When we adopted Brutus back in July of this year, everything appeared ok. As he was decompressing, we noticed different behaviors were surfacing every week. First is was behavioral issues. Whenever, we approached him with the leash, he would urinate. Sometimes, he would roll on his back and urinate. It was becoming a serious issue. We were told to train him to build his confidence. It was much more complicated than that. Brutus needed behavior modification training and not basic obedience class. This was out of our area of expertise. Brutus tried a half a dozen of medicines for his anxiety. Some made his condition worse. Trazodone and Reconcile seemed to work the best. We still needed professional help with the training. I sent an SOS to the vets office and the vet behaviorists referred us to someone. By the time she came for her first house visit, the urination problem was starting to subside. My husband and I spent hours everyday doing relaxation training that I found in a social media group. When the trainer arrived, Brutus wasn't sure what to make of it. The visit lasted three hours and we gained knowledge on how to train Brutus the correct way for anxiety and stress. The trainer is a dog whisperer and just wonderful. There was a second visit with the trainer that lasted two hours. Again, we were giving homework for Brutus.
It's been five months since we adopted Brutus. He's doing so much better. There's still work to be done. I had mentioned these confidence building training sessions. Dr. Karen Overall put these daily tasks together for relaxation protocol. Every day the tasks gets harder. If you would like to read more please click here: www.karenoverall.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/Protocol-for-relaxation_Overall.pdf
Now, it looks intimidating. It's important to read everything before starting these exercises. If Brutus completed the day one sheet, we would continue with the next sheet the following day. If he didn't, we would stay with the day one sheet until he did. If he showed signs of frustration or being overwhelmed, we would stop for the day. These tasks tired Brutus out which was a good thing. We made it up to day nine than stopped because the trainer gave us other exercises to do with him. One sheet takes about 30 minutes to finish. I highly recommend these exercises even if your dog doesn't have behavioral issues or anxiety. Please drop me a comment and please let me know if you tried these tasks.
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