Group Therapy

We took Minden for a visit to animal training expert and behaviorist Janice Patton. We had a group session for 3 of the Missouri dogs in Austin that are suffering from extreme shyness and maybe a bit of depression. It was kind of a reunion for the dogs and Minden actually seemed interested in one male as if they had some sort of reunion. Minden doesn't typically find interest in sniffing other dogs.

The first step is for us to work on the "find" game. This entails one person (in a non-distracting environment) to first throw some high value treats on the ground. One treat in front, one behind and then gradually getting treats closer so she will take it out of your hand. So we'll work on this as the first big step to get Minden use to approaching one person, then another will try when she is comfortable with that. Hopefully as she learns to approach people (at least familiar ones) she will be less inclined to hide in the book shelf or under the desk at all times.

We've been trying to limit Minden's options for hiding in places and I've taken to pulling her out and making her walk to her kennel if she needs a quiet sanctuary. I've also been attaching her leash to my belt when walking around the house which keeps her close and does not give the option of hiding, which so far has been working well and we'll continue to do that.

So Janice had a nice analogy as if you were put in a foreign country and had to learn all new custums and a language and a high rate. You would likely be too overwhelmed to processes much of anything. So an under-socialized dog is pretty much the same. Their brain has no concept of human communication (verbal or nonverbal) so they revert back to their primitive hind brain (maybe the wolf brain) and avoid all situations. So the find game will be the first step in trying to create a new imprint in her forebrain that we aren't so bad and we aren't just trying to fatten her up to send her to market.

We've already greatly improved on leash and have been trail running 1-3 miles at a time and she does quite well as long as there are no distractions. But what can we say about future behaviour? It's hard to say exactly because when a dog is essentially in flight mode 90% of the time and utilizing the primitive brain; you can't really tell what the dogs true behavior is. However, Janice introduced us to her very well adjusted Pomeranian that was at a puppy mill for 1.5 years. When she got this dog is was terrified and to look at him you would never know. So there is hope, but it will take a lot of patience and training. And there are some glimmers of Minden's behaviour on the rare occasion now that she shows some playful behaviour with toy or a joyful wag of the tail in the morining. Hopefully we'll see more of that soon.