The Thundershirt that he wears has taken his energy down a notch, making it easier to get his attention for the training games we work on. He's also getting an herbal tincture called K9 and Kitty Calmer by Liquid Health twice a day and his bedding gets dried with Mrs. Meyers Lavender dryer sheets. We don't know if any or all of these are working but something is because he's a little bit calmer.
The next step is keeping his mind busy on things other than his anxieties. He's a smart little guy so we are doing clicker training and marking calm behaviors, such as when he is laying on one of the dog beds calmly, or when another dog is barking and he doesn't engage. He's also learning and constantly practicing new skills. "Sit" and "down" have been learned and now we are working on a "down-stay", a skill that can be practiced and used to help him learn to settle somewhere and self soothe.
An easy way to engage most terriers' minds is around mealtime. Langley used to get a meal of kibble and canned food mixed up. Now the canned food gets mixed with his supplements and frozen in a Kong for times when he's more anxious so he has something to focus on. His kibble gets put in a Kong Wobbler toy and he has to work at that to get the kibble out. Last night was his first try at the Wobbler and he really needed help to figure it out. He wanted to just chew and lick his way into the small hole where the food comes out. This morning when I set his Wobbler out he was knocking it around the room like an old pro as you see in this video.
It's a slow process that requires baby steps but he is getting there. He has a meet up with a potential adopter in a couple weeks. They adopted a previous foster of ours and if Langley and their boy get along it would be an excellent home for him. So our goal in the next couple of weeks is to get closer to relaxed and able to play and interact with a new dog. It's a tall order for this under-confident boy, but we will give it our all.
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