Controlling, Obsessive and Neurotic Spaniel. Our journey to calmness [1]

Welcome to our journey to find calmness for Roo.

After months of trying with training, small wins and big losses. After three trainers and a lot of lost hope, we sought the help of a dog behaviourist for Roo's issues which included nervousness, reactivity, barking, lead pulling and resource guarding. Prior to this appointment, our expectations were low. Everytime we found a new trainer we felt great after our first appointment but slowly and surely things would either improve and hit a wall or just not improve at all.

Don't get us wrong, we had come a long way from where we started but it was all management. Roo's isuses were still very much there, we just had better control over them (most of the time). We also avoided a lot of things, always going to places at the crack of dawn so it would be quiet. Only be able to walk Roo on lead for a max of 10 minutes and only on two roads surrounding our house without it being pure chaos.

It was trainer number three that told us Roo was anxious and that she either had a predispostion to this, or was experiencing anxiety prior to us getting her. This trainer however failed to show us how to manage and improve her mindset and sent us on our way with some handouts for lead walking and teaching leave it. It was at this point we knew we needed more than just a dog trainer.

After emailing around and hearing back from a couple of people (not too many behaviourist out there it seems), we found the person we ended up going with. We had an inital phone consultation, were sent an extensive questionnaire and then a few weeks later had our face to face consultation. We were dreading it. Strangers in the house means Roo will bark non-stop. The third trainer came to our house three times each for around 15 to 30 minutes and Roo relentlessly barked! So you can imagine our thoughts when the behavourist said she would be with us for around 3 hours.

The behaviourist arrived, Roo barked and was placed in another room until she calmed down. The previous trainer had told us not to do this as it would make her worse as she couldn't see what was going on. But it worked, after around 10 minutes, Roo had calmed down and could come out. We put her on lead and began walking her around the house. She was removed from the room when she barked and did not stop within a few barks. After about an hour, Roo was laying in her bed asleep (this didn't last all session though and it was a lot of in and out).

We were told that yes Roo has anxiety and her behavior is her trying to control the situation. That she did not have any trust in us to keep her safe and felt it was her job to see off any "percieved" danger. Roo was also very demanding of our attention.

Next we were told what we needed to do.....

PSA - this is our experience. If your dog is experiencing any behavioural issues please contact a trainer or behaviourist. The quicker you act the easier things are to fix.