Hi all. I have a 1 year old mini Schauzer and she is just great. She loves playing with other dogs but the problem is that she gets very scared with people and especially with children, as well as noisy environments where there are lots of people or traffic.

She spent most of the first year in a home with her brothers and sisters with access to a yard for exercise, but didnt get outside much and so was not exposed at an early age to all these kind of situations where she is now afraid.

The problem is that she does not seem to be making much progress. Even when walking past people sitting down at the bus stop she tends to move to the far side of the pavement near the road, and if they move she even tries to jump onto the road to avoid them. Her tail is also down between her legs.

Can someone recommend a good dog trainer or dog psychologist who may be able to help with this issue, as I dont like to see her suffering unecessarily. She doesnt need to be afraid like this all the time.

Many thanks in advance for your advise.

Hello,

I can suggest a very good trainer/animal psychologist. She is also the animal trainer at the Zuirch Zoo and lives in Volketswil. Comes to your home to meet you and the dog in its environment and then make an appointment that is good four you and her.

This is her website and her name is Heidi.

http://www.tierschule.ch/3_referenzen.html

She is not so cheap but nothing comes cheap and she has a lot of experience. Charges about 100chf an hour.

She came to my place so we try to train my baby not to want to kiss everyone who comes to visit me and to walk in a 'civilised' way on the chain. She gave me quite some good tips and now he is better although he still wants to kiss everyone

Good luck.

You are on the right path by seeking help.

My Hooligan came from a similar background, and had similar fear-based behavior issues when we first met her.

I adopted her at a year old; previously she had lived only with her mother, siblings and mother's next litter. She had never left the breeder's farm, had no contact with other dogs, and had no training whatsoever. She was a 'left over' who could not be sold because she did not meet breed standard, and thus was deemed not worth putting in the time to train or socialize her.

Added to that, her first encounter with an unknown dog was - murphy's law - a dog who out of the blue attacked and badly injured her. (All the while the owner was calling 'He just wants to play!' ) She recovered from her physical injuries, but the psychological ones were another matter. One concern with un- or under-socialized dogs is that they may lack normal coping skills, turning what for a well-adjusted dog might be just an unpleasant occurance into a trauma with lasting effect. This is why I would advise getting help from a pro.

In our case a poorly socialized dog, involved in a traumatic encounter at the hands of the first unknown dog she met, now saw every unknown dog as a threat. Instead of 'just' a fearful pup, I now had a highly reactive dog on my hands; at the sight of a dog in the distance she would tense, escalating to barking and lunging anytime an unknown dog came too close for comfort.

Our road to rehabilitation has been a long and winding one; I've made mistakes along the way, and there are still things that Hooligan cannot handle - but four years on she has made remarkable progress. We have been working with a fantastic trainer, Jeanette Schuler-Ponte:

http://www.kurse-fuer-hunde.ch/

Jeanette takes a very common sense approach - her help and support have been invaluable. We have done both private sessions and course work, and we continue to do classes and structured activities with the training school. Jeanette is in Wollerau, SZ - if this is too far away from you, perhaps look for another Certodog member, who would have a similar training philosophy and methods:

http://www.certodog.ch/

To find a trainer near you click on 'Hundeschule in Ihre Nähe'.

The important thing will be to find someone you and your dog feel comfortable working with. In addition to finding someone qualified, whose ethos matches yours, the chemistry between trainer, dog, and owner is critical. When you find a trainer, meet with him/her without your dog first; watch how he/she works with other dogs to determine if the methodology and style of training is one that fits your dog's needs.

While you are looking for a trainer, a few resources that might be helpful:

'The Cautious Canine' by Patricia McConnell
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Cautious-Can...0995164&sr=1-1

'Stress In Dogs' By Clarissa von Reinhardt and Martina Scholz
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Stress-Dogs-...ref=pd_sim_b_7

These are quick reads, and have been a big help to me.

There are no quick fixes to fear-based behavior problems. In the short term you will want to put management strategies in place to keep your dog and others safe, but the long term goal is rehabiliation, helping your dog to cope with the things that frighten her. This is where a good trainer will help you.

With time, patience, consistency, and positive reinforcement your dog can overcome her fears. Take heart - it does get better.

Wishing you and your dog all the best.

.

Can't add much to what has been said except I think with a younger the dog the great chance you have with success.

I personally wouldnt go for a trainer yet. A year old dog is still very young and you can do the bulk of the work yourself to socialise her more.

My dog isnt as socialised with kids as I like. I dont have kids and I find it hard to ask someone else to trust their kid with my dog who tends to first ignore, then bark at them if the child gets too excited and makes sudden movements which children are rather prone to. Chicken and egg situation.

With regards to noisy environments, my dog used to be scared of big trucks and oncoming vehicles when he was a pup as well. He was from the countryside (Wohlen in Aargau) and wasnt as socialised with the noise and big trucks that came with the city.

What I did was to bring him for a long structured walk (no off-leash, heel beside you) to drain his energy and then stand by a busy road for about 15 minutes whilst the vehicles went past. He was too tired to be anxious or nervous about the noise post walk and I also gave him treats whilst standing by the road to reinforce the situation even more positively.

After a couple of weeks work, he soon learnt to associate noise = nothing to be scared about.

You can try bringing the dog to the bus stop, sit there, and not reassure him. Make him sit, or platz, chat with people at the bus stop, ignore him if he decides to take the flight option. Get people to give him treats and he will hopefully learn that people at bus stops = nice.

Patience is the key. Good luck.

Better to be timid than over playful like our mutt Murphy!!!

I can't add much to the excellent advice you've received, but just to suggest some additional reading and perhaps another source for trainers. Our dog, Lily, has some reactivity and fear aggression issues. We adopted her at 13 months from a shelter in the US, given up because her owner "had too many animals." Unfortunately, we probably made things worse before they got better. I like Patricia McConnell's work a lot, and I also like Turid Rugaas' approach. Our trainer was trained by Rugaas,and is a member of this organization (I think it's Pet Dog Trainers in Europe or something).

I'd also recommend Rugaas' book on calming signals.(I think it's called On Talking Terms with Dogs).

There are tons of books on these subjects - I've collected a whole shelf of them, but there's no substitute for working with someone who knows what to do.

You can find the trainers in Switzerland here. There aren't a lot of them, but they are mostly in Basel-Zurich I think. I imagine their methods are probably similar to the trainers suggested by meloncollie.

http://www.pdte.org/index.php?option...d=34&Itemid=43

Good luck with your pup!

An excellent book, one that every dog owner should read.

Wow thanks to everyone who replied - there is tons of information here. I don't really agree with the reply about it being better to have a fearful dog than an aggressive one though, as neither is acceptable to just leave it as is. Living constantly in fear is no way to live a full and happy life for a dog or for a human.

My girlfriend is the actual dog owner so I have passed on all the info to her. I love reading up on psychology though, so the reading suggestions are particularly appealing to me - thanks for those.

I did find one trick so far by the way, which was when our little dog becomes very scared then I start clapping my hands and that seems to distract her and suddenly her little tail comes back up again then. The worst problem is that she sometimes jumps sideways towards the road if she spots someone sitting on a bench or something, so I am always having to make sure we are not near to the road edge.

Lots of fearful dogs turn into fear aggressive dogs....so one is surely not better than the other. For us, we've found that distracting and maybe "reframing" works best -- turn the fear into something to look forward to because you give a treat or praise. Clicker training works like that too. Good luck with the pup.

And, I meant to add that you turn the fear into something positive before your pup reacts with aggression....timing is so important and it's the hardest thing to learn, especially with a fear reactive dog. That and consistency.

This exactly!

In all training, but especially in rehab work, timing is everything - which is why I found working with a trainer to be so very helpful.

With my reactive dog, I was constantly watching her posture and body language, scanning the horizon for trigger situations, trying to decipher the body language of any approaching dog, making sure I had my distractor to hand, watching my body language so that I wouldn't communicate my stress to her... doing so much at the same time that it was easy to miss a cue. Having a second set of eyes helped me improve my timing immensely.

Clicker training, as Edot mentions, can be very useful when dealing with fear (and all emotion) based behaviors. The click, which is a reward marker, replaces a vocal marker (praise) with a consistent sound - there is no danger of stress creeping into your voice, sending out mixed messages to your dog.

With my girl, I worked on changing the association - I carry an ultra high value treat that is only used in trigger situations, never any other training exercise. (Dried ostrich sticks for us.) I watch my girl carefully - at the first sign of tension, I distract her with one of these treats. Eventually, the sight of an approaching dog came to mean not "Danger!' but 'Yippee - I get an ostrich stick!' - putting her in the right frame of mind to be able to work on her behavior.

(That's the short-hand version - it has taken us years to get here. )

Things to keep in mind:

Always work sub-threshold - once a dog is caught up in the fear (over the threshold) he cannot focus on the owner - adrenaline has taken over, learning is simply not possible. Distraction has to happen before you reach that stage. (Again here is where a trainer can help you to identify your dog's threshold(s).)

Go slowly, never push a dog beyond his comfort zone (flooding).

A dog learns from every experience, good or bad. Especially at the beginning it is best to avoid a trigger situation - because every time your dog reacts he is practicing and learning. In our case, if I missed my dog's stress cues and we got too close to an approaching dog, giving her a chance to bark/lunge, she learned that doing so made the scary thing go away - reinforcing the behavior I wanted to change. Far better to avoid the situation altogether, arcing wide around to keep her in her safety zone, where I could distract her. With time and practice, the avoidance distance can be reduced.

But I hesitate to give anything other than general advice, as I don't know your dog and it is very important to observe and understand the individual, and develop a training plan that is suited to the individual and to specific situations. Fear, reactivity and fear aggression are easily misunderstood - which is why working with a trainer is so helpful.

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If you are into dog psychology, behavior, and training books, some more in-depth recommendations:

'How To Behave So Your Dog Behaves' by Sophia Yin - a good all-around guide.

'Canine Body Language, A Photographic Guide: Interpreting The Native Language Of The Domestic Dog', by Brenda Aloff. Following on Turid Rugaas' excellent 'Calming Signals' mentioned in previous posts, this goes further into explaining body language with hundreds of photos - very helpful in learning how to read your dog.

'Bringing Light To Shadow', by Pam Dennison - a diary of the author's work to rehabilitate her fear aggressive dog. Applicable to any fear-based behavior, not just aggression.

'Don't Shoot The Dog!' and "Reaching The Animal Mind' both by Karen Pryor - good introductions to clicker training.

'Click to Calm: Healing The Aggressive Dog', by Emma Parsons. If you are interested in clicker training, again, this is applicable to any fear-based behavior.

'The Culture Clash', and 'Oh Behave!: Dogs from Pavlov to Premack to Pinker' both by Jean Donaldson - not training books per se, but rather discussions of the human/canine relationship and canine behavior.

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Have you had any luck finding a trainer? If not, perhaps if you let us know what area you are in, and how far you can travel, we can find more recommendations.

All the best to you and your four footed friend.

Have been looking for a high value treat... may try the ostrich sticks. Cheese works but it's messy.

My daughter (who is a vet) has just finished a 6 months training course with Sheila Harper for dogs with problems, shes looking forward to putting it all into practice so PM if your dogs got problems.(we are in Zurich)