timothygrae
New member
Knocking on the door has become less of the nightmare shitshow we all probably know and love, but I could cry I'm so happy. CARE and careful, systematic counter conditioning works.
It's a rainy day and I was having expensive paper delivered, so I've been anxious waiting on a knock at our porch door (porch door, porch, then our interior/exterior door. I heard someone say something at the door, heard the porch door open (no delivery guys do that), and my dogger was a little stiff but what shepherd isn't when stranger danger is doing god-knows-what outside the front door. The delivery guy managed to open that door and bring in a big package and was probably visible through the glass at the top of the inside door to my dog. No bark! No woof. No dramatic huff/sigh. Very proud of my guy and the year and a half of real work we put in.
My partner and I were just talking about how much better he's gotten. Last night he wouldn't get up off the rug when I was vacuuming, while a year or so ago he wouldn't come in my room for a month until we realized that he knew the vacuum was in a CLOSED CLOSET and was scared. He used to wake up all night any time I moved slightly in my sleep, and I'd be woken up to a stressed out dog hovering over my face freaking out until I had to relegate him to a crate in another room so both of us could sleep through the night. Now his Whistle records him sleeping 17 hours a day and I believe it. We live next to a park and the dreaded, scary children carry on screaming all the time with schools closed in it, the neighbor husky breeder and her infinite dogs wail all day, the neighbor with the 24/7 outside ignored poor pitbulls bark at us every single time we open the back door, and all is good.
While he is on a low dose of fluoxetine - which definitely helps a little bit with the general anxiety - I really think careful environment management and then counter-conditioning have been the keys to most of our successes. I am so proud! He is my first shepherd and has been a nervous guy since day one, and having a 110 lb human reactive dog has been a real journey but life is so great for us.
It's a rainy day and I was having expensive paper delivered, so I've been anxious waiting on a knock at our porch door (porch door, porch, then our interior/exterior door. I heard someone say something at the door, heard the porch door open (no delivery guys do that), and my dogger was a little stiff but what shepherd isn't when stranger danger is doing god-knows-what outside the front door. The delivery guy managed to open that door and bring in a big package and was probably visible through the glass at the top of the inside door to my dog. No bark! No woof. No dramatic huff/sigh. Very proud of my guy and the year and a half of real work we put in.
My partner and I were just talking about how much better he's gotten. Last night he wouldn't get up off the rug when I was vacuuming, while a year or so ago he wouldn't come in my room for a month until we realized that he knew the vacuum was in a CLOSED CLOSET and was scared. He used to wake up all night any time I moved slightly in my sleep, and I'd be woken up to a stressed out dog hovering over my face freaking out until I had to relegate him to a crate in another room so both of us could sleep through the night. Now his Whistle records him sleeping 17 hours a day and I believe it. We live next to a park and the dreaded, scary children carry on screaming all the time with schools closed in it, the neighbor husky breeder and her infinite dogs wail all day, the neighbor with the 24/7 outside ignored poor pitbulls bark at us every single time we open the back door, and all is good.
While he is on a low dose of fluoxetine - which definitely helps a little bit with the general anxiety - I really think careful environment management and then counter-conditioning have been the keys to most of our successes. I am so proud! He is my first shepherd and has been a nervous guy since day one, and having a 110 lb human reactive dog has been a real journey but life is so great for us.