Mikki isn’t comfortable with Donna and Donna can be a bit of a rascal at times in trying to get the golden retriever to play. Thankfully our mongrel knows better than to encroach too much into Mikki’s space. You can see the gap she leaves for Mikki in this picture.
Category: Behaviour Page 8 of 13
I’m just fake rushing at you — is that what she could be thinking?
This is part one of a series of posts documenting our trip to Changi Beach and meeting the dogs Chloe, Ally and Mikki. This is the first time we brought Donna out to socialise with a visitor of our blog!
Is she a good dog sitting by the roadside? Well actually, this is Donna sitting her ground during a walk at night and refusing to go home. She shows this kind of behaviour sometimes, and she will literally lie down and stick to the ground when she really, really doesn’t want to budge. That’s our Donna :P
Three weeks ago…
Last night…
Time, has not made a difference to her persistence in the mission :P
“Go to your bed” or crate/kennel cues are so useful in this case :P
It hadn’t occurred to me until now but it is dangerous for any animal to hang around the door frame, especially in our case since we live on high floors with crazy winds that sometimes slam doors really hard. In this case, we had the bedroom balcony door closed which shuts off the wind. Normally we do keep the door securely hooked to the wall, and not ajar.
Ears back, climbing, seeking attention, yawning.
Yes, I know. Thank you for telling me.
I know she is nervous, but sometimes I wonder if I coddle her too much. Mr P ignores her and she seems calmer with him. But when she sees me, she gets really pushy like above. And if you study her eyes, no dilation. She’s nervous, under some stress but still managing.
She wants something with that automatic sit.
Soon she figures we’re both taking it easy, even with the approaching rain and seems calmer. I talked to her a little and she gets excited. Oh-oh, I probably should never talk to her again. Ever!
The thunderstorm got really loud. And then she starts to circle her sleeping towel in the study determinedly. (- – !!!) I reactively screamed, “NO!” And she did. Thank GOD!
Urgently got her into the toilet. There she goes. For the record, because Mr P did once let her do it on the carpet because he thought she was circling to go to sleep. This is what it looks like.
She circled deliberately on the spot more than 10 times.
I probably should have taken a video but it seemed voyeuristic to me. Don’t ask me why I think an animated gif is any better. – –
She is toilet_trained, but when she gets over-excited, common sense/trained behaviour always flies out the window and any mat/rug-like texture becomes fair game for elimaination. That is why when we leave her alone in the house, she has no access to any towels, rugs, mats, only the pee pad in the toilet. And when we are at home and these things lie around, we need to really keep an eye on her to shepherd her to the right spot to do it during stormy weather conditions.
Since she seemed to calm down better when I am out of the room, I went to sleep the rest of the day away. I wasn’t feeling well anyway.
Later in the night as we sat in the living room, she went and slept in her crate. Good.
We had a power failure today. Did a little bit of crate training today with her, while the electrician presented himself as the distraction working on the power unit. I was able to close the crate door with her inside for minutes, yay!
P/S It was difficult to get any electrician on a the phone on a weekend it seems. We waited more than 2 hours before the original electrician we called came along after his praying session at his temple. During that time, we tried Town Council-listed numbers, companies that advertised themselves as 24hr emergency services, etc and they all never picked up the phone! D: Good idea to keep a reliable emergency contact for such services handy.
I will want to remember August as the month where it stormed at night. Nights in the last two weeks stand out, and not in a good way. Apparently the clouds thought to do the late shift and suddenly the wind and thunder visited in the dead of the night.
The dog that had gotten used to sleeping by herself in the living room, rotating between her many beds, was suddenly restive. One wakes in the middle of the night, sometimes to the thunder, sometimes to her whining and her jumping up and scratching at the bedroom door.
The first night it happened, I was patient. Sat with the poor trembling animal, got out the tuna treats. I eventually managed to get her to fall asleep inside her crate. By then it was nearly time for the sun to rise, no point going back to bed.
But the same cycle repeated night after night… 2am, 4am, 5am… no matter the time. No matter that it’s just the howling wind, no rain or thunder. Suddenly, Donna seemed to excite easily. One could hear her outside alternating between her running click up and down the corridor and scratching at the door as her agitation grew. And yet, when you open the door, she was excited, not fearful and she calmed down very fast if the human just sat there and ignored her.
The lack of sleep made me a perfect zombie in the day. I was never one that could go without sleep for long. It slowly became easier to just lie awake and wonder, should I just leave her be outside? Will she stop it once she learns that we will not respond to her?
But it is not easy to ignore your dog, who might not just be over-excited, who might be really fearful. It is also not easy to ignore a persistent dog. Within 3-4 such nights, she had perfected the persistence of trying until she could open the bedroom door by herself.
It’s going to rain. It’s going to rain.
Do you hear me? It’s going to rain. Yes, I hear you, my dear. You make it impossible for me to ignore the weather.
Thankfully, out of the last two weeks, there were only 2-3 days where she was truly fearful and went over threshold. I’ve realised it’s not a good idea to let her stay still and focus on her own fearful doggie thoughts. Getting her off the sofa and moving, seemed to help calm her down somewhat, not a lot though but at least to rid her of the trembles.
And when she settled down, it was in a tighter curl (right) versus the more relaxed lounging pose (left).
I’ve started to take her out for long walks before bedtime – 1hour, 1.5hours – in the hope that she will wear out and sleep better through the night.
Have to say one has got to salute the parents of newborns. They’ve got to get it worse than this!
Eileen has a good article on how does one define calmness, gets one thinking!
Considering Donna had a pretty dull time the later part of our visit to III Cafe, we decided to stop by the Bishan Dog Run which was on the way home.
We haven’t been inside for quite some time since Donna had gotten fearful of the place the last couple of times she was chased by dogs there. Subsequently, I did take her to the park so that we practice staying calm while walking past the fenced-in doggy area. She did not appear averse to entering that day, so we thought we’d try bringing her in and hanging around the area where there were less dogs… except that three dogs immediately lopped towards our area to check her out.
While Donna did not jump for joy, she was not as fearful as she was previously as well. What she did was to duck under the park bench when she got uncomfortable with the attention and then make exploratory forays from there. In, out, in, out until she was comfortable with her new friends.
I didn’t start taking any pictures until later when I was assured that she was having fun with the other dogs.
If this brown dog had some spots, he would look like Scooby-doo! :P Looking at this picture, I think I start to get why Ruby’s human thinks that Ruby’s black coat looks too dense in colour. Donna’s black coat does stand out but does not look as nice as the brown dog’s softer tones against the surroundings.
Checking out the white dog who preferred the fence to them. :P
Is that a border collie? I’m not good at identifying breeds. Still that’s a lot of hair!!
We limited her to 15 minutes of play time in the dog run so that we could leave on a very positive note for her. She was so dog-tired, she didn’t even blink an eyelid at the close up shot at home. :P
If you are interested, Dr Sophia Yin has a great poster on Dog Park Etiquette that can be downloaded for free as well as tips how to train a dog to prevent him from being part of any unhappy situation that may escalate in a dog park in the dog park. Southslope.org has a nice Dog Park Etiquette Poster with lots of useful tips for adults and for parents with children on how we can help make the dog park an enjoyable place for all humans and dogs and also what to do, if a fight breaks out.
Saturday morning, the day after the bad storm. It looked like it would be another unsettling day for Donna.
Isn’t it interesting how the clouds can dictate the gap left by the rain in the distance.
We left for a quick loo break downstairs a little too late. It had started pouring so I decided we should go circle around the covered carpark in the basement.
I found a spot where there is a break between the bushes along the perimeter of the carpark. Great spot actually since I could stand still within the shelter while the dog goes outside in the grass. :P I have seen people who let their dogs eliminate against pillars and on the carpark floor. I don’t appreciate that and Donna has learnt months back not to do that.
Two rounds around the carpark and it’s back home. The thunder continued. Coming back from the walk, she was still relaxed although slowly stiffening from the milder, gradual thunder. She nosed her way through the child gate into the kitchen with no hesitation at all.
Remember the post about disrupting the bad behaviour you want the dog to stop even before it starts? Well, out comes the can of tuna from the fridge. I got her to lie down on her tummy and proceeded to hand feed small bits of tuna to her regardless of whether it was thundering or not.
She got so fixated by the rhythm – lick the tuna on the finger, munch munch, lick the tuna on the finger, munch, munch that she didn’t stop – even when the thunder got louder. She was calm the whole time, tummy on the floor although her ears did remain pressed back and flicker when the thunder got a little louder at times. (I guess we were lucky the thunder wasn’t as bad as the day before. )
Monday came and the scenario was similar. We were downstairs waiting for the taxi to come send Mr P to the airport. It was raining and thundering. She decided to sit calmly on the bench, not trembling. But a particularly loud rumble got her on her feet while I was trying to take a picture of her sitting calmly on the bench.
Looking at this picture now, I think I’ve gotten a little too complacent and should have never taken my hand off her leash, especially since any sudden loud thunder could spook a dog. Even if at the point of leaving the leash, she was calm.
Back home, I tried the tuna trick. It worked for a bit but as the thunder got progressively louder, it stopped working at times. Here, she is looking away refusing to leave the kitchen. Somehow, she has associated it to being a safe place even though we don’t let her in it except for her mealtimes.
Donna and I, divided by the threshold to the kitchen.
We probably have to consistently repeat dispensing tuna every time it starts to rain and thunder for the counter conditioning to have any effect. Let me know if you think differently or have other advice that we should consider. Otherwise, not sure how long we need to do this until we can gradually wean her off. Hmmmm…. :/ That is, if there was anyone in the house to do it when it thunders!
P/s: the crate training is going well though :)
