Confidence Is Fragile

My dog Nestle had pretty much given up on the world when I adopted him from a shelter. He quickly bloomed to appreciate the good things in life - walks, meals, treats, even training. But it took a full six months for us to establish a bond, and he still spent too much time with his ears pulled back and his mouth in a tight grimace. We cautiously saw new sights, met new people and dogs, practiced agility purely for the increased confidence, and he blossomed. People who see him out and about with me think he's a perfectly sound dog. But I know differently, and that was brought home to me recently.
I had some quite serious medical problems, and through November and December, we had several occasions when we all (dogs and humans) got in the car, drove to the emergency room, and I went in and didn't come back out. This has resulted in Nestle being very anxious when left in the car. He started out just hiding and trembling on the floor in the front (the dogs ride in the back and aren't supposed to come into the front. Then he tore up some Christmas presents that were on the floor in the front. Since then he has torn up other things on the floor.
So his confidence is, as I always knew, fragile. We are working on getting his comfort level back, taking car rides and leaving the car for only short periods at a time. He has had several good days where he remained in the back, and another episode of tearing up a bag of pastries in the front. It is especially bad if I have to go to the hospital for tests or the cancer treatment center for appointments. He obviously recognizes these places.
But we are working on it, and I'm sure he will settle down again in time. It just reminds me that living with dogs is a constant work in progress.

Try to Remember

I recently adopted three rescue llamas. Though I have had horses and sheep, llamas are a new species for me. So I am once again climbing the learning curve of how to care for, train, and enjoy these large new additions to the ranchlet. They are tons of fun to watch, especially when they neck wrestle or run laps around the pasture. But being rescued, they missed out on any early training, and are a definite handful to work with.
This has reminded me once again how easy it is to forget just how confusing and terrifying it can be when you get your very first dog. I was lucky. My dogs came in an order that made the learning curve manageable for me. I shudder to think what might have happened had the first two canine members of my family arrived in reverse order.
My actual first dog was Sundance, a Keeshond. She failed the conformation standard, having an undershot jaw. But she was gorgeous and, above all, amazingly intelligent. As I knew absolutely nothing at the time about dogs, other than that I had to have one, she was the perfect "learner dog." She had a few housetraining accidents (all my fault, of course), chewed one rung of a wooden chair as her sole puppyhood transgression, and generally taught me much of what I needed to know to become a decent pup parent. She had more grace and social bearing than I did at the time, and seemed to learn things through osmosis. She traveled many of the national parks with me, and was welcomed everywhere, as it was evident that she was a princess in dog clothing.
I remember wondering what the heck all the fuss was about, and why there were so many books about living with a dog, when it all seemed so remarkably easy.
Then along came Spirit. . .
She was in a pet shop at six weeks of age, supposedly a Cocker-Springer mix. I was still uneducated, or I wouldn't have been looking at a dog in a pet shop. And I certainly wouldn't have purchased what was obviously a puppy mill dog who had been taken from her mother too soon. But the saying goes that you get the dog you need at the time, and Spirit was responsible for nearly all of my early learning about dogs, so she contributed mightily to my current career in dogs.
I had learned enough that once we had nursed her back to health, Spirit was enrolled in classes. Of course, these were traditional classes, with choke chains and leash pops. Nothing else was available at the time, and I didn't know I should be looking for something else anyway.
All seemed to go swimmingly until one week in class, when Spirit was perhaps six months old. The trainer was going over each dog as they performed a stand (as if we were ever going to do conformation). And just before she touched Spirit, I at least had the sense to see my dog's body stiffen, hair rise. So I had one hand grasping the collar and the other holding Spirit's tail, and literally swung her out of reach as she went for the trainer.
Bite averted there, but life was never the same. Spirit appeared to hate humanity. Now I would know that she was actually AFRAID of humanity, and determined to keep all of it, other than myself, at bay. We found a trainer (whom Spirit bit the first time she met him) who would work with us in group classes, and another trainer who did private lessons with us. No one mentioned counter conditioning, desensitization, or any program specifically to attempt to change how Spirit felt about things. They all concentrated on obedience exercises to "get control" of my Spirit.
Matters only got worse when a terrier mix joined our pack and the dog fights began. Humans got bit trying to break up fights (fortunately, only family members, and none requiring professional medical treatment, so we never got reported). We lived in an uneasy world of constant vigilance.
Now I would have so many more resources available, but even with that, I try to think what it would be like to have a Spirit as a first dog. Wanting love and companionship and getting teeth and terror is a rather disorienting experience. Some appear to solve it pretty easily, by disposing of the dog through one means or another. But others stick it out, and I have a great deal of empathy for them.
So I keep writing -- about breeding for temperament as well as looks, about the importance of early socialization, about how to work with a difficult dog -- in the hopes that someone somewhere with a Spirit will find the hope they need.
I couldn't love her in the same way that I loved Sundance, but I did my best for her, and stood by her for her 16-1/2 years. Thanks for the education, Spirit. I'll always remember you for it.

Frequently Asked Doggie Questions

I did my radio show last week, which is largely call in. And there was a definite theme to the questions. Most of them had something to do with dogs chewing. . . themselves, possessions, inappropriate food objects, and on and on.
Before you start looking for an answer to why your dog is chewing up something in your house, you need to understand a basic about dogs - chewing feels good. To a dog, chewing is a stress releaser. People may bite their nails (guilty), tap their fingers, twirl their hair, or do other more harmful things. Dogs, by and large, chew.
Given that dogs don't have our handy opposable thumbs, they use their mouths not just to consume food, but to pick up and carry things, to take things apart, and to explore their world. So using their mouths is a sort of natural fallback when they need to do something in a stressful situation.
This means, if your dog is a bit anxious about being left alone, the dog may chew up the couch pillows while you are gone. Or if the dog is left in the vehicle, the dog bedding or the seat cushions may take the hit. While it may be upsetting to have things destroyed, it's better than the dog choosing to chew (or lick) him or herself to the point of raising sores.
That's why my first response, when people phone in to the show and I can't actually see what their dog is doing and what his or her temperament appears to be, is to try taking actions to relieve stress. Rescue Remedy can't hurt and might help, so I recommend that often. Giving the dog a really great and long-lasting chewie can help if the dog isn't so anxious that he or she ignores food. Desensitization to being left alone is a much longer program, but has lasting results and makes the dog a much happier animal.
So if your dog chews something up while you aren't there, please don't jump to the (false) conclusion that your dog is "punishing" you for leaving him/her home alone. That's very, very unlikely. Instead, look at how you can help your dog be more comfortable with being left. You'll both be better off in the long run.