right kind – when it comes to dogs who are aggressive towards anything (dogs, people, cats, etc.) – most dogs go into avoidance. Lucy was avoiding Raina. I took this opportunity to work with her and reward her for this decision.

I had my daughter, Raina’s owner, play with Raina in close proximity to Lucy’s crate. I wanted to make sure that Raina was close, but not too close, as to allow Lucy the freedom to make the right choices. Too much too fast can create a lot of pressure and stress that leads to frantic, wrong choices. Unfortunately, with Raina, this is difficult. She is a 14 year old nearly blind dog who is genuinely clueless. We did the best we could. Each

Each time Raina would come close to Lucy’s crate for a high value treat, we would watch and wait for Lucy’s reaction. If there was no growling, or lip curling, and if she seemed to avoid or ignore Raina, she was rewarded with her own high value treat. This is just a beginning though.

We will be adding to this reward system, demanding more from Lucy. Although she was avoiding Raina, and although there was no growling or lip curling, there was still stiffness in her body and a harder look in her eyes. Her rewards are going to be more difficult to access. In the coming days, she will only be rewarded if we see a softening of the eyes and/or body, and building on that.

Because it is the safest way of handling this right now, we are only working with Lucy while she is in the crate. Next week, I hope to move this outdoors where there is a lot of room. Lucy will be on a long leash, attached to the prong collar, and wearing two e-collars while Raina is in the back yard. The goal will be to keep them separated while keeping an eye Lucy and her body language – correcting when necessary, and rewarding for right choices.

As far as obedience goes, Lucy is doing pretty doggone good. Since most occurrences of her acting up are from her crate and toward Raina, we spent some time “setting her up” to try to correct it. At first (before I thought to record), Lucy actually avoided Raina for a couple passes – she wouldn’t even look at her. It didn’t last long at all.

As we continued working with her, it became obvious that my suspicions were correct. If you’ve been keeping up with Lucy’s story, you will remember that I was worried about her e-collar having high enough levels to correct her. It doesn’t. What I have decided to do is to give it a break for the day and try again tomorrow. Tomorrow I will be putting two e-collar on her to see if that has a better affect. If not, there is another collar that I can order with high levels. (This collar only has low to medium levels.)

On the other hand, Lucy has repeatedly shown me that she can make a change after sleeping on the events that have occurred. After a good night’s sleep tonight, she may make better choices tomorrow.

I am seeing a big difference in Lucy and her willingness to obey. Before, if I asked her to sit and wait at the door before letting her outside, and if I didn’t have a leash on her, she would just turn around and walk away – her way of saying no. Now she is very compliant. She sits and waits in her crate for permission to come out, and she sits and waits at the door before coming in or going out. We’re still dealing with her pushiness when it comes to wanting to be pet – especially with my husband.

Lucy has been with us for almost two weeks now. This is when most dogs really start to show me the real them. In the last couple of days, there has been an increase in growling and barking when our little Pomeranian, Raina, walks past Lucy’s crate – especially when Lucy is lying down. This next week will be focused on her attitude towards Raina.

No video today. Sorry…

After last night’s incident, today Lucy has been geting very minimal attention. This has led to a small struggle – especially when she is ouside of her crate. When she is outside of the crate, Lucy just wants to be pet and loved. She really insists on it. So in order to avoid that insisting pushiness that she practices, when she is outside of the crate, she spends her time either in the down command or in the place command. Her desire to have somebody pet her and pay attention to her is so strong that it causes her to shiver. This is just her struggling with controlling herself. She has probably had less affection today than she has had since arriving.

Since the snap came as a result of Lucy not wanting to leave the crate, we practiced crate drills. She learned that when I ask her to come out of her crate, that she has to leave. When I ask her to go into the crate, she must do it. Additionally, when she is outside of the crate, the door to her crate is closed. This keeps her from having the freedom to go in at will and having more issues. This is one way that we are working towards a permission-based training relationship.

We took another walk to the end of the driveway today. She did much better. I hope to finish the week out walking to the end of the driveway and begin going to the park next week. Lucy is always noticeably happier after a walk.

I am going to include before and after pictures of Lucy’s ears at the very end of this post. They are doing incredibly well. In fact, I have decided to give her a break as far as spraying them goes. Since I’m no longer spraying them, she is no longer needing to shake her head. This should help the wound on the outside of her ear to heal more quickly too. I will take this time to actually work on her skin and get it to heal up more quickly – I hope.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This morning, Lucy slept in. I got up as usual and let all of the dogs out (except her – she goes out separately when I don’t have time to babysit), rushed to the kitchen to get breakfast ready for my daughter and to get the coffee started. It was at this moment that I realied that I hadn’t even lookedinto Lucy’s crate as I walked by. I immediately realized just how quiet she was being. Not a sound. She hadn’t given me reason to look into her crate. I looked in, and she was sleeping. I finished up what I was doing in the kitchen and took her outside, sprayed her ears and leg with ACV, and waited on her to do her thing. When she came back in, she went right back to her crate, and went right back to sleep with the door open.

When it was time to feed all the dogs, she was still sleeping. I made her breakfast and set it on top of the crate. She slept. I fed the other dogs. She slept. I finally put her breakfast in with her and closed the door. She ate the entire thing. I removed the bowl and left her door open. She went back to sleep.

This could be one or a combination of several things. 1) She is finally relaxing. 2) She is detoxing and is tired. 3) She didn’t sleep well. 4) She is getting into a routine. I really believe that it is 5) All of the above.

Wanna talk about the happiest dog on the planet? Although I’ve only worked on heel with Lucy in the backyard once, with all the mud, I really didn’t want to work back there today. Instead, I took her up the driveway and out to the mailbox and back. She did a great job for this being her first time with so many distractions. She was clearly nervous on our way to the mailbox, but loosened up quite a bit on our way back. There were lots of distractions – chickens, neighbor’s dogs, and Aaron and Israel were outside working on Israel’s car. I found that her e-collar level with distractions is pretty stinking high – in the 60’s. I’m hoping that 100 is actually high enough to correct her for serious infractions – like going after a small dog.

…And I got to test whether 100 is high enough. Tonight, just before heading to bed, I let all of the dogs out to go potty. When it was her turn, she did not want to leave the crate. I finally just reached in (I knew better). My intention was to grab the strap of her collar and give gentle guidance. She didn’t let me get that far. She snapped at me. I am thankful that the e-collar was still on her. I told her no, and turned it all the way up to 100. She did not react like most dogs do to that strength, but she did take it as a correction and came out of her crate. I’m thinking I may have to either get a more powerful collar, or just add a second one to her neck.

We got outside, and sprayed her ears with the peroxide, did some obedience work and let her potty. When we came in, I did some more obedience work with her, and we ran through some crate drills. Now that we have a new crate issue, crate drills will become a daily occurrence. Additionally, she is officially getting any extra affection and freedom taken from her. There will be no more time spent in the office with Aaron, and her day is going to be completely permission based.