"Does she bite?"

"Does she bite?"

Well, that's a loaded question, isn't it?

My immediate reaction is to say "No" but I guess that's a lie.

Trying to qualify it by saying "Yes, but it's owner-directed aggression and she's only ever bitten Jan and shuts down when approached by strangers and..." I've come to realize no one hears anything after "Yes".

I don't know why I feel so compelled to say no - I've admitted it here on the 'interwebs' for the whole world to see and know that yes, indeed, Bella has been known to bite. What is it in me that wants to assuage strangers fear of her? I do not know.

"Does she bite?"

I may not know why I want to say no but recently I've learned there is value saying "Yes."

A few weeks ago we had a great morning walk with Bella's best beau, Gus, his hu-folk and some friends. Getting ready to leave, I had Bella in the car when some passers-by came over to ooh and ahh over Gus. (This happens to us a lot when we're out with Gus.)

Finally, someone saw Bella hanging out of the car door with her head on my shoulder checking things out. Without a word, they approached us reaching out to pet her.

Instinctively, and perhaps rather rudely, I put up my arm to physically block their approach and said "She's afraid of people."

"Does she bite?"

That's when they asked "Does she bite?"

I said no because, in all honesty, Bella has never, ever shown any sign that she would bite a stranger. She is afraid of them and without fail (to this point at least) runs away or shuts down.

As soon as the word was out of my mouth, the woman re-initiated her approach, reaching her hand out to pet Bella again.

Are you kidding me? You've just been told the dog you are approaching is afraid of people, she's trapped in a car with no way to escape and just because my answer was "no, she doesn't bite", you're going to try and pet her again?

Of course they want to pet me.
I mean, you've seen me, right?

"Yes, she has."

So I changed my response and said "Actually, yes, she can." The woman backed away.

Now of course, she's eyeing me and Bella like 'what are we doing out in public, don't we know we're endangering people'?

Well no ma'am, we're not - you are.

You shouldn't be reaching your hands into cars with unfamiliar dogs in them anyway but for darn sure you shouldn't be doing so with a dog you've just been told is afraid of people. I'm sorry but what the woof?

And so it dawned on me.

People may deride me for taking a "dangerous dog" out in public but if I just say "yes" when people ask me if she bites, I can protect Bella from people who still want to pet her even after I explain that she doesn't like that. The only real question I have is could/would someone potentially 'report us' for saying she bites even if she never has?

Any thoughts, legal knowledge or experience with such a thing? Let me know in the comments.

Overcoming "Obstacles"

Agility obstacles, in this case.

We've learned a lot about Bella in the last year and a half. Probably more than we learned in the first 3 years she lived with us. One thing we've learned is that her reactivity to other dogs is wholly directed by her fear of them.

When they stay a safe distance away, and aren't aggressing toward her, she is perfectly capable of controlling her own reactions towards them. Of course, if they get too close, she's a firm believer in the maxim 'a good offense makes the best defense' and will not hesitate to make overtures to prove to them just how tough and fearsome she is.

Another thing we've learned is that Bella may not be as fearful as she is wary.

Bella's modus operandi is 'run first and ask questions later'.

Bella is afraid of everything. Everything new, that is.

Given enough time, patience and encouragement, Bella doesn't just figure things out, she revels in her accomplishments. This has been especially evident in her approach to agility obstacles.

The first big hurdle we had to tackle before she could do any agility was to get Bella over her fear of sticks and poles. Because really, a dog afraid of poles on an agility course is just a trembling mass seeing monsters at every turn.

So I played a game with her that involved the cardboard innards of a roll of wrapping paper and something akin to dragon slaying.

When I could walk into a room without her fleeing from the cardboard "stick", I moved to putting it on the ground and rewarding her for being in the same room with it. Eventually moving on to making an agility jump out of it. (The process of which you can see here.)

So when we got to agility class, Bella was not seeing monsters everywhere. She was seeing jumps and weave poles and ladders, oh my!

We expected to have to take this approach with every obstacle in the course which is why we were sooooooooooo surprised when within the a month of starting class, she went up and over the A-frame with nary a look back. (November 2011)

Who are you and what did you do with our Bella?

Well, lest we get too carried away by her initial bout of bravery, Bella reminded us that, yes, she is indeed a cautious, scared-y dog and would take her time over several of the remaining obstacles.

We started doing "off-leash sequences" with the dogs in class December 2011. This was really nerve-wracking because we had no idea what to expect from Bella. When it was her turn, the other dogs would be taken out of the room but still, Bella's nervous energy of being in a scary place combined with being off-leash sent her into fits of zoomies that were both adorable and completely embarrassing. (Uh, yeah, let me see if I can corral and catch my dog... Give us a moment, would you?)

We learned the best way to deal with Bella's zoomies was to just ignore her. Although she was so cute and so happy that even Carolyn our trainer had a hard time not smiling over them. But ignoring her worked and eventually Bella came looking to us for approval and we were able to direct her attention back to the task at hand.

We also learned the secret to off-leash work: better treats.

I've mentioned before that we settled on Red Barn Naturals food logs for our work on Bella's reactivity. But to get her to come back out of zoomies, Carolyn suggested we up the ante in the treat department and we knew just what to do.

Bella has always had a fondness for jerky. Of course, given the issues with cheap chicken jerky treats being made in China, we've been making our own for quite some time. And we decided for Bella's off-leash sequences, we could break those jerky treats up into pea-sized pieces and our chicken-addicted dog would follow us anywhere.

You know what? It worked!

As long as we calmly and quietly took Bella's leashes off while bribing, er, tempting her with extra-luscious chicken (or turkey) treats, our little zoomie dog zoomied no longer. Hallelujah!

Of course, she didn't always pay attention and she certainly didn't go over all the obstacles either but we were making progress.

The Big Three

The three scariest obstacles for Bella have always been the dog walk, the tunnel/chute and the teeter-totter.

The Dog Walk:

We started working on the dog walk in November 2011. It turned out to be one of the first obstacles that taught us how to teach Bella to trust us. Because it was so scary to her, we had to be very careful not to "lure" her on it.

We used the "touch" command to get her to focus on a very small feat she knew well in order to take one step forward at a time slowly, deliberately, consciously over the walk. And, lo and behold, only 5 months later, she conquered the dog walk for the very first time. (April 11, 2012) Now she goes over it every chance she gets. And even some chances she doesn't get.

The Chute:

In January 2012, we participated in Something Wagging This Way Comes' "January is Train Your Dog Month" hoping to teach Bella she could survive going through the tunnel and subsequently the chute. (You can watch her progress in a video we made for the event.)

Working with her at home and in class, it was still 3 more months before Bella actually made it all the way through the closed chute on April 27th, 2012. Now we can't get her out of it.

The Teeter-Totter:

Some day I hope to be writing the story of Bella conquering the teeter-totter but, while we are making progress, that obstacle still remains a blip on our horizon.

Our trainer, Carolyn remarked to us at one point that once Bella figures out she can do something, she just can't get enough of it. She's no longer afraid of it and pushes herself faster and higher and harder each time. And she never looks back.

As we thought about that, we realized it is something has always been true. From the very earliest days when we first brought Bella home and she conquered "The Stairs", she has been obviously and noticeably proud of her accomplishments - relishing in them and showing off to all who will watch.

This makes her very different from a lot of scared-y dogs and I wonder if we'd be more correct in calling her cautious than calling her fearful? But then she turns in to a quivering heap on the floor at the vet's office or crumbles at the sound of snow falling off the roof and I think "No. No, fearful's good. Fearful's accurate." Feisty and ferocious in her own way at times but maybe where Bella comes from, fearful was life-skill well-learned. It's that combination of traits that has made her both a joy to train and a challenge to teach.

But with every accomplishment, she learns to trust both her own abilities and our steadfastness.

She is growing in to a beautiful, strong, loving dog and watching her transformation has been one of the most rewarding experiences of my life.

The "Agility" part of Agility for Reactive Dogs class

Last week I started telling the story of Bella's "Agility for Reactive Dogs" class focusing on some very basic considerations for handling reactive dogs in a classroom setting. Today, I'm going to talk about the first steps of the agility part of the class.

The class breaks down into two sections: reactivity training and agility training. But the agility training part, at least for us, breaks down into 2 further areas of concentration: the reactive part and the scared-y dog part.

The "reactive" part:

In the very earliest days of the class, we handled the reactivity part of our training in one of two ways. We'd click and treat positive interactions with the other dogs (and by interactions, I'm just talking about a glance or vague interest in the other dog.) And we'd divert and distract when the interaction was not so positive. If Bella "reacted" to another dog, we could retreat from the scene (divert) or throw a handful of treats on the floor in front of her (distract).

Initially, each dog worked on an obstacle at one end of the room while the other dogs wait calmly, or not, on their "mats". It's one thing to be calm and composed when in the same room with another dog but staying that way when they're running and jumping and making noise is a much more difficult task to achieve.

Baby gates covered with sheets provide a means of shielding the dogs from one another entirely if tensions erupt. But the classroom is very large and the dogs generally remain far enough apart to keep them under threshold for most of the time.

If the dog on the mat begins to get too aroused, click/treat or divert/distract. The dog learning the obstacle is generally too involved in what they're doing to pay a whole lot of attention to the other dogs. That's what makes agility such a fabulous tool for teaching/training reactive dogs.

The "scared-y dog" angle:

It can be argued that most reactive dogs are scared-y dogs. They are "reacting" to something that frightens/bothers/distresses them. But there's another kind of scared-y dog like Bella whose MO (modus operandi) is run first, ask questions later. She's pretty much afraid of everything new and teaching her not to be afraid is an art and science unto itself.

While some of the other dogs worked on mastering their reactivity by learning new obstacles, we worked on Bella's reactivity while trying to get her to just be comfortable near an obstacle.

One of the easier obstacles for most dogs is the jump. Dogs generally like to jump, they instinctively know how to and it's something they've probably encountered in their world outside of class.

Except for Bella. Luckily, we had anticipated she might have some issues about sticks and poles and other agility stuff so we had begun working on the "jump" obstacle months before we signed up for the class. In fact, we started by simply placing a stick on the floor and asking her to step over it. Yeah. For realz.

Learning as we go.

One of the first things we learned about agility was the difference between "luring" and "shaping".

When you lure a dog to do something, you're tempting them to perform a behavior they may or may not want to do with the reward of something they really desire. It works with lots of things, especially things that aren't terrifically scary.

Alternatively, shaping a dog to do a particular behavior involves rewarding them whenever they do something close to what you want them to do. Where a lure instigates a specific behavior, shaping reinforces a behavior offered by the dog. As such, there's less pressure and the dog's focus is more on the behavior you want them to learn than on the reward.

With shaping, the dog is trying to figure out what you want them to do, they are engaged and thinking and that makes it especially useful when trying to work with a dog on really scary things.

Luring a dog on a particularly intimidating obstacle could have the dog so focused on a reward that they don't realize where they are. And if they suddenly 'notice' that they're on something really scary, it could frighten them to the point of sabotaging the reward entirely. They could associate the reward with the big scary. They could also associate YOU with the big scary. Not cool.

Shaping a dog on a really scary obstacle allows them to focus on the obstacle and learn how to approach it. If they choose not to approach it, there is no punishment but if they do choose to do so there is a reward and therefore, a positive association is made with the obstacle.

Luring and shaping both have their place in agility training at least for us. But we stick to shaping for the scariest of obstacles.

The anatomy of a jump

The video below probably shows a lot of the wrong ways to do things. Much of it was shot before we started class and learned the correct way so you'll see luring and a pretty stressed out dog in some parts. My aim with Bella is always to make a 'game' of things and that's what I was trying to do with the jump. It worked and it's not the worst mistake I could have made but I've learned better ways to do things since.

Here's a quick recap of what it took to teach Bella to "jump".




The clips used in the video span the date range of 3/2011 to 8/2012. That's a year and a half. Working with fearful dogs isn't glamorous or exciting and it doesn't happen overnight. But I think you'll agree, the pay-off is spectacular. I've never been more proud of what we have all accomplished.

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The music used in the video is "Trip the Light" byt Garry Schyman. I loved it, bought it and hope no one arrests me for it. If you like it, you can purchase it on Amazon or iTunes.

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You've come a long way, baby!

I've joked in the past that Bella is afraid of everything. Today we're going to get a little more specific about what that means. She's not afraid of much, really, just people, places and things. Oh, and sounds. But you know, other than that...

Over the years, as I've been talking to folks about fearful dogs though, I've discovered something a little different about Bella. Yes, Bella is fearful and she's reactive as a result of that fear, but Bella's not really a shy or timid dog. In fact, she's a very curious and sometimes even bold little critter. While her modus operandi is "run first and ask questions later", that's not necessarily a bad life skill for a street dog to have. And it's probably that response which was responsible for keeping her alive on the streets.

The trick for us has been to help her understand that she's not on the streets any more and she doesn't have to live in constant fear. So even though she's still working on some of her issues, she has really overcome a great many fears since she joined our little family. I thought maybe it was time to celebrate just how far she's come.

Things she was afraid of: My family (mostly) Gus and Molly (dogs, specific) The garage (mostly) The basement The attic The bathroom Enclosed entry ways The car (traveling in) Being stepped over The shower The hair dryer The coffee maker The toaster The microwave The television (general)  Her harness Her leash  Her head halter Her thundershirt (mostly) Stairs The spiral staircase Wrapping paper tubes  Sticks Anything that vaguely resembles a stick Yard & garden implements (all manner of): Gloves Brooms Rakes Hoses Barrels/buckets/bins Wheelbarrows Ladders Cars Trucks  Motorcycles "Industrial" smells (paints, oils, gas...) Sounds (specific): Fireworks (we think) Leaf-blower Law mower Chain saw (just the noise - she's not allowed outside when it is in use) Agility obstacles: Tunnel Chute  Jumps  Weave poles  Dog walk  A-frame  Table  Tire

Things she's still afraid of: People (general) Dogs (general) The vacuum cleaner Bugs that buzz (flies, bees, etc) Beeps/alarms Storms (wind, heavy rain, thunder) The snow-blower  Things that fall on the roof (acorns, stones, branches, snow...) Agility obstacles (in progress): Teeter-totter Tippy boards I am not now, nor have I ever been, afraid of my dragon. Mostly.

So you see, she's actually done very well for herself. Her few lingering fears we are working to help her overcome and some we're just managing for her.

There are a few I think she'll never get over and I can't blame her. She was attacked by an entire nest of yellow jackets so I suspect her fear of things that buzz will never quite go away. That was a lesson she needed to learn. And to be honest, with such an inquisitive nature, it's probably in her best interest to harbor a little fear, it might spare her some pain in life even now that she's in a much safer place.

What we really want to help her with is her general anxiety. I want her to someday be able to hear a noise while she's stretched out on the couch and not run for cover. I want her to finally understand that while she's in our house, she is safe. All the rest is gravy.

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So how about you? I know we've got lots of scared-y dogs out there but what is it your dogs are afraid of? Is it one specific item or event or is your dog in Bella's camp - afraid of everything new? Are you trying to overcome those fears or just managing them? Have you had any success? (Bragging is always encouraged.)

January Is Train Your Dog Month!

What? Yes, yes, I know - it's April. So I'm officially 4 months behind in my blogging efforts. (And I bet you thought you were running behind. ;)

Anyway, back in January (yes, of 2012, har har har), Pamela over at Something Wagging this Way Comes laid down the gauntlet with her "January is Train Your Dog Month Challenge". I chimed in that we would be participating, and we did - we just never did the follow up. We were supposed to post about this back in February.

Oops.

I suppose I could have declared failure and let it lie but it's just not in my nature. And since I can never pass up an opportunity to brag about Bella, I say "better late than never!"

Bella loves a challenge

One of the most fundamental aspects of Bella's life is training - to help her get over her fear, to build her confidence and to guide her in simply becoming a functioning member of society. It's constant because it's necessary. I've never really done this with other dogs in my life. Sure, most knew how to sit here or give a paw there. I even trained one of my earliest dogs, Alfie, to give me a hug. But it didn't go much beyond that.

Alfie and me

When we got Bella, however, we realized 2 things: 1) we were in a little over our heads with the extent of her fearfulness and 2) she has a remarkable amount of energy and inquisitiveness that, if not properly channeled, would end us all up in a heap of trouble.

As a result, Bella has been through Beginner and Intermediate Obedience, Ruffians 1 (how to work with reactive dogs) and Agility for Reactive Dogs - Beginner and now Intermediate. She loves agility but has always been afraid of the tunnel and now she's also facing the dreaded "chute".

One of the things she has been most afraid of around the yard since we first brought her home are the collapsible bags used to gather up leaves and other yard debris. And the tunnel and chute look an awful lot like them, albeit sideways versions.

In an effort to spare our agility classmates the 10-minute delay that was accompanying any attempt to get Bella through the tunnel/chute during class, I decided this would be what I'd work on with Bella for the Challenge.

Another part of the Challenge was to choose something that would both train Bella and further solidify my relationship with her. Already aware of the benefits of working with Bella to overcome her fear - she learns to trust herself and she learns to trust us - I knew the more of that we could bring to her life, the better.

Our (not especially exciting) training program:

1. First things first, we needed to get Bella to be in the same room with the scary thing (for now, just the tunnel without the fabric part of the chute extended). This consisted of nothing more than giving her a treat every time she went anywhere near the object. No clicking, just treats at this point.
2. Move on to getting Bella to approach the object on her own terms. Every time she did this, she was rewarded with both a click and a treat. We are beginning to shape a desired behavior here and you can see her start to figure it out in the video below.
3. I then began asking for more and more from her before she got her click (and subsequent treat). If at first she just had to look at the object to get a click, the next step was to wait until she touched it to offer the reward. When she was comfortable touching it, then she had to put her head inside to garner a click. Finally, she had to go all the way through the chute to win the rewards of clicks and treats (as well as some good old-fashioned play time).
4. Once she was consistently going through the tunnel, I began to let out the fabric of the chute a little bit at a time. Retreat back to step 1 and lather, rinse, repeat.

"Let's go to the video tape" *

One thing I did learn while editing hours and hours er, 45 minutes of video is why positive reinforcement trainers aren't getting television shows on Nat Geo: this training method is simply not "fun" to watch. It's slow, it's boring, it's tedious. I was falling asleep watching me train my own dog. But it works. And more importantly, it promotes a healthy bond between you and your dog.

And while she still won't go through the closed chute, Bella does romp right on through the long tunnel in agility class now and will go through the chute if we hold it open. Given time, and a little more practice, she'll make it the rest of the way, I just know it.

Having cut out the many minutes of Bella just lying on the floor looking at me trying to get her near the tunnel and the numerous "I'm just going to sniff over here for a while"s, I have whittled the evidence of our Train Your Dog Month participation down to a, hopefully somewhat entertaining, minute and a half.

T-storms Take 3: Seeking Sustainable Solutions

Our first full summer with Bella brought with it the realization that Bella has a (not entirely irrational) fear of thunderstorms. Initial attempts to address that fear in consultation with our vets were not a total bust but also didn't present a viable, long-term solution for us. At least we would be able to use the Daizepam (valium) while we continued to seek out more sustainable solutions. Solutions that didn't include turning our dog into a poster child for the zombie apocalypse.

For those who are worrying, thank you. We do believe we have found a solution that works for Bella (that I'm sure will be quite thoroughly tested next season). In the meantime, I wanted to write this series explaining the various options available and our experience with them in hopes that some folks going through the same thing might find it helpful. Perhaps a little bit, maybe?

This installment is going to focus on the non-prescription medications and natural remedies we tried. Next week I will finally get to the topic you've all been waiting for: the Thundershirt and the Storm Defender Cape as well as a few miscellaneous notes on desensitization, exercise, diet and music.

So our search for a gentler, kinder means of helping Bella cope returned the following results:

• Melatonin
  
  Melatonin is a hormone intimately connected to the regulation of sleeping/waking cycles in both humans and animals. I have to admit, this worked very well actually, the first time we used it and is something we will use going forward during less intense storms.
  

  Pros: Works very fast, made Bella drowsy and calm without turning her into the walking dead.
  
  Cons: Can't be used long-term, can have mild side effects like diarrhea, nausea and vomiting. Because Melatonin signals the brain that it's time to sleep, it's not really effective during the day. And the wrong dosage can actually increase anxiety and restlessness. Can cause dependency.

  
  
• Benadryl
  
  Primarily an anti-histamine, Benadryl can also act as a potent sedative. Another tool in our war chest, we continue to keep it on hand for use during somewhat more severe storms when the Melatonin wouldn't be quite enough. (Also handy for run-ins with bees!) It is important to note that only the pure form containing Diphenhydramine as the single active ingredient (sans any additional decongestant or cold/sinus ingredients) should be used.
  

  Pros: Fast acting, helped her sleep without the horrible "morning after" side effects.
  
  Cons: We didn't experience too many cons but this is a drug and as such, there are always potential risks. It can interact badly with other medications so talk to your vet before giving it to your dog if they are on ANY medication.

  
  
• Herbal/natural remedies including: Dr Foster and Smith's Ultra-calm (tabs and treats), Vita-Treat Pet Calm, Wagatha's Organic Dog Biscuits "Bedtime Biscuit", Bach flower essences (Rescue Remedy)
  
  
  
  These various "natural" remedies are made of ingredients such as valerian root, passion flower, chamomile, black cohosh, ginger, etc...
  
  The Ultra-Calm was rather effective and can be given daily - a definite plus but is "not for continuous use. Give for 7 -14 days at a time." Comes in a supposedly "yummy" dog treat formula but Bella wouldn't touch them. We got the pills down by sheer force of will (and peanut butter).
  
  None of the other products had much of an effect one way or the other so I have to give some cred to Dr F&S's claim that their unique inclusion of "milk protein hydrolysate" might have made a difference in the tablet's efficacy.
  
  
• Dog Appeasing Pheromones (D.A.P.): Collar, spray and diffuser
  
  D.A.P. is said to mimic the pheromones produced by a mother dog to calm and reassure her puppies. Perhaps Bella was separated from her mom too young for this to produce the intended affect but we found it, in all its forms, less than effective. At least it didn't provoke any negative effects so that's a plus.
  

So, did we miss anything (other than the Thundershirt ;)? Have you tried these or other products like them? Did any of it help or are you still hiding with your scared-y pup, too? Let me know in the comments and in the meantime, we'll meet you in the basement.

And just in case it's necessary, here's the disclaimer: I am not a vet. PLEASE talk to your vet before giving any medications or other drugs to your dog. Also, please note, I have a dog and have not spoken to a vet or researched the use of any of these products for other animals.

Thunderstorms: 2, Bella: 0

Last week I talked about how Bella's fear of storms and thunder was outside of my realm of expertise. It was panic, not just ordinary fear and it only subsided when I was able to make it appear to her that thunder had stopped. This little bit of trickery didn't really last long as the next thunderstorm that sent us scurrying to the basement was far more dramatic than the first and I couldn't quite drown out the noise.

First things first

Not really knowing what our options were at the time and being in the height of thunderstorm season here so limited in our time to explore them, our first recourse was our vet. They must have seen cases like this before, they must have ideas, experience, something that could help her.

I love our vets so please don't take this badly but they are pretty traditional types and that, along with not really having seen what Bella was going through and perhaps not understanding the depth of her fear, led them towards the traditional route of medicating her during the 'events'. Unfortunately, the first thing they prescribed for Bella's fear was Acepromazine. They gave us four pills. We have 3 left. Here's why:

I did some research at my go-to blog for all things scaredy-dog, and found this article about Acepromazine by Debbie Jacobs over at fearfuldogs.com. Reading this article now breaks my heart for what we put Bella through. Yes, once the medication kicked in, she seemed calm (downright vegetative, in fact) but her sensitivity to noise and storms afterwards ascended to new heights. Essentially, we took a dog that was afraid of something, did nothing to calm her fear and then paralyzed her ability to react to it. Nice. (I will get over my guilt someday...)

Round two

This is your dog on drugs...
(Not really, that wouldn't be nice.)

Armed with this information, we went back to the vet to discuss some of the recommendations in the article, primarily the use of Valium. On the bright side, our vets know us and know we're going to question them after we've had a chance to do our own research. We are, after all, ultimately the ones responsible for Bella's health and well-being. (This is why we do love our vets - they expect, and allow, us to challenge them.) We left that afternoon with an order for Diazepam.

And that did have the effect of helping Bella to rest if not actually sleep during the storms - if we got it into her in time. So while we were relatively pleased with the result, here's 'the rest of the story':

• The drug must be taken 1 hour prior to an event. That's pretty tough around here where storms can move in over a matter of minutes, not to mention half of them happen when you're asleep.
• It turned her into a zombie and she slept for hours afterwards.
• As a result of her zombie-fication, we obviously couldn't use it on a daily basis over the course of the storm season.

And so it goes...

So Rounds 1 and 2 went to the thunderstorms and our search for something that could help Bella when she needed it to, continued. I can recommend folks talk to their vets about Diazepam if they live in areas where thunderstorms are fairly predictable and/or the storm season short-lived. Our season is essentially April - September so it's a bit long to leave a dog on hard-core tranqs for the entire thing.

And since it appeared this was going to be a long-term challenge, we began looking into less drastic means of helping Bella cope. In the next installment, I'll discuss our attempts to use natural supplements and scents to stem the fear.

To be continued

I know from last week's comments that lots of my readers are dealing with thunder/storm phobias. Have any of you used either of these drugs and, if so, what was your experience? Are you still using them? Did they help/hurt? I'd really love for this to be a discussion because, while things are better in some ways, we've still not found the complete solution. Ever learning...

Bah humbug - a scared-y dog's view of the holidays

First, allow me to say, I LOVE the holidays. L.O.V.E. them. I love the traditions. I love the music. I love all the cookies and movies and lights. Hmmm, this is starting to sound like a Dr. Seuss thing so we'll just cut to the chase: I love Christmas.

Bella, on the other hand? Not so much.

Well, actually, she does love Christmas (See: video evidence here). What she doesn't love is all the company the holidays bring. And well-meaning animal lovers who want to pet her.

Four years

Bella is almost 4 years old and the only people who can reliably pet her are me, my husband Jan and my mom. My sister and my youngest nephew are about 50/50 and my oldest 2 nephews have to wait for the rare occasion when Bella is worn-down-to-the-bone exhausted for a chance to sit quietly next to her and get a snuggle in. (See: only existing photographic evidence of such below.)

This picture was almost 2 years in the making...

Bella doesn't want to make toys er, friends...

It's nothing against you, really. Even Bella's trainers, vets and behaviorist aren't immune. One trainer, that magical Sheila again, can usually coax Bella into a chin scratch but only when there's food involved. We are working with a few select friends and neighbors as well as her vets so someone will be able to handle her in case of emergency.

I wish for her sake and yours that it was different and I know some will not believe me so, on behalf of Bella and all the other shy and fearful dogs out there, and for those who feel they absolutely must pet the pretty dog's head, allow me to offer this advice:

Over head = bad.





Under chin = good.

• Don't try to pet the pretty dog's head! It will not happen. She will still, on occasion, duck away from me and Jan if we approach her from above. She's much more comfortable with an under the chin approach.
• Pay attention to what she's telling you. Bella is very (very, very, very, very, very) communicative. She will tell you how she's feeling with her body language. If she's ducking her head, leaning back, moving away or just averting her eyes, she's telling you she'd rather you not try to pet her. Don't.
• If she approaches you to sniff, let her. She's assessing your risk to her. Offer her the back of your hand to sniff, a loosely closed hand is best. This is not the time to try and pet her!
• If she thinks you're not hearing the messages she's sending you with her body language, she will actually try to speak to you. (Did I mention she's very (very, very, very, very, very) communicative?) It's okay to listen to her. She's scared and she's doing her level best to tell you that, so go ahead and let her have the treat. Drop it on the floor and end the game. She won that round. It's okay, really.
• Finally, if the barking doesn't work, Bella will leave the room. Please, for the love of all that is holy, let her leave. Bella is a dog. She's a fearful dog. If you remove her option of flight, well, there's only so many options left, right?

As her owners, Jan and I take our responsibility very (very, very, very, very, very) seriously. If we sense a situation getting out of control, we will leash her or remove her from the room. But we're trying to teach her that people = good things and we can't do that if every time company arrives, she gets thrown in another room.

Every person she meets in her life will teach her something. What do you want your lesson to be?

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To all who enter our home, we want everyone to be comfortable, including our dog. To help us achieve that for Bella permanently someday, we're asking for you to help us by following these few simple rules.

To our friends and neighbors who are working with us to help Bella overcome her fear of people, thank you! It takes guts to offer a piece of food to a 60 lb barking dog.

To my family who didn't sign up for this, has put up with the crazy dog and done everything right every time, including sometimes just treating her like a normal dog, I love you all so much.

To strangers on the street, yes, I know my dog sounds like Cujo. You shouldn't get so close to an unfamiliar dog.

And to all our friends in the blogosphere, we here at Bringing up Bella would like to wish you the happiest of holidays and all good fortune in the New Year.

Best,
Les