A lookback over the year; 2021

We started the year hopeful that with a bit more training Roo would become the dog we wanted.

We thought all we needed was someone to show us how to teach her loose lead walking - that was our main issue at the start of the year. Walking Roo anywhere on a lead was a nightmare, she would pull until she choked herself. We tried all kinds of different tools; slip leads, flat collar, harness, martingale, figure of 8, halti. Nothing was helping.

At the start of the year we started taking Roo to see a gundog trainer, James at Riverggins - absolutely amazing, if you are in Norfolk and have a gundog breed check him out! We saw James three times through the year, having private 1-2-1 sessions with him. He showed us basic gundog drills, loose lead walking tips, how to introduce a whistle with Roo. She loved the training, she didn't always like bringing the dummy back though! We covered all the basics with James and it was down to us to tidy it all up. He also showed us some more advanced drills with the idea that once Roo could do those, we would go back and he could show us more. Unfortunately, Roo just did not get to grips with it once more than one dummy was introduced! As we never planned to use her for shoots, this didn't bother us too much. Roo loved the drills she was already doing so we just carried on with those.

Whilst this was going on, we were still taking Roo out nearly every day to the park or the beach. Lots of off-lead walks. She was spending time with our friends dogs at their land.

Roo's lead walking continued to be an issue, as did her behaviour when people came over and her barking in the house. We also had issues with resource guarding. Frustrated that we still hadn't managed to make progress with her lead walking, we reach out to another trainer. Although we didn't get on well with this trainer, basically we saw her three times. Once was to assess Roo, the next time she came to our house to see what Roo was like again, the next time she took Roo out for a walk on her own and then finally came round to give us some handouts we chased for and to wish us luck! There was one good thing to come out of this, she told us Roo was anxious. Until that point, no one had told us this. She was an excitable, high energy working cocker spaniel.

Armed with this new information and still struggling with Roo, we made the descision to get help from a behaviourist, or who we thought was a behaviourist - not going to into too much of that here. We have a blog post all about it! We found Lucy online, she was fairly local and after speaking to her on the phone, she said she could help. We had a 3 hour in person meeting with Lucy and were given new rules to follow - making Roo's world small, limited interaction, time outs, no people over etc. We followed this advice from July to September with Roo making no real improvements.

Alongside this, we took Roo on holiday with us - bad timing really! Whilst we were away Roo had two more episodes leading to us having to take her to see a Neurologist, undergoing an MRI and finding out Roo has a cyst on her brain (not that this is causing her episodes).

We also changed Roo onto a raw diet, advised by Lucy to do so. Roo has lots of issues with food and will go a couple of days without eating sometimes. This is still an ongoing struggle, this paired with Roo's food intolerances and gluten free diet (suggestd by the Neurologist) it makes for some tough days.

Having made Roo's world so small that she only had access to our dinning room and the garden, we needed more help! We spoke to Lucy about medication. She wasn't too keen on the idea but we went ahead and spoke to our vet when Roo had her boosters. That is when we were told that Lucy was not qualified and we would need to start the process all over again. Disheartened but really facing no other alternative, we went ahead with trying to find a fully qualified behavourist to help us.

At this point Roo had been housebound since July, in the dinning room, no one coming over, going out into the garden and occasionally to a private field. We were all trapped in the house!

We managed to find someone to help, Jane who was fully qualified and would work with our vet. We had a two hour zoom call with her and it was decided that Roo would go on medication. We were so relieved. The battle wasn't over yet, now the vets had to approve the medication which they wouldn't do without the approval of the Neurologist who was on leave. You couldn't make this stuff up. After a couple of weeks delay, Roo started Fluoxetine mid to late November.

Since starting medication Roo has started to make some real improvements. Her behaviour in the house has improved drastically - she still barks a lot when the door goes, something we are trying to figure out how to work on. We have been able to start taking her out to a field in the mornings for a run around, we are working on our lead walking. Roo even managed a 10 minute walk near our house with some pulling but no full on reactions when we saw people.

This year has been a lot. This is not the year we expected to have. But we are finishing the year hopeful and in a much better position than last year. Roo is still fairly young at 17 months, we have time to work on things, we have the right professionals in place to support her. We have a plan. Things are getting better. It is crazy the difference a year can make. We can't wait to look back on next year and see where Roo is at.

We hope everyone has an amazing 2022! Thank you for being part of our journey.

If you want to read about our behaviourist journey - click here

or our Neurolgist appointments - click here