never thought i’d see the day

[kasimira]

hi all! i’ve posted tons of times about how my dog and my boyfriend do not get along. we’ve been cohabitating fine enough since mid august but we’ve done a ton of management ie utilizing baby gates, lots of time on place, muzzle inside if she’s not on place etc.

we had multiple incidents prior to our move and during the first few weeks in our new place of my dog lunging at my boyfriend and getting aggressive and we had many talks about what our future looks like as a result. our biggest concern was my dogs quality of life in the event that we had to have such strict management for the rest of her life. we (mostly i, as i’m the one handling her) ended up increasing her prozac dose and started working with a balance trainer and implementing tons of structure and working to create clear expectations for what her behavior should look like inside and outside of the home.

fast forward to this morning, i had a sniffspot reservation booked at a huge property about an hour outside of the city we live in. this property had an agility arena setup and access to a freshwater creek and i was so excited to take my dog. my boyfriend usually doesn’t tag along on our walks/outings due to my dogs reactions to him in the past but i opted to invite him to join given the fact that i thought it would be a cool opportunity for him to see my dog in action.

i was super nervous about the car ride bc they’ve never been that close to each other for such a long period of time and i really had no idea what to expect but we muzzled her and she did perfectly fine! a couple stress shakes, but nothing more serious than that. once we got to the sniffspot, we had her on a long line bc her recall is still a work in progress and we left the muzzle on for the first few minutes but she ended up gravitating towards my boyfriend more and he wanted to reward her more so we opted to take the muzzle off. she was so relaxed around him and it got to the point where he would recall her and she’d actually listen which shocked me. after exploring the property, we tried out the agility equipment and my boyfriend was able to lure her onto one and get her to follow his lead and they even ended up playing fetch.

neither of us expected the morning to go as well as it did but i feel so hopeful for our future now. i’ve always wanted to take my dog on adventures and my boyfriend and i want to go camping more and i think it’ll be a great opportunity for us all to bond. obviously we’re going to continue to take each day as it comes and not push her boundaries, but i’m so happy that they’ve gone beyond just coexisting. we just came home from running errands and she was so excited to see him, so hopefully he gets upgraded from spare human to dog dad soon.

 

[sarahtoo]

@kasimira Thats awesome. Now she is a bit better with him you could try both taking a handfull of treats and calling her from one to the other as a game to practice her recall that all three of you can play together. (as long as that sounds safe to you ofc)

 

[kasimira]

@sarahtoo ooh great idea! will def try with a leash on

 

[typological1]

@kasimira That is awesome!! We are working on something similar - basically getting her to understand that she doesn’t have to react to other people. Meds have made a huge difference, but it has also taken a lot of work. We now have two people that she does well with, and we are going to introduce more. I still get nervous with every new situation and wondering how she will do, but she has been doing great.

Good luck to you on making even more progress!

 

[kasimira]

@typological1 thank you!! glad your pup has been doing well also!! i feel like this journey requires a lot of trust on both ends

 

[christiantonyb]

@kasimira Congrats! What great progress! How have your Sniffspot experiences been? I’ve downloaded the app but never booked one

 

[kasimira]

@christiantonyb great so far! we haven’t had any issues with spots not being as described. i even did a sniffpass (their version of a membership) for one that was close to my old apartment that my dog loved and we did a lot of trick training and bonding there bc she got super comfortable and was down to play.

 

[prophetictimes]

@kasimira Going fun places with friends is what helped my fearful puppy get over her terror of new people, a few at a time. She was a baby so it's a different situation, but she was struggling to adapt to people who she'd seen every 2 days for her first few months with us - until we went away for the weekend with them on a few different trips. She had a blast and I guess the friends were less scary in the new happy context? They were part of her family after that.

 

[joshuawithmartin]

@kasimira I think the outings together in more open spaces sound like a great place to start building their relationship! Glad you guys have discovered an opportunity for this!

 

[kasimira]

@joshuawithmartin yeah definitely! we had tried to have them meet each other at the park when my boyfriend and i first started dating but it was also before my dog was prescribed anxiety meds so i think everything combined made the difference this time around