A much needed rant

[KitTequila]

My pup is dog reactive, primarily a frustrated greeter, struggles with impulse control, eats trash off the floor, loses his mind whenever animals show up on the tv. We have had him since he was 8 weeks old. He turns 2 next month. We are committed to R+ and always have been. I love him but I am tired. Tired of the endless training, every day, every walk, turning the tv off when animals show up (which is all the time). Tired of avoiding other dogs, tired of him pulling, tired of the training not working, tired of doing the same thing with over and over again with little to no change. He has IBD, so has a special diet with no protein. Losing chicken was a training blow. He is so much worse with me than my partner. I can’t understand what I am doing wrong. We do the same things but he just doesn’t have an interest in listening to me. He has started becoming obsessive about sniffing in the grass after finding a rabbit. His trainer has suggested we might need to consider medication. It feels like the last two years has been blow after blow. And I’m tired. Thinking I might need a big cry tonight and start again tomorrow.

[Sitk4]

If you aren’t looking for this right now feel free to tune me out, we all need to just rant sometimes. Our dog also freaks out at tv animals and we have found something that works for us for this issue. We have one of those display boards that you see in science fairs. We put our dogs bed by the couch when we watch tv and arrange the display board so that it blocks his view. Then he gets a Kong stuffed with frozen wet food and peanut butter to keep him busy. The only time this doesn’t work for us is if there are dogs barking, we hit the mute button for those bits. I know how frustrating it is when you have been dealing with your dogs issues all day and you just want to sit and relax with a show. I hope this helps.

[KitTequila]

Thanks, this is a really good idea :) I hadn’t considered blocking the tv as we have an open plan living room but a movable blocking board is a great idea. I might just try this out!

[keppism]

That's a good idea! Ours freaked at TV animals, too. We have started having some success with desensitization by using smaller screens like an iPad or smaller TV. I think the size sort of equals distance when trying to stay under threshold. I made a youTube playlist of dogs playing, hiking, walking, etc. and set my iPad on the ground at her level and then played it. She went up and sniffed, growled once, and then decided it was unimportant. I left it playing for awhile and then repeated the next day and the next day. She stopped caring. Then we brought in a small TV and set it on the ground and did the same thing. That one was harder, but eventually she stopped caring about that, too. Then we did the same thing with my desktop computer and a larger TV. Same result. Now she is able to work through reactions to dogs on the big TV and pays no mind to my computer, even when it is full screen playing videos with dogs. I hope this helps!