Thursday, November 27, 2008

Separation anxiety

I was watching "It's me or the dog" yesterday and they had an episode with this Patterdale terrier on it. He lived with this family and the 18 year old daughter and the dog were inseparable. He slept with her, snacked with her, went for walks with her and he was anxious all day when she was away at school. He was aggressive when anyone came near her. The part of the episode that resonated with me was the separation anxiety bit. One thing that Victoria observed is that the 2 had bonded so closely and that the girl made a big fuss when coming and going. Victoria wanted to ensure that the comings and goings were more detached and that the girl give up the constant holding of the dog and sleeping with the dog, etc. I think I am guilty of some of that same behavior. I know that Ryan is overly keyed up when I return. He jumps up over and over which I try to ignore but I need to do a better job of turning my back on him until he is calm. The training they did with the dog for the separation anxiety was pretty much like what Dana Cooper had recommended to me before. I need to go into another room and leave Ryan behind and close the door and give him progressively longer and longer separations and the same thing with leaving through the front door. I guess it has just been easy for me to cope with Ryan since I can crate him so readily when I want to leave and he isn't large enough to bowl me over when he does his kangaroo greeting when I return home. The issue isn't really either of those things, but building the independent confidence in him that he could achieve if the separation anxiety were reduced/eliminated.

2 more weeks (ish)

Well, it is now closer to 2 more weeks. I made that list of things to work on with Ryan in my last post and we have been focusing mostly on wait at the door. He is getting a little better, but I need to do it more repetitively. We do it every time we go for a walk or to get in the car, but that is only like 2-3 times a day. He is showing improvement, but I need to step up the number of times we do it by going for more short walks and just doing the door thing over and over.

The bed thing is another story. I didn't have any perseverance at crating him at night. I put a crate in my bedroom but he just sits there and whines and howls. I scoop him up to put him in there and I have to shove him through the door unlike the crate in the living room where I put him down in front of it (still have to pick him up to get him over to it) and he walks on it and sits down. I have been letting him sleep on his doggy bed. The other night he hopped up on the bed and I put him back down and we repeated a number of times. Of course when I awoke in the morning it was because he was snuggled up against me and it was too hot. A little baby play yard won't keep him in, so I think an xpen around his doggy bed is the next best idea.

Thursday, November 20, 2008

3 more weeks

I received a correction on my 2 more weeks post. Mid December is the adoption target, so that is 3 more weeks. I will be gone half of next week, but if I can kick my own butt into action, maybe I can get Ryan to:

1) Wait at the door when it is opening
2) Stop jumping up
3) Stay off the bed

Well, it is a list of goals at least.

I am worthless and week, now drop and give myself 20

Inspired by too much "It's me or the dog" on Animal Planet, I thought I would do the right thing and put Ryan in his crate at night so that he wouldn't join me in bed. Well, unlike at the shelter, he doesn't love to be in his crate and I know that. I got down the crate from the garage wall. This is a medium or a large crate, which is smaller than the XL crate in the living room for when I leave for the day. I set it up on the left side of my bed. He has a dog bed on the floor on the right side of the bed which he gets on to start sleeping at night but then he gets up later and jumps on the bed. I crated him after a short walk last night and went to bed. He immediately started whining and howling. I know I have to ignore him and I did for about an hour and a half but then it became too much for me and I let him out and put him on his doggy bed. He went wild when I let him out and ran around jumping up all over the place but he finally calmed a little so I put him on the doggy bed and put him down when he tried to get in the bed. A while later he jumped up on the bed and I put him down. And over and over. He stayed down for a while and I went to sleep and when I woke up a bit later, he was curled up next to my legs. I was tired and I let it go. Not a great start to getting him to stay off the bed at night. I thought about putting a baby play yard fence around his dog bed, but he can hop over that no problem.

Tuesday, November 18, 2008

2 more weeks

Well, there really hasn't been any public interest in Ryan. That isn't to say that Desiree hasn't been having Ryan over for playdates with her 2 dogs. She plans on adopting him after Thanksgiving which means he is with me for about 2 more weeks. I have been watching a lot of "It's me or the dog" on Animal Planet and it just reinforces that I have been more lenient with Ryan than any of the other foster dogs and I need to spend some time during these last weeks trying to get things straightened out. I need to get the crate down from the garage (the smaller of the 2 crates) and put it next to my bed and stop letting him jump up on the bed at night. It has been easy to let him snuggle up next to me when he wakes at night instead of letting him run around and wake me, but that isn't the right thing to do. I also need to stop him from jumping up like crazy when he gets excited about me returning home or about going for a walk. Time to try to buckle down.

Saturday, November 8, 2008

Wow, haven't written in more than 2 weeks

So, still with Ryan. Desiree wants Ryan if no one comes to adopt him by Thanksgiving which is great. She is doing a meet and greet with her dogs. Ryan has been sleeping a little better though part of that is that I am not waking up during the night but when I get up in the morning he has migrated from his doggy bed to curled up at my feet. I got some new dog toys at Petco this week. I got a ChuckIt flying squirrel and he seems to like to chase after it though he wants to lay down and chew it up after a few retrievals and I have to stop him from doing that. I tried giving him a dog puzzle, some cut up hotdog in a gatorade bottle, but he didn't have any success figuring out that tossing the bottle around or spinning it on the floor would eject hot dog pieces. Oh well, I had a few dogs that have figured that one out.

Today was a Petco adoption day as they are having adoption weekend nationally. I moved up my adoption day to this weekend. Since Ryan spends all his time under the table when I take him there, I took Tracy instead. She was very popular.