Dec. 24th, 2011

Dog play

Dec. 24th, 2011 04:20 pm
deborahjross: (Oka)
For Oka's holiday present, we got him a play date with a girlfriend. No, really. Although he was well-socialized as a puppy, as an adult dog he's had fear-aggression issues with other dogs. This is worst with larger dogs. We've learned how to manage, after taking a "difficult dog" class that taught us how to recognize the signs of anxiety and how to offer/request other behaviors. Over the years since the class, we've gotten to the point of being able to walk with him in many dog-encounter situations as long as we maintain an appropriate distance. Small dogs and puppies are utterly safe for him, and he mostly ignores them.

The family in back of us (on the other side of the block) has a way cute Aussie bitch about a year old. She got loose once when I was walking Oka. After a moment of panic on my part, I realized that she was young enough to have "puppy license." She wanted so badly to play, and her calming signals were so good, I decided to see what would happen. I could almost see the switch in his brain go from "Ack! Another dog!" to "Let's play!" So I talked to her owner and proposed a play date.

Yesterday, Kiva was out in her yard when we walked by, all wriggling with pleasure at seeing Oka and clearly dying to romp with him. Alas, owners were not home (they leave her in the yard a lot, not such a good thing to do with such an active, intelligent breed). Today, Dave and I went by in the early afternoon. A relative was there and suggested we take her. She was a bit shy, but came to me with a little sweet talk and a few tasty treats (one of the tools we use to reward Oka for nice doggie-manners). We brought her back here and turned them both loose in the back yard, which has a thick carpet of fallen leaves and lots of things to run around -- a hedge maze, trees, the hot tub deck.

Two very happy doggies! She didn't show any signs of anxiety, but was clearly enjoying being able to run with another dog, and spin and flirt and all the things Aussies do so well. Although she was clearly much faster than he is (he's 11, although in great shape for his age), she went slowly enough for him to keep up. After a while, we realized that some of his behaviors, the way he was nudging her and occasionally barking, not loudly, though -- were herding behaviors. We'd long suspected that he simply didn't know how to behave or what to do with a dog buddy. But the herding is hard-wired, so maybe it came up as the default "not-fighting." This is actually progress for him.

We separated them for a bit, long enough for Oka to catch his breath, and did a little obedience work with her. She was very sweet and eager to please, and caught on right away. She'd be a dream to train. (So long as we were willing to be "on" with her 24/7 -- working breeds need jobs to do and we have no sheep!)

Happy everything, Oka! We'll do more of this next year.

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Deborah J. Ross

November 2020

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