I have never been a believer in sharing only the good when talking about life with my dogs, my complex and sensitive ‘reactive’ boy most of all. He has been doing really well in the last few months, and I probably shouldn’t be surprised that we ended up having one of ‘those’ walks last week.
‘Those’ walks can happen to all of us, no matter how knowledgeable and experienced we may be. We can do our best to avoid getting close to triggers but, in all honesty, as soon as we step out into the wider world, there are factors that are beyond our control. This happened to us the other day, and resulted in Finn having a mini meltdown.
It was a warm day, so we headed out a little earlier than usual – only by 20 minutes or so, as the roads we walk around here are generally pretty quiet around that time. Finn was keen to get to the first of the sniff spots so we hustled over to the verge as per usual and he calmed down nicely once he’d had a chance to sniff. We carried on with him walking nicely next to me.
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| Sniffing is serious business! |
As we crossed over into the next road on our route, I saw a woman mowing the verge on the opposite side of the road. Finn had a good look at her but kept walking with me. As we came around the corner, I saw the postman some distance down the road, on the same side as us and walking in our direction. Finn is not a fan of postmen as they come to the door sometimes which is too close in Finn’s opinion. He got a little up on his toes but not too bad as we crossed the road to get a little more distance.
That was the point the postman got his scanner out and we heard the beep. Finn HATES that beep, as the doorbell ringing usually follows it. While he will put himself in the kitchen for me to shut the baby gate to keep everyone safe, he voices his disapproval loudly.
Out came the high value treats, and we started walking a little oval, back and forth on that opposite pavement, keeping him distracted enough to not fix on staring but still realising that the postman was there. And that got the postman past us on that far side of the road so on we went.
We got about three quarters of the way around, to the end of that road and about to cross back over our road to walk up towards the house. I spotted a woman pushing a buggy on the far side of the road so went to move Finn back the way we had come a little as he’s very uncomfortable with strangers, and also with buggies. As we turned back I saw the postman had followed us back down the road at a little distance and was now getting a bit close. I turned in the final direction, to be confronted with a man and dog popping into sight and bearing down on us.
I managed to make just enough space to let the man and dog get past and saw the woman with a buggy going into a house – but another person had come out and was walking up that side of the road where I wanted to get to. I hustled across the junction meaning to cross over to the home side of the road, but the person walking there was right where I wanted to be. And that’s when Finn kicked off at the postman who had got to maybe half a dozen paces behind us. I asked him to give me a second to get Finn across the road once the other man had gone past and crossed as soon as we could safely to head for home.
Once upon a time, that would have had me in tears and feeling like an utter failure. And yes, for a few minutes I grumped at myself because we’d been doing so well and it felt like a bit of a disaster.
Here’s the thing. Yes, a lot of stuff happened. At no point in years of walking along that route have so many things arrived in such a quick way, one after another, so I had no reason to anticipate more than one or two that I knew we’d cope with no problem.
And yes, Finn reacted – he faced up to the postman and barked. That’s not good (I did have a quick chat with the postman earlier, who has known us since before Finn joined out the family, and has great confidence in us to keep everyone safe so he wasn’t worried).
It wasn’t a great day but the fact is that it wasn’t actually a bad day either when I look at it from a perspective not right in the middle of it.
Yes, Finn reacted to someone. But despite all the facing up and barking, he didn’t lunge. He didn’t even really pull the lead taut in my hand. He was purely vocal, no attempt to get any closer to the ‘threat’.
He got trigger stacked, just having so many things happen in quick succession. But in the past, just one of those things would have been enough. He managed to cope with 6 or 7 different things that happened before he couldn’t tolerate any more and told the world he’d had enough.
And yes, I had to physically drag him the first step away when we did actually have room to cross the road. But as soon as that first step had been taken he turned and came with me. He didn’t pull or try to rush ahead of me across the road.
When we reached the other side of the road, he did a big shake off then dropped his nose down to the ground to continue sniffing all the sniffs on the way home. He never even glanced across the road to see where the postman was now. Despite having just kicked off, he walked home on a loose lead, looking exactly as he would on a normal walk having not encountered any triggers. More than one or two triggers encountered in the past would mean the entire rest of the walk felt like fighting to hang on to a kite shaped like an overgrown collie. Despite all of the triggers that happened within just 5 minutes or so, in little more than 15 seconds he was calm enough to carry on enjoying his walk.
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| He really loves a good sniff! |
There are so many positives to take from what happened, and that’s the important thing on the days when it doesn’t go to plan. Look for the positives. The little things that are in fact huge things, like quicker recovery time, meaning that the stress caused by the trigger is lessening through the hard work put in to counter conditioning and desensitisation, through helping your dog to realise that you have their back. Things like being able to encounter more triggers without your dog going over threshold, and realising that you can easily watch the signs to judge if they are approaching threshold.
The more confidence they feel they can have in you, the more confidence you will begin to have in them, and so the more progress you will make together.
If you want more information to help you understand what is going on in and for your reactive dog, check out my book 'Understanding Reactive Dogs: Why Dogs React & How to Help' for a guide to the science underlying reactive behaviours in dogs and the kind and ethical methods we can use to help them feel better about their world. (Link goes to Amazon UK, search in other Amazon stores for Kindle/paperback/hardcover. Ebook available in a range of stores via Books2Read.)
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