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Living with George
It began in January
2006. We were looking for a Jack Russell rescue but something else caught my
eye and I was smitten. The most beautiful, huge Dalmatian was barking for
attention (or so I thought) from his cage at the RSPCA. His credentials looked
great, he was just what we wanted, only slightly bigger. The papers said he was
good with dogs, cats, children, didn’t like the vets but would go, well
house-trained and used to being on his own. He had been handed to the RSPCA as
his owners were moving house and couldn’t take him with them.
We took him home and he
was fine with my partner (Des) and me. He was certainly on his best behaviour
and understandably confused as he had moved “home” again. My partner went off
on night shift leaving me to bond with George. The next day I wanted to
introduce him to my brother and father who would be looking after him for
holidays etc, but when they arrived at the house, George growled and wasn’t
happy to let them in. He did but after he had lightly nipped my brother. We
put it down to settling in. That evening Des arrived home and George growled a
little then, but soon remembered who it was. For the next 2 days, George was in
the care of Des and they bonded well while I went out to work during the day.
It soon became apparent
that George was unsettled when strangers came to the house. He was better
behaved when we took him to other people’s houses, but would become unsettled as
people left and re-joined the room he was in. He did bite a friend in their
garden because they looked at him and didn’t back off when he barked at them.
Over a few weeks, I would
take him to my father’s house and eventually George came to trust my brother,
father and sister to the point that he was able to stay there for periods of a
time (week) quite happily. However, he would not let strangers in their house
either. He will now happily let them my father and brother in my house even
when I’m not there.
We also learned that,
while he was very happy with rural environments, he was not happy at all with
urban areas and during his first few days with us, we noticed that his tummy was
not settled and he needed medical attention. George was so stressed that he
would not leave the car and go into the surgery. Our vet examined George in the
paddock by the surgery. To cut a long story short, it took 6 months of trial
and error, plus blood tests to get his tummy “settled”. It would appear that
he had a long standing problem that the RSPCA should have known about. Over the
coming months, George started to relax in the vets and we could lead him in
without too much trouble. Our vet noticed how much he settled in those months.
George had tried his
dominance tactics, they didn’t work, but he became increasingly protective of
the house and garden as well as aggressive with food. He did not like being
touched when he was eating.
One occasion, George had
been full of life in the garden and brought some tree bark into the lounge. I
tried to take it off him and he promptly sank his teeth into my hand. He looked
surprised and worried at what he had done. I wasn’t too impressed either.
Despite best efforts with
George, he continued to be obsessed with people knocking on the door and
latterly the doorbell (we moved house in July 2007 to Scotland which he took
surprisingly well). We hoped that this change might help him to overcome his
protectiveness but we were proved wrong. His instinct is to charge at the door,
nip and run off before finding out who it is, as I found out to my cost.
If I had known in January
06 what I know now about George I probably would not have taken him believing
that I did not have the experience to take on a dog with his problems. I am not
a novice dog owner, but have previously had a Bernese Mountain Dog of my own and
looked after other dogs as well as having grown up with dogs. Now, it is a
different story, I could not bear to part with him and because of his problems
do not think it would be fair to give up on him. His problems are not his fault
and he deserves a chance to become the dog he should be.
Finding a suitable
trainer or behaviourist is not easy. I went to a local trainer, explained the
problems but they didn’t seem to want to help out, merely “come down to the
obedience class as that will help”. I tried another trainer, very nice young
girl, but it was obvious that she did not have the experience to deal with the
George. I contacted a trainer/behaviourist in Wales who had little sympathy for
my situation and his suggestions were too drastic and I did not believe they
would work. Eventually, after being addicted to Dog Borstal, I came across
Debbie.
On her first visit to my
home, she came across a very manic, angry dog. He barked and barked and was so
angry that barking did not make her go away. This day he had a muzzle on and
was behind a child gate (he could have hopped over it!) for her safety. Every
time Debbie started to speak George would set off barking, if she tried to move
in the lounge he would set off barking. We did some work using the rattle
bottles which he loathed but eventually he did start to calm down and would
settle for periods of a time until Debbie tried to move or speak again. Debbie
prescribed some Bach’s remedies, explaining that with some dogs they worked but
with others there was no sign of change. I started George on the Bach’s
cocktail but unfortunately no sign of improvement was seen. We stopped George
from going off lead on walks and used a long training lead so he could
exercise. This did help some in making him listen and come back to the whistle
which I had taught him. He occasionally still has selective deafness but
generally he comes back.
As George follows me
constantly through the house, I started to shut doors behind me and leave him in
rooms as I moved around, and also put a training lead on him so that if I wanted
him to follow I would pick the lead up. This was to take any decisions away
from him i.e. he would eat, drink, move etc only when I decided and to instil
his lower position in the pack.
George would be obedient
for food rewards but resisted the “down” command completely. Keeping an eye on
him, when he voluntarily lay down, as soon as I saw the move, I would give him
big hand signal and say the word “down”. George does lay to command most of
the time, particularly in the house, but still resists it outside. Any treat
for good behaviour is also given to him only after he makes eye contact with me
when I say “good boy”. This is helping to remove his food obsession.
At Debbie’s first visit,
she gave a 50:50 chance of making any improvements with George which was
disheartening. However, I prefer a realistic view rather than an overly
optimistic one, and it was very apparent that there are some deep routed issues
with George and we both felt it was due to poor or non existent early
socialisation, probably mixed with some poor breeding from a puppy farm and
potentially novice dog owners who didn’t realise the seriousness of his early
behaviours. We can only guess, as we had no more information.
On Debbie’s second visit
a few months later, George had bonded even further with me and she was pleased
to see he had improved. He was still not happy with a stranger in the house but
less manic and settled down a little easier. I have some calming techniques to
use on George and during the visit it became apparent that he took his direction
from me. The worst thing for him was not to have my attention. This is being
used more and more on him i.e. when he behaves he gets praise and a fuss, when
he is disturbed he is ignored.
Over the coming months we
tried using noises from the internet i.e. doorbell chimes etc to try and
de-sensitise him. It worked to a point, but he still distinguished the chime on
the computer from the house one.
After our move to
Scotland, and the change in environment did not have any beneficial improvement
to George, I took him down to Wales for a 3 day training session with Debbie.
We set up a cage for him in the log cabin which we knew George would instantly
turn into his space. We set his bed in there and he was very happy to go into
it and settle down. It was not a punishment place and he was very happy with
it. We got a doorbell chime too and set up a home environment. We got George
accustomed to the doorbell by setting it ringing and not moving to answer it so
George would not see it as a stranger coming to the door. This went quite
well. The next step was to get George to go to his cage when the door bell
chimed, which he started to understand. Unfortunately, as soon as we took it to
the next step, i.e. a person at the door chiming the bell, George instantly
reverted to barking at the door. With persistence, he is learning that when the
doorbell chimes he needs to go to his bed/cage in the hall, the door is closed
and he does not come out until he has totally calmed. We do this every time I
or Des return home and in deed, even when we both come home together George is
told to go to his bed before we enter the house. This he does do. We haven’t
cured him of his doorbell/door knock obsession, but we have a way of dealing
with him so he is less stressed about the stranger and the stranger can come in
the house without fear of attack (or at least less fear!). We do stand at the
door with him and ring the bell and knock on the door when there is nobody there
to try and de-sensitise him, but George is stubborn and slow to learn. I fear
we will never rid him of this, but if we can lessen the stress and reduce his
aggression, then that will be a big step forward. He is definitely less
stressed when he is in the cage when strangers come to the door, and on a recent
occasion when a colleague of mine stayed overnight, she was eventually able to
talk soothingly to him through the cage and walk round the house without a huge
commotion from George. I can’t tell you what a big step forward that was.
We are also tackling his
problem with urban environments. During the 3 days in Wales, we discovered that
George was substantially more settled with a Halti collar on and I could control
where he looked and he was restricted from looking at escape routes. We managed
to take him into a very busy part of Port Talbot and have him sit calmly
watching the world go by. By doing this exercise more regularly it is hoped
that he will become more and more relaxed with people and again hope that this
will have a beneficial impact when people come to the house.
 In November we introduced a cat
to the household. We’d chosen a rescue cat that had lived with dogs before and
appeared to be incredibly chilled. What a blessing we were right. After 5 days
of slowly letting the cat (Haga) and George get closer, i.e. George in cage cat
out, cat in cage George out, we let them meet without a barrier. I won’t say
they were instant buddies as George is horribly loud and social behaviour is not
his strong point, but not once has he tried to get the cat in his mouth and
savage it. Even when Haga has approached George when he has his food or chew
stick, George has chased him off violently but still not ragged him. Now they
lie together and George loves to lick and sniff Haga. Haga, little treasure,
lets him. I was expecting to see George with some obvious war wounds across his
nose, but no. Haga is gentle with him too and plays without striking a fistful
of claws. We are hoping, that as Haga is chilled about strangers that George
will start to calm down. We are considering a Bernese bitch rescue who is good
with people to see if this would have a calming effect on George, but this is a
big commitment.
We keep working with
George and ensuring that we don’t put him in any situation that is potentially
dangerous for him. He wears a muzzle if there is any risk and we do not let
anyone try and stroke him from outside his incredibly limited number of
“friends”. Outside, off the lead and exercising in a park, along the river or
in a wood, George is fine.
His fears really kick in
when he is in limited space, on a lead and when somebody is directing full on
attention at him.
George is a beautiful dog
and many people would love to fuss him. It is so sad that he is missing out on
so much and has such confidence issues which then lead into his fear
aggression. We may never conquer these problems, but while he is with us, we
are doing our best to help him and keep him safe. If he wasn’t with us, I fear
he wouldn’t be with anyone.
Debbie has been very
supportive and helpful and more than anything honest about George and his
issues. She has had to change tack with some of the training as he does not
respond to normal methods. There is no miracle cure for him, I wish there was.
But slowly, each day, we make a little progress. Some times so small, I don’t
notice it, but overtime he has calmed down a lot since we got him. He does
respond to love and patience and he has proven that he can bond. I still treat
him guardedly and find it difficult to accept sometimes as my Bernese was such a
joy and could be trusted with anybody and anything. Sometimes I am reduced to
tears of frustration, but then other times George will surprise me when he has
learnt something new. Would I give him up now? No way.
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