Hi Calamity

What a shame that Poppy is such a nervous wee thing. And that she's showing aggression to you. But fear aggression can be dealt with. I can't advise you directly, but if you pm Carole Robinson, GAL's follow-up co-ordinator, or Viv Silverstein, Dog Behaviourist and who runs training classes for GAL dogs, I'm sure you'll get good advice from them.

Good luck! I hope that Poppy gets over her nervousness and becomes much more confident. Let us know how she gets on.

Christine

Whe we first got Eilidh she was an extremely nervy wee girl because she didn't have much life experience (and she can be very skitty at things still).

She was terrified of people and wouldn't walk past folk who were standing still. Also, she was really afraid of other dogs, had some fear aggression and noises such as trucks rattling would send her into a blind panic.

It got to the stage where I was too afraid to take her out on my own incase something happened and I'm sure she picked up the fact that I was a nervous wreck, which made her worse.

We tried several things all of which helped in some way...

We used to stop complete strangers in the street, explain Eilidh's problem and ask them if we could approach.  We would get them to stand very still and we would stand a bit away from them, letting Eilidh tell us when she was ready to move towards them.  In her own time she would go up to them and have a sniff.  We also did this with people with dogs but we always made sure the dogs were very friendly and that we had the owners' permission first.

Eilidh still, to this day doesn't like to have people or dogs forced on her. She likes to do the introductions herself when she is ready.

Another thing we did to help Eilidh with dogs was to divert her attention away from them with a treat. You can tell when Eilidh is getting twitchy with other dogs so as soon as we saw this we would call her name and start rummaging about in our pockets.  She new that a treat was coming out so she would stand quietly and get it. Before she knew it, the dog she was worried about had passed and was on its way. (We still use this if a dog is on its way off its lead)

From my own experience, I think it is important to try not to reign you dog in on its lead when you aren't happy about what's coming.  I think the dog automatically goes into defence mode when you do this and is prepared for the worst.  Try as hard as you can not to tense up and keep your dog on as loose a lead as possible.  I think that way you are sending them the message that's there's nothing to worry about.

Sorry for waffling on, but I do understand what it's like to have a dog like Poppy, and while I wouldn't say that Eilidh is 100% quirk-free so to speak, I do know that these techniques certainly helped us to help her.

Good luck. Keep us posted.

C

 

 

I'm so sorry to hear about Poppy - what a time you've been having together.

I know this is just semantics, but if it helps then perhaps you could think of her as being "reactive", rather than "aggressive". She was scared and in pain from her paw, so it's not surprising that she's been acting out of character (I'm assuming that this is the case?). I can fully understand that you felt scared of her. My Pearly growled at me the other day and I had one of those tummy-flip moments.

I'd like to back up what Charles says about the DAP diffuser. We used one when we first got Pearly, as she was very nervous and anxious. For best results they should be positioned low-down to where Poppy spends most of her time. You could also try some Rescue Remedy, which is a totally natural, herbal tincture. A couple of drops straight in the side of her mouth a couple of times a day should help to destress her. And you could take some too, which wouldn't hurt! Again, we've used these successfully with Pearly around fireworks time.

As for the vet saying that you might just have to live with it...... He's approaching the problem from a pathology perspective, thinking that it's something medical that maybe can't be treated. Viv Silverstein really is the person that you want to see, if you can. She'll be able to assess Poppy, and the way that you handle Poppy, and give you loads of excellent, specific advice on how to take things forward.

Good luck to you - let us know how you get on?

Fiona

Hi Calamity,

Just having a look at some past posting and was wondering how Poppy is doing now?

Siouxsie