Lots of dogs... ZERO outbursts!!!

Well Rhiya and I went to petco for a bit... But there weren't many dogs going in and out of the store. So, we headed back up to the Portneuf wellness complex again and parked in a different location. We saw about 10-12 dogs... All of which she noticed and seemed alert about, but NONE OF WHICH she made a peep over! She didn't huff with her breath, low growl in her throat, bark, or any other noise!  :-) I'm one proud mama!! We're gonna keep working from within our vehicle for the remainder of this week. Then we'll find somewhere to test her outside of the vehicle to get a feel for the distance needed to keep her under threshold when noticing a dog when we're outside of our car. I love my girl so much!!! 

T. R. I. double "Guh" Errr

TRIGGER WATCHING:

Rhiya and I went up to the new Portneuf Wellness Complex area. It's a big outdoor park with walking paths, a fishing pond, an amphitheater, picnic tables, and much more. I made sure I had a FULL treat bag before we left the house because I had a feeling we would see a good amount of dogs. I felt good about it though so we scoped it out, parked the car and watched for doggies.

We first saw a little pug. Rhiya's ears perked up the minute the pug came into view, and started rapidly feeding her treats and saying good girl. She didn't react at all, and the second the dog left her sight, I stopped the treats. (This is to hopefully help her associate the sight of other dogs with yummy treats, which are good things.)

Next we saw a golden retriever who walked RIGHT IN FRONT OF OUR CAR on the sidewalk. Eeeeeek! But I stayed calm and started the continuous flow of treats to her as she watched the pup pass... WITH ZERO REACTIVITY! Wow I was blown away, but I know Rhiya is a SMART girl so I was thrilled to see her progress. 

Next came a little Yorkie walking with her "Paw-rents". Rhiya noticed it right away again, and so the treats started flowing once again. Still no reaction other than the alert noticing of the dog. Again I was overjoyed to see her make some progress.

Next came a husky-shepherd cross, who seemed pretty enthusiastic to be out walking. Rhiya noticed the dog from afar, and I begin treating her and saying good girl. But as the dog got closer to our car, Rhiya was huffing with her breath and as the dog got right in front of our car she did a low throat growl. I gave her a "no no. Watch me!" command, in which she IMMEDIATELY looked at me and stopped making her noises. I said good girl and treated her lots. Then she continued to watch the husky-shepherd as he/she walked away, and Rhiya didn't make any more noises.

We saw several other small dogs and we repeated the process, having success each time with no reaction. I'm so proud of my girl! Small progress is better than no progress. I think our issues may arise when we try to transition from inside the car to outside the car. I think we may try that at the end of this week, or beginning of next week. It's all about consistency and baby steps along the way. 

Rhiya has been on the increased dosage of 60mg of fluoxetine for 18 days now. I notice her being able to relax more often at home now, but she is in NO WAY loopy/drowsy or "zonked" out on the meds... So that's good. The meds are not a fix all, and I would never want to just drug my dog to fix the problem. Our hopes are that the anti anxiety meds will help her reduce her nervousness enough so that she learn and benefit from the training along the way. I feel we are moving in the right direction! :-) thanks for following us on this journey. Check back for more updates! 

Back At It!

Well tonight Rhiya and I set out to find a another place to go "trigger watching". On our way we saw a minature pincher running loose in the road. She reacted before I could even do anything about it. :-/ but we kept going in hopes we could end on a good note.

We ended up at Bartz field where we parked the car across the street so dogs wouldn't walk right next to her side of the vehicle. We were there for 30 seconds when A black lab walked right by the passenger side of the car ... And Rhiya didn't bark or anything!!!! The second she noticed the dog, I treated her and kept treating her until the dog was out of view. I was so proud. 

Next we saw about 3-4 big dogs in the distance, and she noticed them and would look away. I tried to treat her while she was looking at them in hopes of her associating the treats with the dogs. She didn't bark at all. Then we saw two little dogs (maybe chihuahuas) and she seemed to get a bit more alert when she saw them... So I started feeding her The treats while she was looking at them, and talking softly to her saying "Good girl!"  A lot. She didn't bark or anything. We were there about 20 min and then I ran out of treats so we ended on a good note and headed for home!

I'm so proud of my girl! It's a long process but we'll get there. The goal is to at least get her to not feel so nervous and threatened about other dogs we may see. She doesn't ever have to be the dog that loves going to the dog park, but she does need to know how to act polite if we come a crosse a dog on our walks! Tomorrow we'll go looking for a 3rd spot to trigger watch. We need to find 3-4 spots and randomly rotate them and the time of day we visit them so that she doesn't associate the place with the treats, just the dogs that we see with the treats. Well that's all for tonight. Check back later for more updates now that things have started to settle down at our house again. 

BUSY BUSY BUSY

SOOOO SORRY for the lack of post over the last 2 weeks. In addition to Rhiya, Samantha, and Dallas, I've also been taking care of my parents 3 dogs since October 1st, while my parents are on vacation. The first week of October we went to Petco parking lot one additional time. It was kind of late and we only saw 2 little dogs. Rhiya didn't react and I treated her when she noticed the dogs. I see little improvements in lots of areas of her behavior, so I'm very hopeful that we're on the right track. In contrast though, while we were driving,. she saw a dog in a yard on the street we live on, and she completely freaked out in the car. So I'm not sure what that was about, but I guess i'll file it in the "things to analyze later" corner of my brain. This is a long process, and a complicated road we are traveling on, but I know if we keep at it with training and the help of the anti anxiety medications, Rhiya can only improve.

On October 8th, Rhiya went to the vet and had her yearly vaccines done along with follow up conversations on how the Fluoxetine was doing for her.  Dr Hemenway and I decided to try increasing the dose from 40 mg once a day to 60 mg once a day. She had been on the 40 mg dose for exactly one month on October 8th, and this is usually enough time for the medication at any specific dose to reach its full saturation levels in the dog's system, meaning its unlikely you'll see any more effects than what you're already seeing. Today makes 8 days that she has been on the 60 mg dose, and she seems about the same as when it was just the 40 mg dose. I think we might see some more slightly noticeable changes within the next week or two though. The one little concern we have is her weight. On September 8th she weighed 81 lbs... on October 8th she weighed 73 lbs. One of the side effects of Fluoxetine is decreased appetite. Rhiya is still eating, but sometimes she'll skip a meal, so we are going to just keep an eye on her weight and go from there.

The last 2 weeks have been busy with six dogs, 3 photo shoots (I dabble in photography on the side), Dallas's 2nd Birthday on October 10th, and watching my 2 year old nephew for my sister while my parents are on vacation. Because of this we haven't been as diligent with training, but the parents' dogs go home on Monday and we can re-focus. I feel guilty that I've not managed to get it all done every day... there should be no excuse, but I cant seem to find a way to add extra hours to my days/weeks. Rhiya has enjoyed having Preston, the boxer, at our house though. They run and play in the back yard like maniacs, including Dallas as well. Its been really fun to watch. Here's Dallas's and Rhiya's Birthday Photos:

Rhiya (left) 3rd birthday on 8/5/15, Dallas (right) 2nd birthday on 10/10/15

Doggy Group Photo, and Ben and Jaxsen.

The one correction I am going to make is to change up the location and time of day that we go out to look for triggers (sightings of other dogs) for Rhiya. I've read and re-read the CARE protocol and still it managed to get caught in my train of thought that we would just start out visiting the Petco parking lot routinely... but this wrong because then Rhiya might learn to associate just the place with positive outcomes (the treats) instead of associating the dogs themselves with positiveness (treats).  So we will fix that before it hinders her learning, and we will visit numerous places randomly so she will hopefully associate the dogs with positive rewards. Thanks for reading and following, and i'll do better at posts.