Fearful Dog Training Update: The Cheese Meter

Last Saturday, while out running errands with Lilly at my side (… well, with Lilly behind me in her crate …), we stopped at our veterinary hospital to do some counter-conditioning work after her total meltdown on our last visit. I’m going to try and make as many stops as we can over the coming weeks so that maybe her next veterinary appointment goes better.

We don’t have anything scheduled, but Lilly is due for her wellness exam, including routine blood work, in the spring.

I fed her tiny pieces of American cheese in a standard Relaxation Protocol mode, with me asking her to SIT (over and over again). Remember, the idea is that Lilly has enough emotional control that she can SIT, decide to SIT. The cheese rewards that decision, provides a calming trigger, and gives me a barometer for her fear state (anywhere between OK / coping and total shutdown):

• Lilly will NOT eat at all when she is very scared.
• Lilly becomes a real treat shark (hard mouth) when she is nervous.
• Lilly takes treats nicely when she is most comfortable.

The Cheese Meter

It took an entire slice of American cheese and about 5 minutes before Lilly got up to comfortable.

Our process included:

• Sitting just outside my car.
• Letting Lilly walk AWAY from the veterinary hospital.
• Giving her the OK to do some displacement sniffing in the landscaping area.
• Walking toward the hospital and sitting in the parking lot, but away from my car.
• Sitting outside my car again.
• Getting in the car and into her crate.
• Getting back out of the car to SIT.
• Getting in the car to leave.

Real-World Challenges

A few things added to the situation. A couple of dogs — a cattledog and something else — came out of the hospital. A small dog in a car at the gas station / convenience store across the street saw the dogs and began barking. This dog continued to bark during the rest of our stop. Another dog, sitting in a pickup truck at the light at the intersection, heard the dog at the gas station and began barking too.

I’m fairly certain that the xanax targets Lilly’s sound sensitivity in particular, so these challenges were not easy for her, but she coped … even without the xanax, which we’re now using only as needed, rather than twice a day, every day.

For our first stop back at the veterinary hospital, I thought the visit went well.

I loaded Lilly back up, and she practice getting out of the car and going into Relaxation Protocol mode again:

• At the yarn / knitting store
• At the grocery store
• At the library

Then, we did a quick loop of the Clear Creek Trail in Golden before coming back up the mountain.