views on my ess regards drive -fear

[Damo152003]

Hi thats a good idea with the coat thing, we took him out today with another dog seemed better this was in a built up place so my sister is letting me have her springer for a while to build his confidence which we will do when we can book a week off. like i Said hes only like this at built up places and where there is lots of people but i may look at getting that coat.we always ignore his fearful behaviour.
Hes seen quite a few people today and been ok so maybe like you all say time and patience will pay off in some time we hope.
O we tried a adaptil collar with no results hes on zylkene at the moment so hopefully that will help.
He loves toys in the house but once outside isnt intrested just wants to hunt lol
Agen thanks for everyones input.

[jas_williams]

Jason. Was this dog properly introduced to shot? Taking an uninitiated dog of any breed to it's 1st shoot with multiple guns is a seriously bad idea, as is "party poppers" to see how the dog reacts. Acceptance of gunfire is not a genetic predisposition in working dogs.

Yes my dog was introduced properly to shot, via stages as I tried to articulate in my post, party popper at a distance, in game bag, getting closer etc, then starting pistol at a distance etc she is not gun shy just a very nervous dog. it was the whole environment that was new and intimidating for her, but it is very very difficult to recreate the beating line experience on a driven shoot without actually doing it. I could easily recreate the bad elements as far as my dog was concerned (the shouting, the stick banging and the gunshot) but the good things were then also missing the birds the hunting and the thrill of a flush. In the end the only way for me to help my dog (it may not be the right way for every dog and could easily end in disaster) was to get out to the shoot and actually do it... I could then praise the good and ignore the bad. And over a couple of days we got there. If she was upset we stopped, then we moved forward when she was happy. The things I struggled with was not the moving forward. It was the stopping holding the line with her that caused the most uncertainty when she was moving she would hunt and ignore the noise but when stopped the guns still bang sticks are still tapped flags cracked. At that point she would back away and try and sit in the nearest piece of undergrowth where she felt safe.

[Wendy M]

Right so you've got the desensitisation part (very slowly introducing him to things he is scared of) but the important thing with desensitisation is to always aim to work below his fear threshold, so if he's showing fear then it's too much and you need to retreat with him to a distance away from the fearful thing where he is comfortable.

Then when you are at that more comfortable distance, you begin the Counterconditioning part. This is where he begins to learn that the scary things are not scary, they are infact responsible for giving him the best things he has ever dreamt of! This is where amazing irrisistable food is taken out, or the ball comes out, or the ball is hidden and he hunts to find it etc, etc...

Next time you move a wee bit closer to the action, but far enough away that he does not react fearfullly and repeat the counterconditioning. and so on and so forth.

If he is refusing things like liver and hot sausage. chicken or beef, then the likely hood is that he is too stressed - dogs do not take food when they are over stimulated or under stress. This would be your cue to increase the distance between your dog and the fearful thing.

You are not mearly socialising this pup - you are aiming to rid it of a fear. Socialising a pup where it has not built up a fear would be dealt with by taking it places and letting it soak it all in, but to countercondition a fear we need to give the dog a good reason not to be fearful.

Wendy

[Damo152003]

Hi Wendy thanks for your useful info.I will put this into action straight awa y.

[Springfield Pointers]

Hi Jason. Reading your post it seems your dog was not correctly introduced to shot. I would suggest staying away from shot completely until your dog is happy around game then reintroduce it once you have a positive dog. In this case you woll need to make a very clear positive association, as what you have done is create a negative association to shot.

[jas_williams]

Sorry you seemed to have missed the time line that was over two years ago I have worked Lilly successfully for the last two seasons.


With no fear issues sorry if I did not make that clear..

[Springfield Pointers]

Sorry you seemed to have missed the time line that was over two years ago I have worked Lilly successfully for the last two seasons.


With no fear issues sorry if I did not make that clear..

thanks for that. Would be interested to hear about how you got the dog positive again (as i'm sure would others)

[alpha]

For the last 3 weeks i have been going the same place its called trentham gardens shops etc semi rural. Building up very slow getting him out the car and very slow each day building the distance up to the shops been going great but he went back to square one the other day as he got scared over some noise!
Il just keep doing it slow hopefully with any look we can sort this well he is young!
Thanks everyone for the post really helping.

If you are close to Trentham then you are quite close to me I have a pup of a similar age who isn't massively confident but taken out to the village and pub with some of my old hands he is ok.
If you want to pop over at the end of the season to do some socialising and confidence building let me know, also my friend runs puppy socialising classes which begin around April in Woore they would be ideal

[Damo152003]

That sounds great i will have to msg you my number if thats ok? Anything is worth ago to build his confidence up with people.