The Little Bear Dog Blog

Quick post today just to counter the withdrawal symptoms.  Having just started my canine behaviour course I’ve got my nose stuck in a book at any given moment of the day which is leaving little time for indulging in my other favourite past-time – writing about dogs!

Today’s post is about Annie, our foster Lab.

Like most people we have a morning routine. This consists of my alarm going off at about 6.30. I snooze until around 7 or until my ‘three strikes and you’re up’ from Annie kicks in.  You see, from the first alarm, I get three snoozes before my canine alarm kicks in from downstairs. As I may have mentioned, having been brought up in a bungalow, stairs are a scary, alien concept to her at the moment so the whines are delivered, from the foot of the stairs – front paws as high as she’ll dare on the second step.

Once up (always a process of negotiation which involves trying to get an over-excited Cat off my chest) it’s quick pat for Little Bear (still snoozing in his bed next to our bed) and then downstairs for an enthusiastic ‘look how fast I can wag this thing’ welcome from Annie.  Cat gets fed, Annie gets a wee break and I get my caffeine fix while listening to the Today Programme on Radio Four (under 30s stop sniggering, it comes to us all in time).

Coffee in hand I usually give myself ten minutes sitting in the armchair in the kitchen just to adjust to the uncomfortable reality of being awake when I’d much rather be asleep.  Like most mornings, I’m rarely on my own for long as once in from her morning ablutions, Annie is normally to be found squished into the very small space that is my lap.

As we were having our morning cuddle today, her gazing into my face and closing her eyes dreamily as I stroked her cheeks, I was reminded of the terrified, shut down dog we had found slumped against a garden gate just eight weeks ago.  And the adoption note which said ‘Annie isn’t used to one to one attention.’   Here’s to an adorable little soul who’s certainly making up for lost time!

Little Bear is an anxious little chap.  We have a long list of things that worry him. Some are pretty normal for a small dog e.g. other dogs,  children (when running and screaming), fireworks etc.  But then there’s the other list – the random list which includes:

• clickers  (our attempt at clicker training failed at the first hurdle)
• books if you flick the pages, even accidentally
• Bees and Wasps (I’m pretty pleased about that one)
• Dynabands
• Mice (he was first out the door when The Cat brought in a live one last winter)
• Bed change day (he hates the duvet shake as it makes our shell light shade tinkle)
• Bubbles. Yes, the type you buy in little pots for children or get given at weddings…one glimpse of an evil, Schnauzer killing bubble and he heads for his bed.

Now all of the above we can deal with without too much trouble, but teaching him that children and other dogs aren’t scary is a top priority for obvious reasons.

I know he’s capable of overcoming his fears because there was a time he’d bark like a maniac at horses.  I was only reminded of this the other day as we stood just a few feet away from a field of about ten horses. Our routine of sit and treat when we see horses has become quite automatic to the point that I almost forgot how he used to react.

As I stood admiring a beautiful coloured mare and day dreaming about ‘one day’ LB stood quietly by my side watching them.  The nearest horse was on a slight incline but was only about 5 feet away from the fence. I took a baby step forward and he went right up to the fence, still calm and quiet and continued his observation of the ladies in the field. This of course earned him lots of praise and treats. Clever Bear!

He’s obviously on an over-achievement kick because today on our morning walk he decided to sit and watch me instead of barking at the children we saw in the street.  He did this not once, but FOUR times!  His anxiety is obvious, he gives a little moan which is a prelude to the nervous barking. So we’ve been working on interrupting that cycle, either by telling him to ‘leave’ before he gets to the moan stage or if he spots them before me, by asking him to sit and watch me or play paw touch.  Lots of praise and treats help take his mind off what worried him.

The key to this is distance. Like any of us, scary situations are improved or made worse by proximity – so a spider the other side of the room isn’t pleasant but I can cope (ug, get a glass, grit your teeth). A spider on my lap is another matter and will elicit a completely different reaction!

So far, so good. The approach is working really well and he’s now looking at me when he’s anxious instead of launching into his usual reaction. I hope it’s also helping to build his trust in me to keep him safe.

We’ll be out again tomorrow doing our version of the school run and maybe one day soon he’ll sit quietly as the littlies march by and I’ll remember that once upon a time he used to bark at them.

I have a question: Is it possible to change who we are?

In school I was labelled ‘sensitive’ by my teachers in tones that suggested it was some sort of crippling social impairment. Duly labelled,  I tried and of course failed, to prove that I wasn’t.  With hindsight and a few years under my belt I understand now that what my well-intentioned teachers were probably trying to say was that as a child I lacked confidence, but in their pussy footing around the issue they had taken one of my fundamental character traits and made it feel like a defect.

As an adult, I’ve learned to see my sensitivity as an asset – it fuels my  creativity, my compassion and my intuitive side and I could no more ‘stop being sensitive’ than I could fly to the moon. It’s who I am. It’s how I was born.

So, what has this got to do with dogs I hear you say?  I’m getting there – I promise!

My point is this. In the nature vs. nurture argument I believe that they both play a part in how we, and our canine friends turn out but I think nature plays a far more important role than maybe we give her credit for.

I don’t believe we’re born as blank canvasses to be moulded and manipulated like clay dolls at the hands of our parents.  As I’ve said before, I believe dogs, just like people, have souls and as such have consciousness before, during and after their lifetimes. The scientists among you may not agree of course, but even without the spiritual dimension of belief, the unborn child or puppy is the product of its genetic make up and subject to the hormonal influences of its mother before birth – another point to nature over nurture.

Where can I stuff this vol-au-vaunt?

About six months ago I was introduced to a friend of a friend at a party. A fellow dog owner she effused about her new puppy and told me three times within the first five minutes how the trainer who ran their puppy classes had singled her out for special praise and considered her to be an exemplar of a ‘natural dog handler’.  I have no idea what a natural dog handler is but congratulated her none-the-less and said she must be very proud.

When she eventually asked about my dog,  I mentioned that LB had anxiety issues that we were working on. She frowned and said flatly “Well you know it’s always the owners fault don’t you?” She stared at me as if expecting what? A confession? A plea for help?

I resisted the temptation to shove the mushroom vol-au-vaunt I was holding up her nose and decided to ignore the comment, a momentary silence that she filled with more stories of her dog handling prowess (of 12 weeks standing) and advice on how batting him with a rolled up news paper would ‘sort him out’.

Irritating though she was, her comment stung.  Was it all my fault? Had I ruined my puppy to the point of no repair? The question has lurked in the back of my mind, being batted like the ball in a pinball machine between my intellectual side (‘Poppycock’) and the small worried little voice that was just born to worry and fret (‘It is all my fault!’)

Redemption (almost)

So it was with a sense of something approaching euphoria this week that I read that some dogs are to be really simplistic, born ‘sensitive’.

In James O’Heare’s brilliant book ‘Canine Neuropsychology’ (don’t be put off by the title, it’s an excellent and fairly easy read) he describes research by Lindsay(2000) which describes how dogs can be genetically predisposed to a emotional reactivity and biological stress. Defined as ‘sympathetically dominant’, these dogs are apparently more prone to develop behaviour problems. Pages 5-6. [http://www.jamesoheare.com/]

Now I’m not for a minute trying to wriggle off the hook of less than perfect puppy parenting.  I made lots of mistakes along the way but it’s comforting to know that it wasn’t necessarily ‘all my fault’.  Looking back, the signs were there from day one but I was too inexperienced to see them for what they were.  Interestingly, I found out today that his litter mate is apparently almost exactly the same temperament wise, even though she has been brought up in a very different home environment.

Someone told me the other day that we get the dogs that we’re meant to – I certainly think that’s true. I picked a Schnauzer partly because they were described as ‘confident little dogs’, but here he is, a sensitive little chap who lacks confidence and worries easily.

So, can we change who we are?  Can I teach LB not to be sensitive?  Of course not. He is who he is and I love him for it. My job now is to help give him the confidence he needs, not to change his sensitive little soul, but to find ways of making life just that little bit easier.

I can’t believe it’s been so long since my last post! I won’t bother with excuses about the day job and trips home to see the family and the like, because although all valid, the real reason is that the dogs (yes, still plural) have been taking up most of my free time.

Annie’s reactiveness to other dogs we’ve discovered is pretty much initiated by Little Bear. He barks, she joins in.

At home it’s the same story – his hair-trigger for door bells, car doors slamming and people walking past the house or generally sounding like they’re enjoying themselves now has them both barking like idiots.

So, we’re having to walk them separately for now. Her season has just started too so she’s getting walks in the small hours when we can guarantee no other sane person will be pounding the streets with their pooch. Her pulling is still extreme (although improving) so Annie walking is being done by the BSM (big strong man) that is Other Half.

If this sounds stressful, it has been, but this isn’t going to be a whinge – I’m writing today because I’m proud of them and I want to record it.

I think it’s sometimes human nature to just record the bad times. Ask most women about their teenage journals and they are probably filled with the dramas and the heartaches with scant attention paid to the nice but mediocre or indeed even the thrilling times.

There’s probably a good reason for this, after all, who wants to interrupt a good party to write its review? When life is good we’re naturally absorbed in living it.

Well life has certainly been absorbing these past few weeks! I’m determined to reach a point where we can walk them together and so I’ve been redoubling efforts to help Little Bear cope with his anxiety. I’ve been hitting the books again and although my chosen methods haven’t changed, I’ve been making sure that I’m 100% consistent in their application. I wouldn’t say I’d been inconsistent in the past, but I have dropped my guard here and there; distracted by my phone or chatting to people we meet in the park when I should have been watching him and focussing on his body language and assessing the situation.

So now every single walk, (at least in my mind) has been a training walk. My goal is simple, to be able to walk past a dog or a group of children in the street without him barking at them. That’s it. It may sound very straightforward, if not down right simplistic, but for me it will mean that he’s confident and relaxed enough not to feel the need to react.

Pride

And here comes the pride bit! Yesterday we walked past a dog and HE DIDN’T BARK! Admittedly, it was an elderly dog but it was only a few feet away and although interested to the point that he really wanted to go and say hello, he allowed himself to be distracted and we moved on without incident.

This little breakthrough is hot on the heels of another achievement that came last week. While off lead in the park he spotted a dog in the distance and went into his usual routine – run ten feet from me and bark manically. But this time, after the first woof he came when called and sat for treats and (of course) enthusiastic praise.

And then today, another milestone – he started barking at a dog across the street but then allowed himself to be distracted with a round of the ‘paw touch’ game instead. A few muffled woofs escaped in between treat munching but on the whole he was much, much calmer than usual.

On top of that, he’s just looking happier. His tail is wagging a little more, he’s playing with even more enthusiasm than normal and his recall is just superb now. He comes galloping back to me, tongue lolling and makes such a fuss you’d swear we’d been apart for months instead of seconds. We’re still to master the art of always remembering the ball, but I’m not at all concerned about that.

The barking at home is also starting to get to a controllable point. Luckily, Annie has food on her mind 24/7 so one rattle of the treat jar and she comes running. Not to be out done, LB is always hot on her heels, usually getting a few final woofs in for good measure though. Annie, having learned super quick that food requires a sit has her bum on the ground before I can even pronounce the ‘t’ – LB stands next to her, not wanting to waste a sit, should for some reason it not be required this time. Beaks shut and bums parked they get their ‘treat’ which is just a biscuit from their daily allowance. I almost feel mean, but hey, it works, they’re happy, I’m happy.

It’s onward and upward in the Little Bear household and I’m reminded every day how much this little chap is teaching me.

And here he is – I’m now being hypnotised by a small dog with a large teddy bear in his mouth. The look and the tail say it all ‘PLAYTIME!’.

Annie has been in residence for four weeks today. She’s made great progress already. The Eliza Doolittle of the dog world, this little urchin has learned to sit, give a paw, wait politely for her food and even picks up her feet to have her harness put on.  Today she offered up both paws for a treat so we have a ‘Meerkat’ or beg in the making there too.  She’s taken to all of this with great enthusiasm and looks so terribly proud of herself every time she learns something new.

She and The Cat are ‘free-ranging’ too.  Annie, although curious is very gentle around her and  on the couple of occasions The Cat has hissed at her, has shown her preference for flight over fight each time.

Little Bear however, remains invisible to her.  Despite his best efforts to initiate play she’s just not interested. He’s like a bug, climbing all over her, chewing her neck and dancing in circles while he shoulder nudges her. Her reaction is to ignore him.  She walks around the house with LB, limpet like on her neck and then when she’s had enough, she lays down and ignores him in comfort.

Her Schnauzer blind spot also extends to doorways as she frequently barges him out of the way without a by-you-leave. Having fixed the jumping up swiftly, I’m not as worried about his back as I was, but we still have to remind her about her manners as she just doesn’t seem to see him.  The back incident happened on  the first day they were together – she jumped up to greet me over the baby gate and came down on top of him, nearly squashing the little fella flat.  He squealed and told her off and rightly so – she weighs three times what he does! I checked him and he was fine, just a little dented pride bless him.

His perseverance is admirable; he’s had that many cold shoulders I would have expected him to have given up by now, but it’s heartbreaking to watch the constant rejection.  It must be like having the kid in the park that the other kids won’t play with. I’ve tried to encourage them to play; I get the toy box out and although she’ll help herself to a toy and sometimes has a little bounce with it, she’s not even interested in playing with me or OH.  She had a polite round of fetch with us the first week, but hasn’t shown any interest since. Neither is she interested in tug a war or the like. Maybe this is normal for a rescue dog? I know my Mum once adopted a feral cat who had no concept of play until the day she died – we concluded that life on the streets hadn’t afforded her such luxuries. But apart from her time on the run, she’s was well looked after and lived with other dogs so she doesn’t really seem to fit the same mould.

So LB continues to be a little grumpy. We’re walking them separately for now because she’s as reactive to other dogs as he is and we don’t want them to spark off one another. This does mean that I’m able to give him my full attention and today we had a wonderfully long walk in the park together. We met his little Bichon-Poo friend and they scampered around like idiots playing chase and generally larking about like idiots. It was wonderful to see as LB looked so happy. Let’s hope that one day he and Annie can play the same way.

Little Bear is a little grumpy today.  This isn’t at all unusual, just like his mum, he gets the hump easily – especially when it’s raining as it is today. I often think that the traditional Schnauzer cut makes otherwise cheery dogs look a little miserable, but even without the usual hair-do LB is looking sulky.

Maybe it’s because Annie’s antics have elbowed him out of his own blog. This is utter rubbish of course, and not even I’m daft enough to believe this for a second (he never reads his own press you see) but it’s probably worth a post on how LB reacted to all of the drama around his new foster sister’s appearance (or should that be disappearance?)

Hmmm, there’s a plan afoot

LB knew that we were up to something. We brought things home in bags that smelled of the pet shop and then tucked them away, still full in cupboards; baby gates he’d last seen as a pup were hauled from the garage and put back up and new blankets and beds materialised in the lounge.  He kept a close eye on it all and inspected everything in minute detail.

He tested out the bedding for comfort and sniffed the gates as if trying to find some weak spots that may come in handy should the cat corner him suddenly.

The night before we were due to pick her up I had an awful pang of guilt. LB was snuggled up in his bed which is next to ours and The Cat was stretched out on the bed in the spot where my feet should have been had they not learned to routinely reorganise themselves around her large black and white frame. Has anyone else noticed how cats suddenly treble in size and weight the moment they fall asleep on your bed?!

Both are spoilt rotten and LB especially, although it pains me to admit it, can be something of a brat on times. How would Mamma’s little prince take to a strange dog in his house?

The answer is… amazingly well. Annie was obviously traumatized by her ordeal and spent three days solid refusing to come out of the dining room.  LB obviously knew she was in there – even without his heightened sense of smell the odour of  ‘dog been living rough for 44 hours’ was hard to miss.

Mamma, there’s a monster in the dining room

She also growled at him frequently from under the door and on a couple of occasions charged at him and barked furiously when she saw him amble past the patio doors.  His look said it all ‘Mamma, there’s a monster in the dining room.’

But he took it all in his stride. The off-limits room, the smell of a new dog he couldn’t even see (save for an angry flash from behind the blinds) and OH and I taking it in turns to be on Annie duty in the dining room in a bid to coax her out from under her table.

When at last he did lay eyes on her – a walk by at opposites sides of the road outside the house, he was an angel and for once didn’t even open his beak! Annie barked and lunged – but LB steadfastly ignored her.

On their first joint walk the next day he displayed the same impeccable manners. A mutual sniffing session back at the garden reassured LB that the monster had been banished and Annie I think swiftly wrote him off as not worth worrying about.

Three weeks later and LB seems relatively content with situation, save for one key complaint – Annie, despite his very best efforts, refuses to play with him.  Which is probably the real reason why the little fella is so grumpy.

To this day I have no idea how her collar broke . One minute I was guiding her from the car park to the field, the next she was panicking, writhing around at the end of her lead, eyes wide, tail tucked, scanning the strange surroundings like a cornered fugitive – heart thumping I forced myself to try to stay calm, I crouched down, avoided eye contact, spoke softly, moved slowly but it was futile – seconds later the lead, with collar, snapped open and still attached was hanging limp in my hand.

She headed first for the car park and the locked car. I cursed myself for not getting the keys from OH before he left – maybe if I could have opened the door she might have chosen to hide instead of run.  Before I could get near her she whipped past me and took off up the path beside the field running at full speed.

A man appeared at the end walking his dog – now frantic I screamed for him to try to stop her before she got to the end of the path and the road. It took him a few precious seconds to comprehend what was happening and in that time the moment was lost – she was past him and out onto the road.

By some miracle she avoided the cars on the roundabout. Yes, we’re technically a village but a busy one.  By the time I caught up seconds later she’d turned left – cars were stopped both sides of the road and people were scrambling out of them, trying admirably to catch her.  Seeing her lose control of her bowels in the middle of the road was horrendous – I’ve never seen a dog look so terrified in my life.  More people streamed out of the nearby running field, another popular haunt for dog walkers, but she turned, retraced her steps and continued her sprint down the main road.

I took off after her and cursed myself for letting a dodgy knee stop my running training. She was already out of sight and my desperation was escalating to all out panic.

As I ran a car pulled up level to me and a man shouted ‘Get in!’ Without a moment’s hesitation I did and found myself tucked next to a sleeping newborn baby in a car seat and saying hurried hellos to his wife in the front seat. Mick (my good Samaritan) dropped me at the copse at the end of the road and promised to drive around looking for her.

All I could think about was how terrified and how far from home she was. It was all my fault. I’d promised her safety and love and minutes later, here she was lost and alone. A wave of nausea hit me that would stay with me for the next 44 hours.

The kindness of strangers

I called the police and the dog warden, I made all of the reports necessary and we searched every lane, field and bridleway. At around 9pm I got a call to say she’d been spotted at a horse yard about two miles from where she went missing. We dashed over there only to find the field full of complete strangers. Mick, my good Samaritan with the car was tramping through the fields while his wife sat serenely in the car feeding their little one.  The man from the park (Andy) who hadn’t been able to stop her initial bolt was there having swapped his dog for a high-powered torch. There were others too – a lady called Claire who worked for the council and her colleague, another chap called Neil and Judith, a friend of a friend with Labs of her own. All of these people were complete strangers and yet here they were, in a field, in the dark looking for my dog – they searched with us until after midnight.

Other Half knocked on the doors of those houses backing onto the field in the hope that she had somehow gone from the field into someone’s garden. Despite the late hour people opened their doors, checked their gardens and offered their help – one lady, even though she was in her dressing gown offered to introduce us to her neighbour who volunteered with the charity Dogs Lost. Needless to say he promised to go back in the morning!

We returned the next morning with home-made flyers asking people to check their gardens and sheds and then went to see Carole, the local co-ordinator for Dogs Lost. Within minutes of knocking on her door we had our missing charge on the website and posters made. Within 2 hours the whole village was covered in them.

We searched all day. FD’s previous owners arrived with one of their other dogs in the hope that the familiar faces and scents would tempt her out of hiding. Everywhere we went people wanted to help. Three young boys who couldn’t have been more than nine stopped me to ask how they could help. Between them they decided that a Facebook group, regular postings on Twitter and an email to all of their local friends would be a good plan.  I was also quizzed on her favourite food and they earnestly suggested that treats might be a good idea. They were so sweet and genuine I could have cried, had there been any tears left by that point.

People called and left messages on my voice mail saying that they’d checked their gardens and told their friends to look out for her and wished us luck in finding her. My friends church group prayed for her – a fact that even though I’m not religious makes me well up just thinking about it.

When we collapsed into bed at around 2am on Saturday morning I was too numb to think. But I still had the overwhelming feeling that she was alive.  The news that came a few hours later would test my faith in that intuition.

Annie

What’s that saying about ‘the best laid plans’?

Thursday 5 August

Having spent the week preparing for the arrival of our foster dog (FD) I was feeling nervous but ready as OH and I sat down to dinner. “Right, run me through the plan one more time.” He’d said. It went something like this:

• Pick up Lab Rescue co-ordinator at 7pm.
• Drive half an hour to get to the pick up point and collect FD.
• Stop at the large field opposite the house on the way home to let her stretch her legs.
• OH to stay with FD while I nip home to pick up Little Bear and bring him back to the field so that they can meet on neutral ground and get acquainted.
• Sniff sniff, wag, wag and then all home for supper before settling down for the night.

I didn’t expect it all to go to plan (we’re dealing with dogs after all) but I felt as though I’d covered all of the angles.  I had contingency plans for goodness sake.  As I remember, our main concern was whether the baby gate we’d set up to section off a sleeping area for her in our en-suite would be high enough to stop her launching herself onto our bed in the middle of the night. That and my nagging irritation at not being able to find a car harness for her like the one LB has.  After a fruitless tour of pet shops and online stores I resolved to try to order her one from our local pet shop on the Friday. Little did I know then how crucial that decision would be…

The meeting

Having been described as a ‘big bouncy girl’ I was shocked to see the timid looking creature that almost tumbled out of the car at the collection point. Big yes, but she looked as if she’d rather melt into the pavement rather than bounce.  Her tail was so tucked I had no idea even how long it was.

It took some persuasion to get her into the back of our car.  OH suggested that I get in one side and encourage her in that way.  It worked brilliantly –  I called her name and she leapt in beside me but sort of crouched – neither sitting nor standing, just hovering next to me as if she already regretted her decision.

As we drove the forty miles home she slowly began to relax until she lay panting next to me.  I stroked her gently and just ten minutes from home she had her two front paws hooked over my thigh and her head resting gingerly on my knee.  I studied her. A chunky lab, she had a post puppy belly and more than a few spare tyres bless her. Her coat looked as though it had been a long time since she’d been brushed and as I raked my fingers through her red fox fur I found grit and flea bits held in place with a waxy residue. She looked up at me with the gentlest, but most anxious eyes I’ve ever seen. “You’re going to enjoy staying with us,” I said confidently “We’re going to take great care of you and you’ll soon have a lovely shiny coat again.”

Ten minutes later she was running terrified and collarless towards a busy road…