My dogs anxiety seems to be getting worse

[akimbastark]

Hi there guys! This is my first post here. A quick introduction about my dog: His name is Oliver, he’s a 5 (turning 6 in 2 days) year old border collie/lab mix. I try to walk him regularly and I do 4-h with him once a week.
When he’s at 4-h he’s an awesome dog and listens really well, when we go on walks he turns into an anxious wreck. He doesn’t listen and he’s constantly looking around like something bad is about to happen. Sometimes he refuses to walk before we even go half of a block. When I walked him today he seemed to be even worse than usual.
He spooked when I unzipped my jacket pocket, he would stare down any car that drove by and wouldn’t even look at me. He even refused to do tricks that he knows and usually does perfectly fine( like down, sit, etc.)
If anyone has any advice I’d be really thankful, I plan to talk to my 4-h leader since she’s a dog trainer but I won’t see her for a while.

 

[toserve]

@akimbastark It sounds like your dog is over threshold when you’re out for walks. Threshold is the line in which your dog is comfortable. When you’re at 4-h it sounds like your dog is under threshold and comfortable performing and listening. When your dog goes over threshold, it means he’s too stressed and overstimulated by the environment to perform tricks or even know how to act. I would recommend playing with him at home first, like tug or brain games to tire him out a little before your walk, and then work on counter conditioning on shorter walks in quiet, low traffic places. You can do this by bringing lots of treats and reward him for looking at you or twitching an ear towards you. Make it easy for your dog to earn the treats so the walk becomes super positive. You might have to start small by sitting on the porch and rewarding for engagement before you can build up to a full walk. Border collies/mixes can be very sensitive to their environment, so just take it slow and steady and end your walk if your guy starts showing signs of stress like darting eyes, pinned ears, tucked tail, etc.

 

[akimbastark]

@toserve Thank you so much for the help! I’m glad I was unknowingly doing the right thing by rewarding him when he looked at me. I’ll definitely try to work on building back up to walks.

 

[judimma]

@toserve I pretty much followed this advice with my pup that was having the same problem. He’s great on walks now, but he has some kind of predator instinct. He’s friendly to half the people we walk past but he tries to chase some joggers and bikes if they don’t stop to say hi. Any advice on that?

 

[toserve]

@judimma Yes! You’ll use the same basic concept, but I would use high value treats like cut up hot dogs or spray cheese. Then when you’re approaching the specific things that get your dog super excited, get a handful of the treats of choice and sort of hide them in your fist and put your hand right in front of your dog’s nose and ease the treats slowly out of your fingers while you pass the thing, then resume your regular walk. Eventually your dog will put together the pieces “see a jogger/bike = owner gives me super valuable snacks.” As you repeat this behavior, your dog will start to see those things and immediately look to you for a reward. Make sure you heavily reward the moments where your dog chooses to look at you instead of reacting to the thing. Keep repeating this for a while and slowly fade out the luring with treats and your dog will learn to chill out around those triggers. Good luck!