Last week, I covered fearful puppy Chowder’s first three days in our home. After three days, Chowder was reliably taking food from our hands, enjoying regular play sessions with our dog Trout, and beginning to play with us.
Chowder’s overall ability to cope with life in our home took a great turn for the better after the first 72 hours. He continued to be a champ at using his potty pads and settling in his crate, and we were able to use his crate to move him from one area to another. He would run into his crate as we approached, and we could then shut the crate door and move the crate wherever we needed him.
Because of this, we were able to expand his world from our kitchen and bedroom to include my office downstairs. Our house has a relatively open floor plan, so we used an ex-pen to gate off the downstairs living room (which has white carpet) and a baby gate to close off access to the steps. Chowder could then run around my office and the adjoining room, which were both set up with water, toys, and potty pads.
Once Chowder could hang out with me while I worked, I began doing hourly training sessions with him. The clicker was an important tool in shaping his brave behaviors. Each hour, I would spend sixty seconds clicking and treating for brave behaviors. Whenever he took a step towards me, I clicked and tossed a treat away. This provided him with double rewards: not only did he get a treat, but he also got to move further away from me, which made him feel more comfortable. I wanted to be sure not to put too much social pressure on him, and this game allowed him to approach to a distance that felt comfortable without the conflict of moving into my space to eat.
Over the next week, Chowder learned the hand target game and quickly came to enjoy following my hand all over to earn clicks and treats. On his fourth evening with us, we discovered that he really liked popcorn. He began offering sits, which I clicked and rewarded with a small piece of popcorn. Within a couple minutes, he was offering to sit on a verbal cue with confidence.
One interesting behavior pattern that we noticed with Chowder was his differing level of confidence throughout the day. He was consistently timid and fearful in the mornings, and grew in confidence as the day progressed. By evening, he was much more likely to approach us and allow us to touch him, but would then regress overnight. We took advantage of his bravery in the evening by letting him snuggle in bed with us each night before he went into his crate to sleep. We set his crate up on the bed with the door open, and let him choose to come to us. Popcorn and cuddles became nightly themes, and by the fifth night in our house he actually fell asleep on our bed in between us.
We began having Chowder wear a body harness, which we put on each morning with lots of patience and food. Handling was still difficult and putting the harness on frightened Chowder, but he recovered quickly and we felt that the benefits of the harness outweighed the potential damage done to our relationship in putting it on. Had Chowder been too scared to eat while having the harness put on, we wouldn’t have done this. We attached a dragline to this harness and began allowing Chowder to spend short periods of time loose in the house when we knew he was empty (having just used a potty pad). Layla was confined when Chowder was loose, since the two dogs were still not ready to be loose together. Chowder loved these periods of freedom to run around with Trout and cautiously explore the house.
During this first week, I began bringing Chowder to the classes I was teaching. I set him up in an ex-pen in a corner with access to his crate and potty pads. A sign on the ex-pen told students, “Hi! My name is Chowder and I’m shy. Please don’t try to pet me, but you can feed me treats. Thanks for helping!” My students were wonderful at tossing treats into Chowder’s area when they were nearby, and he would cautiously come out of his crate after they moved away to eat. He watched the other dogs in class avidly, wagging his tail whenever he saw a new dog.
By the end of his first week with us, Chowder had made some remarkable progress from the near-feral puppy we initially brought home. He’d fallen asleep in bed, was accepting gentle petting in the evenings, and knew a couple trained behaviors which he could use to interact with people in positive ways. He was still quite timid and would run away if approached or if we reached for him, but he was on his way!
Next week, I’ll talk about Chowder’s second and third weeks in our home. In the meantime, I’d love to hear from you. Have you ever brought a fearful animal home? How did you go about socializing him or her?