Wilson and his family have been on a long journey where for both humans and dog, things are improving and becoming much less stressful.
Our black lab is reactive to dogs, quite nervous and anxious in general. Being bitten as a pup made Wilson distrustful of other dogs, and lockdown, where everyone just disappeared, confused him!
When we first arrived at Dog Communication, he was overwhelmed, barking his head off, wary of even a pretend dog in the distance, and extremely barky at a real dog on the other side of the fence. After the first one-to-one session, we all decided he was probably not ready to start doing classes yet, due to his level of anxiety. We had a second one-to-one where he was a bit braver and then joined the weekly classes. As he arrived each week, he would start whimpering at the entrance, crying, and then out and out, crazy barking by the time we parked. My partner and I would get dragged through the car park and pulled around the field, he couldn’t listen well, and we would get back in the car stressed and exhausted!
But… We were determined, and then week by week, we would notice little changes that have grown and grown and grown. Today we arrived, and there was no noise from him at all, nicely walked to heel through the car park and calmly enjoyed the different stations while glancing at dogs but checking back in with us and listening brilliantly, and we returned to the car smiling and relaxed. It’s not an exaggeration to say it’s a complete transformation from the dog we brought to class a year ago.
He still has things to work on and struggles with certain things, but as the journey of having an anxious and reactive dog is very stressful, I wanted to share this very positive reflection. We have many more ways to deal with situations in our tool kit, understand our dog better and are happier and less stressed.
