Why the Focus on Sit-Stay
Loyal reader and occasional classmate Claire asked in her comment Friday: “Just curious — what’s the idea underlying all of the sit-stay work?” I bet a lot of you are wondering that. …
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Weekly Training Update (Aug 15)
Oh, how I want to shout from the rooftops about a big breakthrough in dog training. But, this week we had a couple rough days with fading fears at home flaring up. Alas, the progress Lilly is making measures in infinitesimal degrees. It’s no longer merely snark/no snark, work/no work … It’s pupil size. It’s breathing pattens. It’s even the shape of her black-and-white, border collie head. …
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At the Sound of the Tone, the Time Will Be
Part of fixing Lilly’s nighttime anxiety behaviors at home required restructuring our evenings to prevent any conflict over coming inside and to encourage her to remain in the social areas of the house instead of hiding. Rather than confronting the issues head-on, we’re basically creating new routines aimed at helping her relax (with the help of the meds, of course). In the month or so since the consult, we can practically tell time based on Lilly’s location and body posture. …
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Man on the Street
Since our regular exercise walks are about the only outings we have, Lilly and I really look forward to them. Each day I adjust my schedule to avoid as much other traffic (people, dogs, horses, cars) as I can. Still, some days we cannot help but cross paths with someone or something. Most times, I just work her classical conditioning and feed our way past whatever it is, but last week, an older man who walks for his heart stopped to chat with us. …
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Weekly Training Update (Aug 8)
Last weekend, we bumped Lilly’s clomipramine up to 40 mg twice a day. Her alprazolam stayed the same at .5 twice a day. While I wait for the OK to move onto the next stage of the behavior plan, which includes noises, I’m doing what I can to spice up the routine and challenge Lilly in mild ways. I’m starting with visual things since they generally cause less fear than noises. …
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Split, Don’t Lump
As the parsing of stimuli continues, I find myself also splitting out individual behaviors from their many partners for sanity’s sake. Take the hubbub at the door before going outside.
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Weekly Training Update (Aug 1)
Our baseline sit-stay relaxation work continues, as does the process of extinction on attention seeking behaviors. We had to up the ante on bugging me because just turning away from her wasn’t working. So, now, I leave the room and close the door for at least 20 seconds. It might be working. On Monday, she only bugged me 7 times between 9 am and 5 pm. That’s actually good, compared to 20+ most days last week. Otherwise, here are a few things to note: …
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How I Define Hiding
I pretend I’m Dian Fossey as I track Lilly’s various fear behaviors so that we can gauge their severity, speculate about their cause, measure any changes. Was that a happy kiss or an anxious one? Is not actively wanting to come in a door refusal or does it only count when she throws a true shutdown behavior at me, playing the writhing dustmop or the boat anchor? And, what constitutes hiding? …
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We’ve Added Alprazolam (Xanax)
To help mitigate Lilly’s recent upswing in fears, especially at home, our working theory is that they are based more on her noise sensitivities than first thought. So, enter alprazolam (Xanax), a benzodiazepine. She’ll take .5 mg twice a day. On Friday, our vet called in 6 weeks worth of medicine. It cost me about $26 at our local Walgreens. Once again the whole thing was unusual enough that the pharmacist’s eyes were as big as saucers.
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Weekly Training Update (July 25)
I wish I had some exciting news to report, but we’re mostly mired in the nitty-gritty foundation work of our new behavior modification plan. Not very sexy stuff, I’m afraid. But, here are a few observations and struggles. …