Something Happened the Other Night

Last night our insurance agent stopped by. As he pulled into our driveway, I put Kodi behind the gate in our dining room. After "agent" was in the kitchen talking to us for several minutes, sitting down at the table, I noticed Kodi was very calm behind gate and I decided to let him come into the kitchen with us. I asked Kodi to sit next to me and he was fine. I did notice that Kodi was using calming signals (licking his lips, looking away) which made me realize that he was "nervous" or upset about the situation. I was absorbed in reading the insurance papers and didn't realize that the agent, Ken, got up to use our bathroom. Kodi NOTICED. He jumped up and barked and looked like he was going to bite Ken in the "butt". He didn't. He got very close and then backed off. I blame myself for not removing Kodi when I noticed that he was using the calming signals. Of course, I put Kodi in a safe place again behind the gate.

Fearful/Reactive Behavior

I have stopped taking Kodi to any more classes and limiting his walks where he can have reactive episodes with bikes, scooters, loud cars, people, other dogs (you name it he is reactive to it). I want to take the summer off. When we have visitors, I keep Kodi behind a gate, especially for the first half hour. Initially he will react by barking but eventually he quiets down and accepts the person/visitor. He will lay down very peacefully unless the visitor uses his hands to "talk" or gestures with his hands or makes any sudden moves. Then Kodi starts barking again. Sometimes I have Kodi lay next to me in a sit or down stay and that keeps him pretty calm. I do believe that over the past several months Kodi has calmed down some, but I can't completely trust him. If, heaven forbid, he would bite someone, I would feel terrible. I must be ever vigilant with him while at the same time trying to get him less reactive. I have read many, many books on the subject: Turid Rugaas, Patricia McConnell, Karen London, Karen Pryor, Ali Brown and I can't remember the author who wrote "Control Unleashed", which by the way is a great read with good advice. However, it all takes time.

From the Beginning

Let me start at the beginning. One sunny May day last year I went out to dinner with some of my online friends. Our common thread is that we all have brown dogs (Chesapeake Bay Retrievers) although we don't only stick to that subject. We met at Woody's in NorthEast, Maryland, and had a wonderful dinner. One of the ladies, who helps rescue CBRs, mentioned that they just picked up a small litter of CBRs and asked if I would be interested in one of them. Of course I was interested. I just had to convince my husband that we needed another dog as we are already owned by a then 10 year old CBR named Chazzie. Chazzie's a gem of a dog. He's almost perfect. Well, after some pleading my husband agreed, and on June 9th, 2008, we picked up Kodi, a beautiful little male CBR mix. He fit in well with our family and got along great with Chazzie. We took Kodi everywhere with us and we also introduced him to lots of friends and neighbors. At this point he was fine with meeting new people and going to new places. At approximately 4-5 months old Kodi and I started with obedience classes. The first two lessons were great. He was a little timid with the other dogs but he did great with the lessons. Week 3 Kodi was afraid to go into the building. Week 4 he started lunging at other dogs in the class. All the time the "trainer" told me to bring Kodi back and that we would work things out. At this point I could tell that Kodi was very stressed, but continued taking him to classes. I was a complete dummy about fearful/reactive dogs. I listened to what "experts" had to say and completely ignored my instincts. Needless to say Kodi got progressively worse at being fearful of people and lunging at dogs. I am embarrassed to admit that I continued with that 6 week class and then two additional 6 week classes. Kodi was a complete mess. He would bark and growl at people coming into our house while being very loving to his family.