Patience Pays Off with Fearful Dogs

One thing I can't stress enough when working with fearful dogs is to let them make choices whenever possible.

I've fostered a lot of fearful dogs and the more I've been using force-free methods, the faster the dogs' progress happens. When a dog starts to learn that you are going to let them make some decisions as to where and when they move their trust in you grows quickly and their willingness to try new things, like walking on a surface that is new or exiting a crate, speeds up.

Klee has been a great example of how well this works. When she first arrived Klee was afraid to move through open space and darted from hiding spot to hiding spot. She was terrified to leave her crate or to leave the house.

I noticed that she was much braver around the other dogs so I would open the door to her crate, move to the far side of the room and sit on the floor, pointedly avoiding eye contact. Our first attempt took 5 minutes before she left her crate in the entryway of our house and moved cautiously into the living room. This is tough for us control freaks who want things to happen at the speed we set. It pays off though, I promise. My the second day of doing this after I opened her crate and started to walk away, she was out within 30 seconds and tearing across the room to jump in my lap.

It has been super exciting to watch this little pup blossom. Because her brain is still healing from her head trauma, she needs lots of sleep and it makes sense that she doesn't have the same puppy energy that one is used to seeing in a 7 month old dog. However, in the last couple days I've actually seen some romping and when I got home last night after several hours away she actually went into that full on puppy "OHMYGOD! You were gone forever!!!!" dance when I opened her crate up.

Other break throughs: after initially being too stressed to even look at a treat left next to her in a crate, she now has decided that treats are da BOMB and we have started some training work. She learned her name and now we are working on recall, focus, and sit. Initially I had wondered if she would have some learning deficits from the brain injury. No worries there - this girl can learn and she can learn quickly.

I don't have video or photo of her showing off her brave work on crossing crate and door thresholds so apologies for that. But what I do have is this precious shot of what happens when you take the time to really work your dogs' brains - exhausted dogs who are ready for some snooze time.