Mommy2MaggieMae

Hi everyone! My name is Laura and I'm new here. I hope to come often and partake in many discussions about our basset babies.

I have an almost three year old female basset. I am having issues getting her to socialize with other dogs. She loves my other dog (male senior cocker spaniel) and my dad's dogs (female beagle/basset and male mini schnauzer) but absolutely will not socialize with other animals. She is also terrified of other people and noises.

I take her to a local dog park often (maybe not often enough?) but it doesn't seem to help. Also, I am looking for any help breaking her of her paranoia of strangers and noises. I don't know what to do. If someone comes up and wants to pet her, she runs away (or tries to wriggle out of her collar/leash). If she hears a noise while we're inside she barks and howls and hides somewhere near me.

I am looking for any advice I can get! I don't want my baby girl to be terrified forever.

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Annie714

Welcome Laura and MaggieMae!

My little girl, Annie, who is 6 yrs old, also has some shyness. She prefers to hide under me when we go to the park to see other dogs. But the longer I stay there with her, the more she ventures out to play.

When it comes to people approaching to pet her, don't be afraid to ask the person to stop and let Maggie approach them if/when she is ready.

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Blog about the antics of Annie and I. http://thechickandthehound.blogspot.com

MollyMcFrecklesMom

In my area, there are dog trainers and kennel owners who run dog socialization parties. Dogs and their owners get together and just hang out. Maybe look into something like that in your area. You could ask your vet or check in at a local pet store and see if they've heard of something like that. I took mine to puppy parties at the vet and just letting them meet other dogs in a controlled environment and at their own pace helped them with their socialization. I'd imagine something like that would help older dogs too. Just a thought. Good luck and welcome to the family!

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Michelle - proudly owned by Molly (21 mos) and Winston (14 months).

Molly McFreckles' World:
The adventures of a Basset Hound living with Addison's Disease and a baby brother named Winston

Boomer's Mom

Welcome to the forums! I hope you do take part in the discussions, and please don't be afraid to ask questions. And post lots of pictures. We LOVE pictures of all the bassets here! Maggie is very pretty, too.

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Boomer: Born 4/18/2010
Biscuit: Rescued 1/26/12, approx. 2 yo

Chez Basset: Come for the kibble, stay for the belly rubs.

bubbad

How do you react when she gets in one of these tizzys.Do you just wait to see what she does.Do you pet her franticly saying,"It's ok nobody wants to hurt you." I have directed those with my puppies to get people around them as often as possible,when something seems to scare them do not react.If you react they think there really is something scarry happening. If they do not see you react they will learn they do not need to react either. For an older dog it may be more complicated you may need a training class to help.

Mikey T

Here's the thing for, socialization training to work just by presenting an oppurtunity the window is very sort beginning about 3 weeks of age and closing at 16-20 some say even sooner. So it is imparative to socialize and habituate a dog to those thing early when they are not going to percieve things they have not encounter as a threat wich only occurs during this early socialization period.

As coupled with the fact that dogs are great discriminator and poor generalizer it takes 100's to thousands of sightly disimilar encounters before a dog will even begin to generalize a behavior. Take the typical dog who is afraid of men with facial hair. This does not occur because some guy with a beard beat the dog even though that may appear to be the case. It is because the dog did not encounter men with beards, mustaches etc during the socialization period. the dog after time may learn to trust a particular man with a beard say a member of the family but will still distrust/fear all other men with beard. Dog are good a discrimination ie this guy is ok but not the rest. and very poor a generalizing this guy with a beard is good so all guy with beard are good.

So the problem you have occured very early in the dogs formative life and is very difficult to impossible to fix. That is a shy timid dog is not going to become out-going, but you can make it less shy and fearful. There are no quick fixes it is a continious lifelong process. I can give some excellent reference materials but the type of forum does not lend itself to deceminating the info you need in a more personal way

HELP FOR YOUR SHY DOG

and for a fair review of the book click here
There are a couple guiding behavior modification techniques to helping a dog over come a fear the first is called Counter-conditioning and Desenitization. The idea here is to use classical conditioning to change the dogs emotional response to what the dog fears. Classical conditioning is best explained as what pavlov iused to train dogs to salivate by ringing a bell., Bell rings, food/meal delivered. So over time the dog links the bell with meal time and begins to anticpate the meal. Not how the dog react has no bearing on whether it gets a reward the condition that cause the reward is the bell ring or in the case of a fearful dog what cause the fear. Dogs also learn on an "operant level" ie it behavior is what cause the reward. So to avoid confuing the dog it is best to begin classical conditioning at a point were the dog deos not act adversly or is stress by what it fears. to do this you need to be able to read doggy body lanquage I would suggest On talking Terms with Dogs - Calming Signals there is also a companion DVD to the book which may be helpful/

Calming Signal - the art of Surviving

Calming Signals: Canine Life Insurance

for more detail on conterconditioning and desenatization I suggest

CAUTIOUS CANINE - HOW TO HELP DOGS CONQUER THEIR FEARS
It gives a step by step approach in dealing with fear of strangers but the same technique can be used with other fears as well


Counter-conditioning and desensitization


if you like a more operant approach CLICK TO CALM - HEALING THE AGGRESSIVE DOG the techniques can stim be used on a shy/fearful dog that manifest that by runing and hiding vs acting out aggressivly the same bsic emotional state of the dog the only difference is how they chose to direct there behavior,

Mommy2MaggieMae

Thanks so much for all the welcomes! I'm looking forward to being part of this forum!

I do react by saying things like "it's ok" or something similar. I just hate to see her scared and/or nervous. I have thought about taking Maggie to a training class, but she's so scared that she would just sit there and shake. If she could find a hole in the wall to climb into, she probably would.

As far as I know, she has no reason to be scared of people. I've had her since she was 11 weeks old. The people who had her did not abuse her and she's never been abused in my care (or my family/friends).

Thanks for the info, Mikey T. I'll look into those books and see if they offer anything that might be of assistance.

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- Laura

Wworm

Hi Maggie May and Welcome!

You are a pretty basset and we esp like your sleeping picture.

For fear with noises, I might suggest looking into Thundershirts Thundershirt | The Best Dog Anxiety Treatment

it sounds cooky and weird, but there actually is a lot of research in this concept. And not only in dogs, but also in cows, in children, etc. i posted more about this in previous threads, you can probably just search for "Thundershirt."

I also think there are dogs of all sorts out there. Yours sounds like it is comfortable around people and dogs she knows. That is good.

Worm happens to be very social, but that is also because i didn't get him until he was 16 wks old. and up to then, he was with other pups, litters, and mama dogs (~12-16 of them) 24 hours/day. when i brought him home, i felt it would be a disservice to him to NOT have him around other dogs, since he had been around them so much. So he is quite social, but i also think it's because of his particular situation.

we have a neighbor in our hallway that loves dogs and loves Worm. but it is sad because her Irish setter is aggressive towards other dogs, and has snipped and bitten other dogs. just very unpredictable. so we see each other all the time but have to keep the dogs apart. that being said, the Irish setter is wonderful with children and can be trusted with them, as well as with other people.

another neighbor in our hallway has a dog that thinks it's a person and has no use for socializing with other dogs. sad because Worm wants to socialize with him so much. but this dog Max always prefers the company of the people, rubbing next to he people, getting pats from them. he has no use for other dogs!!

also my wiener dog before Worm was great with adult people, but not with children or the elderly, so I had to watch him closely in those situations. i am thankful Worm isn't like that, and is great with all people, young and old, large and small. but again, i don't think it's necessarily anything i did, per se. they are just different dogs, who grew up differently and had different temperaments.

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see what the Worm is up to: http://bassetworm.blogspot.com/

Mommy2MaggieMae

Hi Worm! Thank you so much for the welcome and compliment. :-)

I have heard of the Thundershirts before but never looked into them to see exactly what they are. It's an investment for sure, but at this point I'm willing to try almost anything to calm her down. I have asked for a few more opinions on it from other dog lover friends of mine to see what they say. One is a dog foster and helps with special needs animals so she probably has heard of it!

Thanks again!

Maggie Mae & Laura

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- Laura

Mikey T

there are some that say coddling the dog will increase fears I do not nor do most experts believe that is the case

Myth of Reinforcing Fear

from the Fearfuldogs.com website you may find this resource very helpful I can not comment on the products they sell as I have not read or used them

You Can’t Reinforce Fear; Dogs and Thunderstorms
Reinforcing fear II

forcing a dog to face it fears makes thing worse. Keep in mind whe in a fearful flight or flight state the dog is reacting purely on emotion no cognitive function is going on the dog is basical incabable of learning from the experience, Art best if nothing bad happens is the dog learns that its fearful response is appropriate because it stopped anything bad from happining,

The overstimulated hyper dog
This is why desensitization need to take place far enough from the feared object that the dog is not reacting to it. wonce the dog start reacting fearfully it ability to learn is curtailed. You would be far peeter off when the dog act frearful retreat with the dog to a safe distance


For some dog and situation where it is impossible to avoid the feared object the only alternative is the use of antianxiety medication to lower the anxiety to a lever that you can work with. There are some non-perscrption medication that may help in this regard but self perscribibe for your dog at your own risk
They are not cure they need to be use in conjuction with behavior modification to be succesful

MELATONIN
Thundershirts boast a 85% success rate base on customer survey's and offer a 100% satisfaction money back gurantee to the rick of purchasing one is small