If you live in Cape Town - how amazing has the weather been this past week and weekend?! But in all seriousness, I'm not here to remark on the weather - there has been some serious breakthroughs with Salvador this week, but alas, also one breakdown...
Last week I was on the verge of calling in a pet behaviorist due to Salvador's selective anger towards some dogs, especially when on the lead and ESPECIALLY towards puppies (I suppose it has something to do with the fact that they show weakness and with Salvador being a rather dominant and arrogant fellow, this does not always go down well).
Yet, as you might or might not have read in my previous post, we made quite a substantial amount of progress as far as meetings with other dogs go so in light of this I have started trusting him a bit more when we go to the local park and I just let him go off the leash, dogs or no dogs. I'm also feeling way more confident that he will respond to my commands as we've actively been reinforcing them over the past two weeks.
So the breakthrough occurred on Monday morning when we were on the park and a fellow park goer came along with his ball obsessed Collie X and a tiny wee Lab X girl puppy. At noticing these two, Salvador was already off the lead so tensing up and running home wasn't an option and to my amazement he promptly ran over to the older dog, stole his tennis ball and proceeded to run off with it in the direction of the puppy...I'm not sure if the thought of dropping the ball and in the processes losing it was too much to deal with for him, but he ended up running a few circles around the puppy, sniffing at her and then ran off again!
This morning the same two was at the park again and they both came up to meet him while he was still on the lead and instead of growling and aggression, he met them as if they were old friends!?
No more behaviorists needed here!!
What we've learned this week:
- Stick to your teachings, it takes time, be patient and reinforce them by giving a treat where a treat is due.
- Distraction is a great training tool! If your dog loves balls, take some to the park and use them to distract your dog from a situation where you feel there might be some tension.
- Stay calm - having a monologue ( because as much as you think so, your dog does not understand fully articulated sentences...) with your dog at his aggressive behavior towards another dog does not help. Stick to the single word commands he/she knows.
I guess it's time to tell you about the breakdown...
So Salvador has this new thing where he wants to sleep next to my bed, but due to extremely loud snoring on his part I chased him out last night. At 5 my boyfriend woke up because of noises, only to find Salvador is busy chewing up the contents of the recycling bin...I don't think I've told you that he only ever does this kind of bin destruction thing when we leave him alone at home for a while, almost like he's doing it out of anger or throwing a tantrum.
Does your dog do this and what are your thought about his strange behavior?
Licks and kisses!
xxx
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