How Can I help ease my anxiety while training my rescue dog

[markmisso]

To start off, we have only had him for a few days, but I know if i don’t get my anxiety under control I won’t be able to properly train him. This is mostly just to rant and clear my head a bit, but advice is welcome.

Me and my boyfriend recently adopted a great dane, he is older, about 5-7 years. He was a drop off so we don’t have a lot of information about where he came from or his previous owners. Our apartment was broken into and my boyfriends mom wanted to get a bigger dog, so we went to our local animal shelter to look. The worker brought us to the great dane and my boyfriend was a little skeptical at first because of his age but we decided to get him because they told us he was extremely calm and amazing with other animals. The shelter we got him from didn’t take very good care of him, they gave him one regular sized dog food bowl every day and only let him out for 5 minutes of playtime everyday, so he was bone skinny when we got him. From the time we brought him home, he never tried to jump on me at all, but he isn’t fixed yet so he kept trying to hmp my boyfriend. We have an appointment for his blood work in a few days and if everything is good we can schedule him getting fixed and that should solve his problem with that. He is amazing with cats, we introduced him and our cat we have inside and he wasn’t even phased by him at all. However, my boyfriends mom has a chihuahua and she isn’t fixed, and everytime he smells her on his mom he jumps on her and sniffs her like crazy and tries to hmp. Due to this we have to keep in his cage inside until he is fixed, we let him out progressively in spurts by himself and if she changes clothes he won’t jump on her because he doesn’t smell the other dog. The first day when we let him roam around he did pretty good, he did try to jump up on a few things and sniff where he smelled the dog but other than that he did really good. Sometimes he doesn’t want to get in the crate, but I understand that because he just got out of the shelter. I will say i’m very proud of him because in a little over a day he knows to get in the cage when he comes back inside (he likes the dog bed and he sleeps majority of the day). The only thing that is making me really anxious is that sometimes me and my boyfriend both work all day and eventually his mom will have to take him out herself majority of the day. I’m really worried he is going to jump on her and hurt her, or that even after we get him fixed he will still jump a lot or be too rough on our cat and dog. I’ve had to work most of the days since we got him, and every night it’s like i just worry constantly about him and him accidentally hurting someone. Any great dane owners or just big dogs in general please help!

 

[paul999]

@markmisso I have a 5 y/o large mastiff/ pit mix rescue (100 ish lbs). And I have anxiety too lol. I understand your fear of his size potentially hurting people. I’m by no means a professional, but my advice would be to give him some time to acclimate to you and your family and time for you all to acclimate to him. My dog continuously surprises me in situations where I’m anxious as hell bc I can see where it could go wrong ( hello catastrophic thinking ). Also I depend on my mom to take him out and walk him when I’m working.

I would spend time now rewarding him for behaviors that you want to see ( calm approaches , gentle time around cats). At this point he is adjusting and you are in control of the environment. Positive reinforcement of good behavior goes very far. Maybe when mom comes over, have him baby gated in a room if possible where he can see her and she can greet him but limit him to where he can only come out once he is calm and the excitement has worn down.

Also redirecting works wonders for my boy. He wants to charge at the door when someone comes in and lean hard for pets, which has knocked over several people. I’ve come to make him go to his bed and wait for the release when I’ve set my stuff down or my mom is prepared to be leaned on.

Best of luck to you

 

[markmisso]

@paul999 thank you for the advice! His mom lives with us as well, and we have to depend on her to take him out sometimes when we aren’t home. I’m surprised by how good he’s doing now, he still is jumping but only on my boyfriends mom and I don’t see it changing much until he’s fixed since he smells her dog. He does awesome with the cats but I was worried about him being too rough with his moms dog (she’s a chihuahua), but we introduced them (from his cage) and honestly i don’t think either recognized each other as a dog lol, they just started at each other confused. We will try redirecting him! Thank you so much

 

[paul999]

@markmisso Ah okay, I understand more now. Hopefully fixing him will help immensely. I’ve seen two different approaches for jumping, albeit both with smaller dogs. It came from Brandon Macmillan at the Lucky Dog Ranch (or something like that). I have no idea what the general site thinks of his methods. One was having a leash on him and keeping him from jumping by stepping on the leash on the ground. The other was holding him comfortably (not too tight, paws not too high) in the “jump” position when he does until he gets bored and wants down on his own.

A Great Dane and a chihuahua must look like straight up aliens to each other . Have a good one !