In a super-cool move by staff, I was allowed to take home and foster Gabe, a dog who was not doing well at the shelter. We've had him for almost a week and he's quite a handful. He's incredibly reactive to everything. It could be night, before bed, everyone's snoozing on the couch/dog beds and he hears a dog bark a mile away and he's up and barking. Trying to drive with him in the car is bound to get me in a wreck. Forget trying to walk him. His last owners tried to deal with this problem with a shock collar, which obviously didn't help because they still returned him to the shelter.
We had a consultation last night with one of Lee Mannix's trainers. She evaluated him and told me that he has an extreme level of frustration and no idea what to do with it, which is causing this behavior. Staff noticed that he had no interest in toys at the shelter, which was odd. We will be working on getting him interested in toys and games in the next 2-3 weeks. No affection unless he has a toy in his mouth and all food must be worked for - put into a puzzle that he has to figure out to get the food. We'll go back to the trainer in 2-3 weeks to work on the reactivity problem. Until then, we have to avoid his triggers, which is going to be a challenge since everything triggers him. Even after just one day, though, he already seems less reactive in the house. I filled up a kong with a delicious treat and he worked on that on our drive over to doggy-daycare today - he didn't bark once.
I'm feeling really optimistic that he'll be highly adoptable in a few weeks. We tried getting some pictures of him, but he was too hyper and they didn't turn out well, which is too bad because he is SO CUTE. He's a great size, too - just 30 lbs at 9 months. Once his frustration levels drop and his reactivity goes away, people are going to be fighting to adopt him.
This is really important because the volunteers have been wanting to have a foster program for a really long time and staff has never been for it. It's an important part of the No-Kill Equation. Staff has mentioned that they are interested in trying this on a limited basis. I want them to see how well this can work so that they will let us do more of it.
We had a consultation last night with one of Lee Mannix's trainers. She evaluated him and told me that he has an extreme level of frustration and no idea what to do with it, which is causing this behavior. Staff noticed that he had no interest in toys at the shelter, which was odd. We will be working on getting him interested in toys and games in the next 2-3 weeks. No affection unless he has a toy in his mouth and all food must be worked for - put into a puzzle that he has to figure out to get the food. We'll go back to the trainer in 2-3 weeks to work on the reactivity problem. Until then, we have to avoid his triggers, which is going to be a challenge since everything triggers him. Even after just one day, though, he already seems less reactive in the house. I filled up a kong with a delicious treat and he worked on that on our drive over to doggy-daycare today - he didn't bark once.
I'm feeling really optimistic that he'll be highly adoptable in a few weeks. We tried getting some pictures of him, but he was too hyper and they didn't turn out well, which is too bad because he is SO CUTE. He's a great size, too - just 30 lbs at 9 months. Once his frustration levels drop and his reactivity goes away, people are going to be fighting to adopt him.
This is really important because the volunteers have been wanting to have a foster program for a really long time and staff has never been for it. It's an important part of the No-Kill Equation. Staff has mentioned that they are interested in trying this on a limited basis. I want them to see how well this can work so that they will let us do more of it.
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