Charlie has lived with us for eight months now and the past weekend was the best I can remember. We hiked with Charlie on wooded trails he was familiar with and took photos. I don’t think he barely barked at anything even a jogger on trail!! He seemed pretty relaxed compare to the nervous way he used to behave. It was a beautiful fall day on Sunday and we got to enjoy time with our dog after many months of preparing for just that with lots of behavior modification. I didn’t have to do much to keep him on track and happy in the house and yard this weekend. Of course, you could still see some of his anxious behaviors but it has gotten much more manageable on the day-to-day stuff of an ordinary weekend. After we had Charlie for several weeks it became clear he had a set of complex problems and he was going to need help beyond basic training and even basic behavior modification. After consulting many other behavior experts and researching online and books, which frankly are really lacking when it comes to the complex dog most are geared towards dog that simply need training or have fears that are pretty simple to address, I have concluded Charlie has generalized anxiety and some kind of separation anxiety like attachment to my husband and several other lesser behavior issues. This is as close as I am going to get to putting a label on his issues. Hey, real life is messy at best. With so many issues to address and a dog that was anxious within the home we decided to simplify his life as much as possible. We simplified his schedule and kept his routine as calm as possible. We cancelled trips, guests, and forgo our usual dog outings to new places. We gated house so he would stay away from front windows and obsessing about outside activities in neighborhood. I added blinds to one room so he would have a calm room without distraction for his crate. We decided to work on his problems in the house before any others. I will add more of what worked for us next post but we had a great weekend. Yeah!
Tags: adopted dog, behavior modification, positive dog training, rescue dog
