I would recommend at least both Ed and Barbara read this, and Erica and Mark if they want to. Tomorrow I will email some training information, and I would definitely encourage anybody who will handle Keely to read the training info, including Erica and Mark, especially if they are planning to take Keely on walks (but of course Keely needs some continuous training inside the house also).
Keely (called Kiwi for first six years by previous owner and by Heather, took Keely about 6 weeks to learn her new name)
Surgery History:
February 10, 2006 teeth cleaning and two lump removal (many older Springers have fatty lumps, actually Millie and I were talking about it after you left today about Freckles. If you find any lumps on Keely in the future, I would recommend having the vet see it, and if he/she said it's a fatty lump, there's an option to do fine needle aspiration to make sure. Personally I would do it if the vet said it would be useful, and then at her next teeth cleaning, ask the vet if they could have the lump removed).
Food: Total 1 and 3/4 cups of food/treats per day. Generally 1/2 to 3/4 cups per meal (two meals a day, around 7 AM and 7 PM), plus 1/2 cup of training food per day.
Supplements: 0.5 ml fatty acid liquid, Drs. Foster and Smith brand, per day, can be given with breakfast OR dinner, to keep her fur silky. 1/4 teaspoon "Barley Dog" per meal, also can be purchased from www.drsfostersmith.com , as well as several other catalogs and pet supply stores. The Barley Dog contains barley grass powder, it helps to decrease her grass eating. Since giving her this, it has helped her decrease her grass eating to about half, still not 100%, but at least she's not constantly wanting to eat grass when she's outside.
Other food she's okay with: Chicken Soup for the Dog Lover's Soul brand Senior formula, California Natural brand Chicken formula, Fromm brand chicken formula, Drs. Foster and Smith brand Chicken Adult formula, Drs. Foster and Smith brand Chicken Senior formula.
Treats she's okay with: Pooch Passion brand Freeze Dried Chicken Liver treats, various Old Mother Hubbard brand training treats (small size, not the big ones), Newman's Own Organic brand Peanut Butter flavor treats, Charlee Bear, Buddy Biscuits (if broken up to small pieces for training), chopped up string cheese, peanut butter (small amount only when giving pills). I would recommend reserving the freeze dried liver treat and the string cheese for obedience class and vet/groomer visits, as they are her favorites, and should be only used to reward her when she's most distracted with many other dogs in the same room.
Foods to avoid: beef, lamb, artifical preservatives, artificial coloring, artificial flavoring. Nutro Natural Choice Ultra brand Adult formula (contains lamb).
Anti-diarrheal I use with her is slippery elm powder, it can be found at most health food stores, but a bottle will come with her. It's all natural and works very well with her. There is one time it just didn't work after three days, so by then I knew it was serious enough that I needed to take her to the vet (March 2, 2006). It turned out that the vet said there's some type of GI virus going around and luckily Keely wasn't dehydrated from several days of diarrhea. So far I haven't had to give her the slippery elm powder a lot, maybe once a month, and I hadn't to give her any Tagamet at all like her previous owner did. Pretty much I just watch carefully what she eats, and I think finding out she has food intolerance to certain foods helps a lot.
Keely?s Basic Training Info:
Potty schedule: For the first 48 hours, I would recommend treating her as though she's not potty trained. She hadn't had an accident at my place for many weeks (last time it was about six weeks ago, the diarrhea I emailed you about before, and before that it was the first day she came), however, she might be nervous and forget about potty training when she first gets to your house. Therefore, I would recommend observe her closely to make sure she's not wanting to go, and take her out potty every two hours the first day, and every four hours the second day. And during the night the first two days, I would recommend put the crate in your bedroom, and put her bed in the crate, and leave her in the crate while you are sleeping (as you can't supervise her when you are asleep), but take her out during the middle of the night once to take her out potty. By day three, if she hasn't had any accidents on the floor, you can safely assume that she's housetrained in your house. Normally I take her out four times a day for potty: first thing in the morning after I wake up around 6:30AM, then 8:30AM before I leave for school, then 5:30PM when I get home, and then again at 10:30-11PM before I go to bed.
If you do catch her potty indoors, just say "Hey!" and slap your hands to make her stop, and grab her collar and take her out immediately so she can finish up outside. Try not to yell at her if you do catch her, because like Millie said yesterday, she'll just learn to not do it in front of you, as it won't teach her not to do it inside.
And of course for the first 48 hours, praise her each time when she does do it outside.
About The Dog Whisperer program on the National Geographic Channel that Millie talked about yesterday, I've watched every episode from last year, but only about five episodes from this year. I like the general training ideas he has, like the importance of physical exercise and leadership from the owners. However, there are some specific training methods that I think should be only used on dogs who are facing euthanesia because of their bad behavior. For example, Cesar uses choke chain, which I don't think should be used on Keely. Just be very careful about some of the things he suggests.
Keely was relinquished because the kids at her previous home did not treat her nicely (pulled her tail and ears), and she turned her frustration on the family's other dog, a Basset Hound. Even though they said Keely was always very nice to the human kids, never growled or bitten them, I do think she's a little cautious around small kids. I don't have kids, but what I've observed with her is that, she would let them pet them in public, but I would recommend you watch her AND the kid closely, to make sure the child doesn't harm or scare her. Also, just in case Erica or Mark has kids while Keely's still around, I would recommend continue training Keely through out the years (not wait until right before the baby comes), to a point that you would feel comfortable letting her around a visiting grandchild, with supervision of course.
Teaching Keely to understand that all humans in the family are her leaders and are higher rank than her in the pack is very very important. This is not only for dominant dogs, but even with fearful or nervous dogs, by letting them know that you are their leaders, this tells them that you are there to protect them, therefore they don't need to protect themselves. Remember what they say about a fearful dog is more likely to bite than a dominant aggressive dog. Therefore, when the dog understands that the human(s) whom she's with is her leader and is there to protect her, she is much less likely to growl and bark at another dog out of fear. This also works inside the home, especially for a breed like Springer, who are prone to separation anxiety. When the dog understands that there's no need to be afraid, even when the owners are not present, they are much less likely to have separation anxiety. I know you worked on a lot on obedience training with Maggie, but I think it's better to reiterate than to forget saying something. Also, teaching her that you are her leader does not mean you have to hit her, or even yell at her. We want her to do what you tell her because she feels good when she listens (treat and praise), NOT because she's afraid what will happen if she doesn't (leash jerk). This is the difference between positive reinforcement training and force-based training. With positive reinforcement methods, for basic training, we pretty much have to use treats, because at this level, the dog hadn't made the connection with good things and praise. And just because she feels good about verbal praise from me, it doesn't automatically mean she will see verbal praise from you as good. Therefore, I would recommend using treats for the first week for every time she follows your command. We want her to make the connection that doing things for you is associated with a good, warm feeling. It's like some items in our lives, there's no real monetary values, but we have good, warm feelings toward it because it's associated with something else. After about a month when she has bonded with you, you can probably start decreasing the amount of treats used for training, but probably never stop using it completely, as you'll probably have it use it to help socialize her with other dogs, make her feel better at vet's and groomer's, etc. for the rest of her life. I know you saw I used a lot of treats yesterday, but it was because I know Keely was feeling a little insecure with all the new people. The treats help her to focus on things I want her to focus on more in a new environment. By the way, with positive reinforcement training, we reward when the dog does something right, and we ignore (no attention or no treats/praise) when the dog doesn't do what we want. Whereas with force-based training, the dog is often ignored when he does something right, but is punished when he does something wrong. Rewarding the good goes a longer way than punishing the bad!
Separation anxiety:
Like most Springers, Keely loves to be with her human family, but this also means she's prone to separation anxiety. To help ease this, what I do is, for about five minutes before I leave and about five minutes after I get home, I pretty much just ignore Keely. Usually in the afternoon when I come through the front door, she would come up and excited and all happy (I started letting her have the run of the apartment when home alone about two months ago), but I just ignore her. This is to let her know that coming and going aren't a big deal, because for all she knows, Mom and Dad are going out risking their lives each day hunting down lions for food, like her wolf ancestors did in the wild. Therefore, if you act like it's so sad to leave and so glad you are back at home, she might treat it as a big deal too, and this would cause her to worry about you not coming back when you leave. This is would certainly cause her to have separation anxiety. Also, just until she has learned not to be destructive at YOUR house while home alone, I would recommend crating her while she's home alone, at least for the first two weeks to a month. For the first few days, it's okay to pet Keely a little more than usual, but please not do it excessively. For example, if normally you are going to only pet her for 15 minutes a day, it's okay to do it for 30 minutes per day for the first two or three days. However, some people make the mistake of spending three hours straight just petting the dog for the first day. This makes the new dog think she would get this kind of attention all the time at her new home. But the next day when everybody has to go back to work or school, the dog is suddenly left home alone for 8 hours, the dog gets lonely, and separation anxiety would develop. So please just try to keep everything low-key and regular routine as much as possible for the first week or so.
Crate training:
The first two days when I got Keely, she actually decided to stay in the crate for a couple hours each day when I was at home with the crate door open. I think she was feeling a little scared and the crate helped her feel more secure. The secure feeling is what we want her to associate with her new wire crate too, because that it's her own special place. If you ever have children come over, if Keely's in there, please tell the kids not to put their hands or face in there when Keely's in there. To make Keely like her crate, throw a couple treats in there. And for the first hour or so, just leave the door open and put her bed inside and let her go in there and out by herself. When it's time to crate her, put a yummy treat in there (you could also try the treat-dispensing toy, this will come with her, I will show you how it works, this will entertain her longer than a simple treat). Since we want Keely to associate happy feeling with the crate, we do this by giving her the yummy treat ONLY WHEN she's locked in the crate. Therefore, if you come back home after 2 hours and she hadn't eaten the treat, just pick it up and save it for next time. If she decides not to eat the treat while home alone in the crate, I would not recommend letting her have that particular treat while you are at home, again we want her to associate being in the crate with eating that yummy treat, and if you allow her to eat while she's out of the crate, it's much harder for her to make the association. With some of my other fosters, when I eventually let them stay outside of the crate when home alone, I would leave a treat or two or the treat-dispensing toy (stuffed with dry kibble food) to help entertain them while home alone. However, I would NOT recommend doing this with Keely, as I have tried this before and had caused to increase her food guarding issue.
If she barks while in the crate, please do NOT let her out while she's barking, because this will teach her that SHE can train YOU to open the door for her on her command. I would recommend not even look or talk to her while she's barking in the crate, sometimes even just "hide" so she can't see you from the crate (so she wouldn't be getting any kind of attention from you while she's barking in the crate). After she quiets down, count 2 minutes (no sound from her for two minutes straight), then open the door for her. If you open the door too soon (30 seconds or less after she had stopped barking), she would think it was her barking that made you open the door. If you wait two minutes, then she would realize that it's her quietness that made you open the crate door.
Like most smart dog, Keely will probably test her limits with you. And like most smart dogs, she can be persistent at times. The trick is to be even more persistent than she is, it takes some patience, but positive reinforcement methods is worth it. Again we want to use positive reinforcement methods only with her because she did not do well when her previous owner used choke chain training with her. They tried for about three years to work with her, but I don't think they realized she just doesn't do well on choke chain. And also we want her to learn to trust her humans and their leadership, so we wouldn't want to break her trust by using any force-based methods with her. Also, reminder, try not to give into her demands. We know she's cute, and she knows it too. And she's smart enough to use that to her advantage. She's a rescue, but she was never abused, so try not to feel sorry for her, but definitely continue training her.
"Gift of Growling", I will give you a copy of a wonderful article about this. Basically, for Keely, we want to train her out of her food guarding and fear aggression with other dog, NOT out of growling. Yes, when she doesn't feel good, we do expect her to growl. A lot of force-based trainers make the mistake of simply train the dog out of growling, but they never solved the real issue that caused the growling. So now the dog is afraid to growl, but when is pushed to the limits, the dog would bite without warning. The growl serves as a warning that the dog isn't feeling good about something, and a warning is good, because we wouldn't want a dog to bite without any warning. There is a difference between Keely's growling and her food possessiveness, the growling is a manifestation, whereas the food possessiveness is the cause. Since we've found the cause, we can work on it to change her mind so she won't be food possessive anymore.
Grooming info:
I haven't shaved Keely at all in the past five and half months, as I don't know how her new family would like to groom her. Some Springer owners clip their dogs' fur really short, like Millie's Freckles you saw yesterday. My old Springer was shaved year-round because of her grass allergy. With Keely's long fur, I do have to brush her once a day to keep mats from forming. But if you decide to cut her fur short, I think that'll be okay too, but just make sure she wears a sweater on really cold days in the winter when you take her outside.
More on food:
Heather fed Keely Wellness brand Chicken formula (the food she had fed to all her dogs for several years) and I did the same for the first two months with Keely and she did fine on it. However, the last bag I bought for her, she had loose stool while on that diet, and I just thought maybe she ate something from the ground. But several days later, Heather emailed to say that somehow Wellness changed their formulation and her dogs got loose stool eating from the new bags also. So she changed to feeding Nutro Ultra, which is what I usually feed to my dogs, but I can't feed Keely that because I found out earlier she's intolerant of lamb (ingredient in Nutro Ultra). So I tried her on several other foods (list I emailed you yesterday), and she's been okay on most of them. So the point of this story is, if Keely gets loose stool for several days and you took her to the vet and still couldn't solve the problem, then maybe check to see if Drs. Foster&Smith had changed their formulation.
Specific Training Info:
Leadership:
The easiest way to show Keely that you are the leaders is through basic obedience. This means make her Sit/Down/Stay before giving her food, before putting leash on her, before opening doors (car doors, house's front and back doors, and crate door)- either letting her in or out, before throwing a toy for her to run after. By doing this, you are letting her know that you are in control of the activity she likes (walking, eating) and that you own everything she loves (food, toys). Making sure she realizes that all humans in the family are her pack leaders are very important, not only to boost her confidence when she's shy (if she accepts you as the leader, she knows you'll protect her; there's no such thing as you and her being equal in the dog world, either you'll be the leader, or she would have to be the leader and try to protect the family; since she's a dog and doesn't know enough to lead anybody, we don't want her even to think she has to be the leader!), but also prevents her from becoming too dominant. Another important thing about basic obedience training is to follow through, this means once you tell her to Sit (or Down or Stay), you have to follow through and make sure she does it. If you don't follow through, she will know you have a weakness and she needs to take over the job of being the leader. For the first week, she will be a little nervous and will probably do everything you tell her, but once she gains some confidence at her new home, she will likely to start testing her limits, again please follow through and set limits and rules and boundaries. There is no need to hit her or yell at her or jerk on her collar when you are setting rules and boundaries, just try to have a daily routine and follow through with training (with positive reinforcement training!) so she would know what to expect (because if she knows what to expect, she would be less likely to be insecure).
Teaching "Sit":
First we lure her with a treat to a sit position, and once she sits, we tell her "Yes! Good Sit!" and give her the treat. After you do this a couple times and she associates the Sit with the verbal command and the good feeling of getting a treat from doing the sit, she will do it on command, even if later you only give her the treat occasionally. If she tries to test her limits and decides not to sit after you tell her to even after seeing the treat, just push down on her bottom to make her sit to follow through on your command.
Teaching "Down":
Again at first we need to lure her with a treat, to a Down position. However, at any time in the future, if she decides not to do the down, please do NOT use the alpha roll technique (forcibly roll her on her side or back). This is NOT positive reinforcement! As she will likely to get very scared if you do an alpha roll on her. In the past, many trainers and vets have suggested this technique, after observing the submissive dog would be on his back in front of the alpha dog. However, today we found out this is a myth, because the submissive dog would roll on his own, the alpha would NEVER forcibly roll the submissive dog. If you need her to lie down for fur brushing or ear cleaning, again please do not do an alpha roll, but just gently and SLOWLY make her rest on her side. If she does not resist throughout the ordeal, keep praising her. I will show you how to do this on Tuesday morning.
Off (furniture):
As her leaders, you should be able to tell her to get off any furniture you want, as you own the furniture, not her. She's pretty good about getting off them when I tell her "off" and point to the floor. But if she resists, just grab her collar and pull her off gently, and once she's off, tell her "good girl".
Known commands:
Sit, Down, Stay, Come, Stand, Off (the furniture), Leave It (poop or trash on the ground, doesn't work for grass and weeds), Quiet. After she does it, give her a reward.
Meal time routine:
I show her the bowl of food, then tell her to "Sit", "Down", then "Stay". I then put the food down, and then tell her "Okay", which is a release word means she can eat now. If she gets up before I tell her "Okay", I immediately pick up the bowl, and tell her to "Down-Stay" again. I repeat this until she stays in the down position until I say okay.
Keely did not growl at me at all the first week after I got her. But just like Heather predicted, once Keely felt more comfortable in her new situation, she started growling at me also at meal times. Usually it would be pretty easy to correct this type of behavior, pretty much just to let the dog know that the human is the alpha, the dog?s not. But with Keely, again I have to be very careful when correcting her, because I don?t want her to take her frustration out on Anastasia like she did with the Basset Hound at her previous home (they can get a little frustrated when they are learning that they are not the boss anymore). To train Keely out of growling at me for getting near her food while she?s eating her breakfast and dinner, when she starts growling, I immediately pick up the food bowl, and take it away (immediately because she has to make the association that it's the growling that's causing the good thing - the food - to disappear; if I wait several seconds before picking up the bowl, it's much harder for her to make the connection). This is to tell Keely that I?m the one in control of the food, not her, and that if she misbehaves, I can decide not to let her continue eating. I don't say anything when I pick up the bowl, I don't tell her "No!" or anything, just removing the good thing - the food- is enough. If you say "No!", she might think you don't want her to growl, so maybe next time she won't growl, but still is being food possessive. Again we want to train her out of food guarding, not simply out of growling. Then I tell her to Sit and Down and Stay, if she continues growling, I just stare at her right into her eyes, until she looks away and stops growling. After 10 seconds or so of no growling, then I leave the bowl on the feeder again, and tell her "Okay". However you need at least at least five seconds of no growling before putting her food down again, because if you put it down too fast, she would think it was her growling that caused you to put her food down, and we don't want to reinforce that.
While she's eating, I would keep some treats with me, and I would always stay in the kitchen while she?s eating, so she would be used to my presence while she?s eating. I would move around in the kitchen, when I got close to her, I would show her a treat and drop a treat into her bowl every time. So she learned that if she lets me get close to her food while she?s eating, she would get a treat. If she starts growling before I can get the treats to her, I immediately pick up the bowl and make her Sit, Down, Stay like I described above. However if she growls before I could give a treat to her, I don't put the treats into her bowl as I return the bowl to her, because I don't want her to think she got more food now she has growled in the first place. But after she starts eating again, I might try again to get close to her or touch her while she's eating, and drop treats into her bowl at the same time if she doesn't growl when I do these.
Also occasionally I would take up her bowl while she?s eating, and then put a treat inside (the treat I?m using is small, about fingernail size, but Keely appears to like it more than her food, because she would always eat the treat first when she gets her bowl back), then return the bowl to her. So she would get used to having her bowl with food in it being taken away, because that means she would get an extra treat in there when it comes back. However, I would NOT recommend just taking away her bowl over and over again without putting any treats in there. I mean nobody would like it if another person simply keeps taking away our food as we are eating. But if it means we are getting more food after the bowl is returned, that might be okay.
I would recommend Keely's food bowl to be picked up when she has finished eating, to prevent her to start guarding the bowl itself.
When I feed her, if she doesn?t start eat it immediately, I pick up the bowl and put it on the kitchen counter, and offer it to her again in an hour or so. I figured out that if I just keep the food out when Keely doesn?t feel like eating it, this actually promoted her possessiveness of her food against both me and Anastasia, because Keely would increase her growling when Anastasia got near her food even when Keely's not eating it, in addition to low growling at me when I moved around in the kitchen.
If she's eating really slow, I just allow five minutes for her to eat per meal. If she doesn't finish within five minutes, I remove the bowl and whatever food is left in there. 99% of the time, she finishes within five minutes (and most of the time I would stay in the kitchen during the five minutes, to train her). For the first week, she might not finish her meals as she will be a little nervous, this is normal. If she only eats 1/2 of her meal portion for the week, this is okay too, don't worry about it. However, if she completely refuses to eat for the first 24 hours, I will bring two cans of dog food, and you could mix that with her dry food. Keely rarely gets canned food and thus she loves it. But I wouldn't recommend feeding her too often of it or she would gain too much weight.
Human meal times:
In addition to guarding her food from other dogs and cats and occasionally from humans, Keely also occasionally guards human's food during human's meal time from other dogs and cats (however she has never guarded MY food from ME). Since you have a cat living at your house, I will go over this with you. The important thing is, NO feeding from the table. Keely begged the very first day when I got her, but I let her know that she's not getting any human food from me (except string cheese during obedience class), and she has never begged since. So what I do with her when I'm eating is, if she growls at my cat for getting near my food, I immediately pick up the food and leave, and she would stop growling. Essentially my food is the good thing, and when she growls, the good thing disappears (again there's no need to tell her "No", removing the good thing is enough). For your family, if you normally eat your meals at the kitchen/dinning room table, for the first week, I would recommend positioning the crate, so that she would still be able to see you when you eat your meals. I would NOT recommend locking her in another room while you are eating, because eating is such an important pack event for dogs, if we lock her in another room, we are telling her that she's not part of the pack. Even though she's not able to eat while the leaders of the pack are eating, the lower rank of the pack is supposed to watch, not locked out of sight. So you might have to move the crate back and forth between the dinning room and the bedroom for the first two days. After the first couple days, you might not need to crate her during your meal time anymore, maybe just tell her "Down-Stay" on a bed nearby, or if she decides that she wants to take a nap in the livingroom while you are eating, that's fine too. Again if she growls at the cat for getting near your food while you are eating, try not to tell her "No", or she might have redirected aggression toward the cat ("See how you made me get yelled at?!"). Hopefully the cat's dog-savvy enough that after a couple growls, the cat will learn to stay out of Keely's way when you are eating.
Countersurfing:
Although Keely has never countersurfed at my place, for the first month or so, I would recommend keeping the food away from the counter edge, as not to "entice" her to countersurf. After a month or so, she'll probably realize she'll never get food from the counter and would never even try.
Keely and cats:
Overall Keely and my cat, Anastasia (3-year-old female Siamese-mix, very laid-back and dog-savvy, she's a certified therapy cat) pretty much just ignore each other. On Saturday, Barbara and I talked a little bit about litter box, and the litter box I have is the covered kind, and I scoop it once a day, and Keely hasn't tried to eat anything from the litter box.
To train Keely out of growling at Anastasia for the food, I would stand in the kitchen while Keely?s eating, and if Anastasia decides to come into the kitchen also, I would refocus Keely by showing Keely a treat (BEFORE she growls), and then drop treats into her bowl every one second or so, as long as the cat?s in the kitchen. Keely loves food, and as long as she's eating treats, she does not mind the cat. And of course if Keely growls at the cat over the food before I could redirect her attention to the treats, I removed her food bowl and remove the cat (although now my cat knows not to get near Keely when the dog's eating).
Heather said when Keely growled at her dogs for trying to get attention from Heather, Heather would push Keely away, telling her that if she growls, she wouldn?t get what she wants. I tried this with Keely and Anastasia, but it just ended up Keely getting even madder at Anastasia, and she growled louder. So what I did was when Keely growled for Anastasia getting near me, ?I? would leave. Sometimes while I?m walking away, I would pick up the cat and take the cat with me. So essentially ?I? am the good thing that is taken away if Keely provides an undesirable behavior. When I walk away, Keely would get confused and immediately stop growling. However, Keely would not growl if I?m already petting the cat first then she comes along. I think when I'm holding the cat, Keely sees us more as one entity, and thus she has more respect for the cat that way because she has more respect for me.
Keely has NOT guarded her toys from my cat.
Grooming:
Teeth brushing:
The one she's using now is chicken flavored toothpaste. Be aware of beef flavored toothpastes, as she's intolerant of beef. Also Drs. Fosters and Smith sells toothpaste without flavoring if that's what you prefer.
When you have to clean her ears or do something similar she doesn't like, please do NOT use the "Come" command. The Come command should be only be followed by something wonderful, so that if there's an emergency, she would have a reliable recall. If you tell her come and it's followed by ear cleaning, next time she might not come when called because she would be think you might clean her ears when she comes. So if you have to do something not entirely pleasant to her, please go get her yourself.
Toilet drinking:
I caught Keely drinking from the toilet once, just once, but just to be on the safe side, now I always leave the lid down.
Destructive behavior while home alone:
Heather told me to crate her at least for the first week while home alone. Well, she was so cute that I decided not to crate her after three days. Big mistake! I came home and there were scratch marks on the bedroom door and carpet. So back to the crate she went. Anyways, she now has full access of apartment when I'm not at home and is doing great. Again I would recommend crating her for at least the first two weeks when she's home alone, until she feels completely safe at her new home.
Meeting other dogs:
Keely doesn?t like it when other dogs sniff her behind for too long and would growl when they do. So for her desensitization training, when we see other dogs on the streets, if the dog looks friendly, I would try to let them meet to help socialize Keely. For the first five seconds, I would let her and the other dog just mingle. Then after five seconds, I know her limits, so I would show her a treat, and then take two steps away and tell her ?Keely, Come!? Keely would walk away from the other dog and toward me. This interrupts the other dog from sniffing her and would prevent her from growling. If the other dog follows us, I would give her another treat and say ?Let?s go? and walk away with faster pace. By this time, the other dog?s owner would call his dog away too. Keely is so smart and actually has learned to look at me and ask for treats after the other dog just sniffs her for five seconds and walk away, she would look at me like asking for treats, because she knows she gets rewarded when another dog sniffs her. This is good, because with desensitization training, we want her to actually learn to like being sniffed by other dogs, this is similar to her meal time training, that we want her to actually like being approached when she's eating. To make her like being sniffed by other dogs, we have to make her have this warm, fuzzy feeling when she's meeting other dogs. We try to make the connection between the good feeling and meeting other dogs by giving her treats while she meets other dogs. Again IF she does growl at the other dog, please do NOT tell her "No" or jerk her leash, because any punishment will just make her think that bad things come with meeting other dogs ("See how you made me get yelled at!?"). If possible, just continue feeding her treats before she starts growling. Her limit is about five seconds, so before the five seconds, start giving her treats and lead her away. Also about meeting other dogs, avoidance is not the answer! If we don't continue to socialize her, which needs to be done for the rest of her life (she wasn't re-trained until she was six years old, so it would be very easy for her to slide back to her old ways, continuous training is very important), she will never learn to be nice around other dogs, which would be dangerous when you take her to the vet or groomer?s or obedience class or meeting neighbor's dog. We want her to get along with other nice dogs! I will talk more about this when we meet the neighbor's dog on Tuesday morning (please thank the neighbor for me for letting us borrow her dog and helping us with Keely's training).
Tail talk:
It's pretty easy to tell Keely's emotions since she has a long tail. Most Springers have docked tail and it's hard to tell if they are dominant aggressive or fear aggressive when they are growling at other dogs. However it's very easy to tell with Keely, because most of the time, she's scared, because her tail is tucked right between her legs. Because of her fear aggression toward other dogs, it's very important NOT to do anything negative to her while she's meeting other dogs, even if she ends up growling or barking at the other dog. Just walk a few feet away and tell her come, and when she does, give her another treat.
Socializing in public:
If she gets nervous, you can try to reinforce your leadership by telling her to "Sit-Down-Stay", and also give her treats for her to associate good things with the place/people (which was what you saw I did on Saturday). I would recommend doing this at vet and groomer visits. For vet visit, I would recommend doing a "dry run" with her to the vet's office before you have to take her in for vaccination on July 24th. We don't want her to associate bad things with going to the vet, which would happen if her first visit there means she gets stuck by needles. Therefore, if you have time, I would recommend just taking her there to say hi or get her weighed or get flea and heartworm preventative, but not getting the vaccination on that day. This way, she would learn that every time she goes to the vet, she only gets the needle sometimes, but treats always.
For the first one or two vet visits, I would recommend not feeding her meals at least two hours before the visit, because she had thrown up once right after a vet visit because she was so nervous there, and I had fed her an hour before. But giving her treats at the vet office is okay. Another thing I would recommend doing at the first visit is to ask vet to check her anal glands. She has had to have her anal glands emptied by the groomer once every 6 weeks while she has lived with me, but she might not need it once she lives in a house and not small apartment, however please still ask your vet to check.
Jumping on people:
Heather said she had to train Keely not to jump on people, however, I guess Heather did a great job on that, because Keely rarely jumped on me. If she starts jumping on you and you want to train her out of it, I can tell you that the major reason dog jumps on people is that they want attention, not because the dog's dominant. Therefore, there's no need to punish them when they jump. And the way we train them not to jump is to remove the attention. As you see she's about to jump up, just turn your back on her, not saying anything to her and not touching her as you are doing it, because if you tell her "off" or "no" or push her away with your hands, you are giving her the attention she wants, and thus reinforcing the jumping behavior, which is not what we want! To extinguish the behavior, simply remove the good thing - the attention - and she will soon stop jumping.
Car rides:
If there's only the driver and no passenger, Keely likes to sit in the front passenger seat. Most of the time I don't allow that (unless I have to transport another larger Springer in the back). So what I do is after I put her in the back seat, I tell her "Sit-Stay" and she would. Sometimes she would test her limits by putting her front paws on the center console, and I would tell her "Off" and she would and stay in the back.