Maudie will clearly take her chances with my unmuzzled mutt! She is able to distinguish between Xeno, who will gaze adoringly at her and run when she hisses at him - and Hudson, who will chase her down like I wish he would a tennis ball. This is her spot on the back cushion of the sofa. She is another abused rescue from the Humane Society and I got her way back in my junior year of college when my landlord banned dogs outright and only frowned upon cats. Just as with Xeno, she was scared of men to begin with, the result of having been thrown against a fireplace and used as target practice by her then owner's boyfriend. She was very shy and very attached to me. Over the years, she has emerged from her shell and now adores anyone and everyone that will stop to pet her. One down, one to go!After our appointment last week, it has been as though Xeno understood the gravity of what was said and is determined to disprove it. In large part, I attribute his giant step forward to my finally successfully grasping all I have been reading and immersing myself in. Now that I have some confidence in the way I approach all our issues, and I have had time to practice applying the principles, it's easier for me to be the much vaunted benevolent leader. It has had a clear and unmistakable impact on Xeno. There has been no more growling or barking at all the people we have met the last 7 days. No growling in the car at seeing someone on the sidewalk. No shutting down so that I can't get through to him. My much appreciated friends at work, Eric, Darrin, Dave and Ben have been feeding him treats each night that I bring him to help with desensitization.
One of our biggest triumphs has been his learning to look to me immediately for a treat when he sees a person or hears something scary. It has been a long process to get to this point but it is solid now and has made a tremendous difference. It means he is still in his "thinking" brain and not in his limbic brain. It means he is choosing to react to his fear in an intelligent way rather than responding with his usual knee jerk panic. It means his attention is now on me which distracts him from the trigger and his ability to take the treat means he isn't growling or barking if there's food in his mouth. I am very proud of him. He continues to experiment and improve albeit in stutter steps sometimes. Some of his experiments are not successful (if I have my way!) such as the running up to men and barking in their faces. Most of his experiments move him forward a step. He learns very quickly and my new challenge is to come up with a structured plan so I am constantly working his mind. If he has to perform an action, as opposed to just a stay for example, he is much more likely to remain in his mind if a trigger is present. I tried to come up with this plan on my own and was not terribly successful. The number of things we need to work on is overwhelming. Thus we will be checking in again with our first trainer, Amanda who was of great help to me when we were having problems with Hudson accepting that he is not in fact, the king of the dog world!
In the meantime, I just purchased a muzzle today on line as I was unable to find one in the pet store. All our public appearances right now involve the Halti which enables me to control and manage him quickly and adeptly. I have avoided Marymoor Off Leash Park due to the number of people. I even left work an hour early last week to get to the park at 0600 hrs thinking no one in their right mind would be there as it was pitch black and thank god my dog is white or he'd still be there. There was no one to begin with but sure enough, as we were leaving a number of people arrived. So I gave up on that. I located a great place where you can rent 4 acres of fully fenced field for an hour for $8. It's your own personal dog park and you can bring whatever dogs you want. We have a reservation for next Wednesday morning and my parents will bring Samson, Marcia will bring Keila and Mikey will bring Kenai. We will have a private doggie party! The fields are very close to my house so it's a perfect set up for us and I suspect we will be regular customers. Eliminating Marymoor was really hard for me because it's such a great outlet for Xeno and he LOVES looking out at a wide open expanse and knowing he can run forever. This will be a welcome and safer alternative.
I have continued to walk Xeno around the neighborhood, take him to local parks and trails on leash and in general have continued with life as we knew it. I am well aware that just because he is behaving wonderfully now, doesn't mean he won't take steps backward, doesn't mean he can't still bite someone and doesn't mean I can bury my head in the sand. For work, our daily walks and our outings in the car, he will wear the Halti. I have big concerns about his reaction to wearing a muzzle and I don't want it to become a crutch for him nor do I want to teach him learned helplessness in that he learns he can react with aggression and still be "safe". So we will take a discretionary approach unless I see behaviors which cause me to change the plan.
I have been trying to impart my lack of fear of the world and the people in it to Xeno, but as time goes on, he unintentionally imbued in me the same fear of the world he has. Now I look at all the potential things that could set him off and worry if he will bite. It took me several days of realizing that the flow is now going from him to me rather than the other direction. I have finally convinced myself the world is just as it was, it's up to me to influence HIM and now that I have this down, I am far less worried that something will surprise us. I structure and manage our every visit into the real world so that I can control things. I have back up plans because I know plan A will fail at some point. I have back up plans for my back up plans! But mostly I have some experience and knowledge now so I know exactly how far away we need to be from another leashed dog (FAR) before Xeno will become a whirling dervish on the end of the leash. I know exactly what noises will bother him and which won't. He is far more afraid of quiet subtle noises than big ones like fire trucks and aid cars going by. I know how far from people we need to be before he starts shutting down. So I am back to being in the real world and trying to pull him into it with me rather than both of us being afraid of the world!
Tomorrow we go to see our much loved vet. I will discuss with her our food questions, the possibility of medications and let her meet him and do a general exam. I have a hunch she will be telling us to slim him down :) I have him down to 1.5 cups of food a day due to the number of lamb lungs, chicken strips, liver treats, frozen turkey necks, frozen bones and bully sticks the spoiled king gets. No, he doesn't get them all in a day but he gets them all fairly frequently as he loves to chew and it's a great stress reliever for him. I am constantly trying to keep him occupied, engaged, busy doing something. Next up is cutting open a tennis ball and stuffing it will treats to see if I can get him to retrieve eventually. To my surprise, if I throw a bone in the back yard, he'll leap over the benches on my deck and race to go get the bone and bring it back. However, bones are hard to fit in Chuck Its and knowing my luck I'd bean some hapless dog in the head! So we will be doing it the old fashioned way.
All in all, we have made huge steps the last week and a half and I am very proud of my baby for his irrepressible curiosity and his ability to learn and grow. I am still convinced that some of his unwanted behaviors are him simply trying out how to be a dog and not a portent for his future self forever more. I see evidence every day of him acting like a "normal" dog and I have enormous faith that he can overcome his biggest issues.
Here he is right now:
He loves to be outside no matter what but far more so at night than during the day. He will curl up there and sleep happily, like a good LGD. He knows it's at night that the predators come out and that's when he begs to go out and keep watch. I dance and make offerings to the snow gods in the hopes we will have at least one more good snow before winter is over. His joy is unbridled and he was clearly made for snow! If not, we'll have to move to a state where it does snow all winter! In the meantime, Xeno is on guard, keeping us safe.
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