I decided to give you an update on my darling Diesel for those of you wondering how his training is going. We had a trainer come meet him in March and after discussing our goals for Diesel she set a plan for us. Codiy & I both agreed that we trusted her, we liked her style of training, she was a reasonable price, & she would come to our house every two weeks until we felt confident to do it alone. She came to our house ONE time and hasn’t been back. Her first paying visit was supposed to be the day after St. Patrick’s day, I called and asked if we could reschedule because I knew we would be hung over, I was thinking ahead. The next week, she called and canceled because she had to go out of town. The third visit she was supposed to be at our house at noon, around 12:15 I checked my cell phone and I had a missed call from her stating she wasn’t going to come over until she heard from us, “she didn’t want to drive all the way to our house if we weren’t going to be there…” I was sort of taken back, before we met the first time she rescheduled on us 3 times in a row, the day of the visit, with only a few hours’ notice, so we weren’t the unreliable ones in this relationship. I took a deep breath and called her back. No answer. I texted her. No reply. I then allowed myself to get upset. It’s practically May and she still hasn’t called/texted us back, very odd, but I suppose it wasn’t meant to be. Needless to say, we decided to do it on our own using the great tips she gave us and keeping her assessment of Diesel in mind. We would’ve seeked out another trainer but everything we’ve been doing has been working.
If you don’t remember, we were told Diesel “owns” too much. He doesn’t have to ask permission to do anything, so we started making boundaries, on EVERYTHiNG that he does. {You can read here to catch up}.
I’m happy to report that we stopped squirting him in the face with water, not because we feel evil {which was the case in the beginning} but because he doesn’t need it anymore, I will say this, that was an ingenious idea that wasn’t harmful and we saw results instantly, which we didn’t expect.
He now only barks at the front door MAYBE once a day, and it’s usually because there are people right out front in the drive way; but instead of a constant barking paired with frantic pacing until we would go and check it out it’s now ONE MASSiVE bark which we reply by yelling his name and then telling him to “go lay down,” in his time out spot, which he does, without arguing. One night after instructing him to do so, we forgot about it, and he laid there for 30 minutes, it was awesome!
Now that we have people ignoring him completely, his anxiety has gone down soooooooooo much! A stranger was able to pet his head without him even noticing over the weekend. We’d still rather new people pet his neck or belly until we’re 100% sure he’s not scared of them, but he was totally fine with it, so we were too.
All & all, he's a happy puppy
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