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My name is Lesli Hyland. In my fifty three years on this earth, my home and my heart have been graced with the company of twenty eight dogs. Many came to me as seniors. All of them taught me something and helped determine the course of my life. I became a dog trainer because of them. I met my friends because of them. My husband and I are are forever bonded by our mutual connection to them. Currently, as a Dog Walker I have access to other people's dogs and I am allowed to experience their unique personalities. The dogs make me a better person by forcing me to closely examine my motivation, my actions and my choices. Everything I do affects their behavior, safety and happiness. It is an awesome responsibility. The dogs keep me honest.

Tuesday, January 3, 2012

Will the real Tucker please stand up?

My foster Vizsla, Tucker,  has been with us for 3 1/2 weeks now.  He is a quiet dog in the house.  Often I don't know where he is.  He is not clingy any longer, more often choosing to rest on the futon in the living room rather than at my feet like others.  I have practiced leaving him home alone and have been successful for 1 and 2 hour stretches.  I'm pleased with that, as severe separation anxiety is what landed him in the shelter. He is house trained, pretty good off leash and friendly with people.  He can be edgy with new dogs, particularly males, but we already knew that and he has adapted well to my crew.   But as he has settled in he has begun to try to claim some things as his own - namely stuffed toys.  We first noticed a stillness in his posture when approached by us or another dog when he had a toy in his mouth. I made sure he was OK with me touching him, touching toy, taking toy and returning it.  I rewarded him highly and he relaxed.  We watched him more closely with the other dogs. Next we saw him roughly grab a toy off the floor as my other Vizsla, Belle, reached for it.  She displayed appeasement gestures in response to his forcefulness.  OK.  Then we saw him growl at Belle when he had a toy in his mouth and she approached.  OK.  Hmmmmmmmmmmmm.  Today he ran across the room and aggressively tried to grab a toy out of my 14 yr old dog's mouth.  THAT is simply not OK.  So I intervened quickly.  He got a time out and all the toys got picked up.  So there!  He will loose some freedom now, will be supervised more closely and toys will be re-introduced slowly, using counter conditioning to decrease his worry when approached by other dogs. 
Again...this is a process...
Fostering is supposed to be a chance to retrain, restore confidence and relieve stress.  It is not enough to simply house a foster dog and send him on his way, problems intact.  So, Tucker ...looks like we have more work to do!
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1 comment:

  1. Erica MarshallJanuary 3, 2012 at 1:44 PM

    I'm not sure about the time frame but a similar situation happened with our last foster and Beanie. Xander was quite aggressive in his guarding issues and even after beanie would back off Xander kept on the attack, it was very over the top and inappropriate. He lost freedom as well and the toys were also picked up. It had even gotten to the point where he had started guarding the living room. Using the crate and restricting his freedom worked well for that and quite honestly I just never put the toys back down. He was so fast and fierce and unpredictable that with my kids around I just didn't want to do any kind of set up and have a serious problem, so I simply managed the issue. I mean that was like 220 lbs. fighting in my living room! Hopefully Tucker will be successful in his new training!

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