Weekly Training Update (July 10)

With medical dramas — human and canine alike — coming at me from all directions these days, I feel woefully behind on our training updates from our new behavior modification plan to continue counter-conditioning Lilly’s fears and retraining a few scenarios where she ramps up her nerves. Here is a recap that I hope does some justice to our efforts so far.

Behavior Consult
We met with our behaviorist (Jennie) June 20 to reassess our progress, set goals, and develop an updated training and behavior modification plan for Lilly.

Medication Increases
Monday, June 29, I began giving Lilly .75 mg of alprazolam (aka xanax) in the morning. She is still at .50 mg at night, along with 75 mg of clomipramine twice a day. Starting next week, I’ll increase the evening dose of alprazolam to .75 mg as well. Our goal is to completely eliminate panic attacks, especially relating to sound and full-on shutdown (which lately manifests as s-l-o-w movement).

Honestly, Lilly wavers between seeming a little dopey on the new dose and seeming really, really happy. It’s actually kind of funny to see her be THIS happy.

Resource Guarding Me
I’ve only had a few opportunities to walk away when Lilly growls to keep Ginko away from me, but she shuts right up when I leave the room. Ginko has already figured out “the plan” and follows me, so we do some serious and loud smooching and cuddling while we ignore Stinky Pete in the other room. I suspect just a few more repetitions might seal the deal.

Whining in the Hall
Jennie agreed with Dog-Geek and others about removing Ginko from the situation when Lilly whines to him to get my attention. As you may recall, the few times we tried that plan in the past, I ended up with Lilly whining in the hall and Ginko barking in my office, with a shut door between them.

So, the only solution is to smooch on Ginko to keep him quiet while we ignore Lilly. Because we’ve been sitting outside working a fair bit lately, this issue hasn’t come up more than a couple times, but Ginko likes the extra attention. I’m not sure Lilly has made the connection yet. Since she is SO sensitive to a withdrawal of my attention, I suspect she’ll pick it up pretty quickly.

Retraining Arrivals
One of our new prevent-the-stress-before-it-happens strategies is to practice going places, getting out of the car, and going into Relaxation Protocol mode, where I ask Lilly to SIT-STAY and feed her for doing so. The purpose is to help reset her fear level and fully condition the experience of getting out of the car and being relaxed no matter where we are — a parking lot, the side of the road, class, etc.

So far, I’ve only had time to do this one day, but we made several stops, including:

  • A pull out in the canyon on the top of a hill
  • The grange parking lot
  • The way-back of the Petco parking lot (where everyone was moving away from us)
  • The Home Depot parking lot

I’d never given much attention to these transition times that Jennie has figured out cause Lilly trouble, but when I did a bunch back to back, I saw just how nervous Lilly gets. She whines. She wiggles. She barks a little, and … man, oh, man … does she turn into a treat SHARK. My poor thumb is still sore.

She got a little better the more stops we made that day, but it still took 3-5 minutes of nearly constant treats before she seemed even a tiny bit relaxed. I’ll be interesting to see if she does better next time.

Reset Work at Class
Lilly and I paired the arrival work with additional SIT-STAY “resets” when we went to class last week. Again, I realized more subtle signs that Lilly needed a reset break. It was much easier to see when I used a consistent format, such as:

  • Take 2-3 steps.
  • SIT-STAY.
  • Feed several treats.
  • Release her.
  • Take a few more steps, repeat.

I went for a combination of mellow mommy and aren’t-we-having-fun voice. Sort of like an on/off switch game, but much less exciting. After about 5 stops to eat, Lilly figured out we weren’t going to just march up to our classmates at the other side of the park. She did seem to relax more, once she figured out the pattern.

She did OK in class that day, though still pretty slow moving. She showed interest in saying HEY to a classmate. Unfortunately, it’s another red-bandana dog we hadn’t seen in ages, so I had to call Lilly off when she made him nervous. She did try to sass a young cocker spaniel, but otherwise, she seemed pretty relaxed.

A Couple Extra Challenges

Since we were already at Home Depot, I needed to buy those flowers, and it was HOT, I took Lilly shopping with me. I figured it would be OK since the garden stuff it outside the store. Apparently, though, the store has reversed its ban on dogs that caused me to rant a while back.

Lilly let a couple of teenaged garden workers pet her. She handled being next to a noisy shopping cart really well, and she seemed glad when I told a very small girl who was dying to pet Lilly that it probably wasn’t a good idea since Lilly was already working so hard at being brave.

Then, we went to lunch on the patio of our favorite Lebanese restaurant. We mountain girls LOVE this hummus. It’s unlike any we’ve ever found anywhere.

There, too, I had to protect Lilly from a child. His mom tried to distract him from a tantrum by telling him he should go “pet that puppy” without asking if it was OK first. So, I had to be a B!^(# and say, “Please don’t. She’s terrified of children.”

The thing that sealed the deal was when the mom saw the dad and boy get out of the car to meet her, I kid you not … she said, “Oh, s#!^” Apparently, she had hoped the boy would sleep through lunch or something.

Lilly did fine with people walking in and out. Our waiter even brought Lilly some water.

She seemed OK with a couple of dogs who were tied up outside a coffee shop 3 stores down. She did, however, hop in my lap and have an anxiety kissing fit twice when the other dogs got tangled up and cried out/barked. They are over by the white umbrellas.

An Unexpected Setback

Perhaps it’s because the weather hasn’t really felt like summer until the last week or so, but we’re having trouble getting Lilly inside again. And, I’d just told Jennie at our consult that I thought that particular issue was SO MUCH better.

I’m bummed and a little frustrated, but we’ll see if we can work it out again. Since I’m being cautious with Ginko’s food intake (after last week’s scare), I cannot go with the usual ploy of peanut butter toys. So, my Get-Lilly-Inside training plan includes going out and playing a bunch of high energy fetch, then running toward and into the house. So far, she has followed me without throwing herself to the ground in the ultimate refusal, so I think it’s working.

Jennie and I have decided that for some reason Lilly has issues with summer and with nighttime. My best guess is that since Lilly was born in May, she likely hit the first early fear period right as the weather warmed up. Maybe something really scary (like her getting lost and being picked up by animal control) happened at night. Who knows, though? Poor sweetie.