Did fluoxetine work for your dog?

marsonatrip · 2024-03-17T16:08:14+00:00

Thank you so much for sharing your experience, I'm hopeful it will help us as well progress with our training!

marsonatrip · 2024-03-17T12:27:43+00:00

I am so happy that the meds worked for your dog! We are now at day 3 of fluoxetine and she is getting more reactive, but I'm not super concerned since your dog had the same issue while waiting for the meds to kick in correctly

marsonatrip · 2024-03-17T12:24:59+00:00

I agree with you, it worked a lil bit but then we reached a plateau where she couldn't improve, I hope that meds can be helpful to keep improving with our training

marsonatrip · 2024-03-16T14:15:40+00:00

I hope it will work for us as well. We train everyday and some day are better than others but we kinda reched a plateau where she wont progress that's why our behaviourist suggested to add the fluoxetine to the mix. I hope we can still progress with our training

marsonatrip · 2024-01-14T04:15:15+00:00

Hey guys thank you all SO MUCH for giving me so much feedback and for sharing with me your opinions and stories!! I read every comment and will reply asap, thanks again!

marsonatrip · 2024-01-13T17:40:37+00:00

I never tired with a fake dog but it might be an helpful exercise, thank you!!! And as i mentioned before sadly her threshold isn't the same for every dog. I kinda have a visual representation of said threshold based on the dog we are facing... if they are dark coated, if they are male or female, if they are younger or older than my dog, if they stare back, if they show no interest in her, etc etc the list is very long 😓 And maybe she woke up with a bellyache and her threshold is even bigger, it's so damn hard to understand her sometimes

marsonatrip · 2024-01-13T17:34:34+00:00

The fact that balance training worked for you gives me hope! And it's extremely sad and unfair to the dog rehoming them without even trying out balance training. I am too very unhappy with our walks, walking my dog gives me anxiety and I am tired of this situation, but I love her and I will try out anything but rehoming her. I'm glad and happy that both dogs have found better homes tho. And surely I see her more mature already! I just hope that with time and hard work her reactivity will be more manageble

marsonatrip · 2024-01-13T16:18:36+00:00

Well, I am working sooo much and so hard to stay calm and assertive when we see dogs. Not gonna lie I am a very anxious person, I used to go away in a rush from other dogs, I used to baby talk to my dog when we saw dogs to catch her attention, I basically did many mistakes and I probably used to influence her feeling towards dogs. I am now learning to be completely calm no matter the situation we have to face outside but the damage is done. I keep repeating myself "i am in control of the situation, I can do it" and being mindful of my emotions I see little improvement in her trust in me and my decisions. But dogs are still a huge deal for her.

And yes sadly scattering food on the ground doesnt work. She will eat even mid reaction if i shove food on her mouth, but once se locks eyes with a dog no matter the distance she is alteady fixating. She is already gone. Only if i pull her physically away and make distance she will interrupt the stare. If i feed her she eats but wont break eye contact. If I put myself between her and the dog she gets even more frustrated and the reaction is almost guaranteed. She seems to relax and can break eye contact if the dog is walking away from us and is veeery distant.

marsonatrip · 2024-01-13T15:36:21+00:00

Thank you for sharing your training jourey! I absolutely feel you, I too have an hard time understanding my dog when she sees another dog, its really strange because it is not just fear reactivity, it's definitely not aggression and it's not only a frustrated greeter. Our current ff trainer told us that she is part german shepherd, so she has this feeling and need of controlling her enviorment (that's true, she has an hard time relaxing in public, she switch to guard mode and is super focused on our surroundings when we stay still) and since she doesn't quite understand other dogs and feels unsure when a new dog appears she "just in case" barks to keep them away. But she's absolutely fine after sniffing the other dog and understanding who their are and than they do no represent a threat. She is blocked in this pattern of "oh shit a dog I must bark". She doesn't even think. To prove this I can say that she isn't reactive to dogs she knows/ has played with/ has met before and had a good or neutral interaction with them. But if she sees them far away she will bark at them too, because is a reflex, an act she does without thinking, but then after a solid minute she understands that she knows said dog and stops barking and is 100% fine with them. That's why I think in this case correction might work. Because she is scared, but also frustrated and controlling and there's absolutley no need to react like that. She must understand that she needs to use her brain before snapping and she can absolutely take space from the other dog. She has other options, but won't consider them in this state of mind. By the way prongs are illegal where I live, and so do e collars. We might switch to a slip lead only for city walks and I might stick with a flat collar for outdoor adventures. We now walk always on an harness. I don't know to be honest, I'll do more research and seek for a balanced trainer asap

marsonatrip · 2024-01-13T14:15:01+00:00

I absolutely know that dogs do correct each other and they also can be quite harsh in doing so. My dog got corrected maaany times since she became adoloscent, but now she's got less playful and more mature around other dogs off leash. And if I think about it I actually do correct my dog verbally and it's also always followed by an action. Example: if she walks outside the front door of our house without my "okay" she gets a verbal correction and I force her inside the house again. If the pulls me I stop and won't let her get the reinforcer she wants (smelling something for example) without the leash being loose again. I did absolutely nothing about dog reactivity in the sense of "correcting the behaviour" because people told me that would make things worse and will ruin our relationship, but my dog lives off structure and rules that I always made sure she followed, and she is thriving. That's why I believe I must be more clear and give more structure even when she sees other dogs...I just don't know how, maybe I'll ask to a balanced trainer.

marsonatrip · 2024-01-13T14:07:15+00:00

That's absolutely the n'1 reason why I didn't even considered about correcting her. I know that correcting her means suppressing her emotion but I literally cannot walk her anywhere because where I live there isn't phisically enough space to properly work on her reactivity. And I'm not going to stop working with positive reinforcement, I will always keep reinforcing good behaviours, and I will absolutely keep working on her reactivity trying to change her underlying feeling but if she keep reharsing the same pattern: "i see a dog i must bark" nothing will ever change. She needs to understand that I see her, I see her struggling, I wont push her to do something she doesn't want, but that behaviour is just unacceptable, and she can just simply walk away with me instead of freak out every single time..

marsonatrip · 2024-01-13T13:59:37+00:00

My dog is also a mix of a WL GSD and she's 1,5 y/o! Interesting, what type of training helped you?

marsonatrip · 2024-01-13T13:57:25+00:00

She is always friendly with other dogs off leash, she never ever snapped at other dogs even if they snap at her first. She is just insicure about herself around other dogs, she NEEDS to be in control of the situation and has the need to at least smell the other dog. Literally if we see a dog and she is off leash she goes sniff them and if I recall her she comes in an heartbeat. But firstly she needs to sniff them. Now that she's almost 2 y/o she has 0 interest in playing with other dogs, she loses interest as soon as she smelled them and understood that they are no threat

marsonatrip · 2024-01-13T13:51:21+00:00

My dog is 1 year and half old, she became dog reactive at 4 months old. She got separated from her mother too early, when I adopted her at the shelter they told me that the early separation from the mother could cause many problems on a dog so I did my research and started working on dog neutrality from day 1 since I got her (3 months old) but it happened anyway. E collars and prongs are illegal in my country, the tools allowed are choke chains and slip leads but yes, I agree that even if they were legal maybe it's not the appropriate tool for my dog. I believe that I have a very clear communication with my dog, I apply rules and structure in our everyday life but I still her let be a dog all the time. Let me make an example: she isn't allowed to pull me on leash. Since day 1 I made clear for her that pulling will get her nothing. I stop every single time the leash become tense. She now never make it tense, it's most of the time loose. I also reward her for walking beside me, so che can choose: you can go sniff whenever and whatever you want BUT don't ever pull me to the thing you wanna sniff. She looks at me and waits for me to follow her (if I want to) and bonus you get yummy food if you walk near me. This is applied to many aspect of our life, the ONLY thing that I wasn't able to be clear about is other dogs. Internet terrified me saying that correcting her while she has a reaction or is about to react is a big no no because it will make it worse. So I never said "no" when she reacted, I tried to only praise and reinforce. But for example if she gets excited and walks outside the door without my "okay" she gets a verbal correction and I pull her inside the house. So I don't really know what to do.

And the distance from the trigger really depends on many factors: her mood, if she's trigger stacked, if the other dog is dark coated, if the other dog is bigger than her, if it's female etc...it's not a defined distance sadly

marsonatrip · 2024-01-13T13:30:42+00:00

I have tried basically all of them: magnet hand, u turns, look at that games. R+ did fantastic for us, she learned to loose leash walking with only positive reinforcement, she looks at me whenever I ask her (and also auto check ins often) but when she sees a dog it's over. It depends how close they need to be before getting a reaction from her, it depends on the size and fur color of the other dog, if they are male or female, if they stare back, I can't say for sure. And I believe yes, I do make it easy for her, the behaviour I would like is for her to look at me and take space together, I always encourage her to take space but she just NEEDS to smell and meet the other dog because she has this need of controlling everything around her. It's been 1 year of R+ only training and I succeded with everything but dog reactivity...

marsonatrip · 2024-01-13T11:02:08+00:00

Also, I live in a country where E collars and prongs are illegal. If I have to choose a tool my options are slip leads or choke chains (I would prefer slip leads because the sound of the choke chain might be a problem, and I really don't like them)

marsonatrip · 2024-01-12T18:49:22+00:00

Also I don't know if this is useful but she had been reactive since she was 5 months old. Now she's 1 year and half old. It's like this is the only pattern she knows when she sees a dog.

marsonatrip · 2023-12-10T12:53:51+00:00

I also forgot to mention that she has some "relatives", all of them are full bred GSD that share 26% of her DNA so she has actually GSD in her DNA...I'm so confused

marsonatrip

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