Name: Marty
Breed: Dalmatian
Age: 5 years old
Training Goals: Marty had reactivity and anxiety issues. His owner couldn’t walk him or take him anywhere as he would constantly bark and pull towards people going by. If anyone entered his or his parents house, Marty would rush to them and would constantly bark. For some people, Marty would not stop barking at them in the home and had to be put away into another room. Sometimes he would jump up on people, which for being as large as he is was a concern. Marty was just unable to cope with any sort of change in his surroundings, and his response to any sort of excitement was growling, showing teeth and barking.
His owner’s goals were to have Marty be able to handle people coming into the house without him getting worked up, and get him to learn how to politely greet people coming into the home. He also wanted to help Marty be able to deal with any stressful things they would encounter in everyday life that he was not currently handling. Another goal was to be able to get Marty to walk more politely and be able to be more manageable when he would see someone out on walks. Being able to take Marty out to places like the hardware store or a new location was something his owner was wanting to do.
Length of Training: 9 months
Results: It took some time, but we were able to successfully break down the built up anxiety Marty was experiencing in order to help him learn the ability to cope with things going on around him. As he developed the ability to adapt and learn to deal with stress, we started working on him greeting people coming into the home. At first, Marty would be non-stop barking for almost 45 minutes at me entering his house. Now he is able to come and say hello politely to me when I enter the home and even sit to receive pets from me! His dad is much more comfortable and confident when taking Marty on walks, and Marty is much more responsive to his owner’s verbal commands when outside.
We finished our dog training lessons by taking Marty to Lowes and Home Depot, where we worked on helping Marty adapt to new environments and being around more people than he was accustomed two. We started in the parking lot, and as he got better at controlling his excitement we began walking around the store, creating positive experiences for Marty to reinforce all the work we had done.
Additional notes: Marty’s biggest issue was not being able to function or think when any small change would occur. It took us some time to create experiences of him working on adapting to new stimuli and stress where he could develop the ability to think when experiencing stress. When dealing with a dog who has reactivity or anxiety issues, my first goal is to find what the root of the issue is and begin to address it at the source. This lays the groundwork for any additional training to be retained by the dog and improve the quality of life for both the dog and the owner.
