Charlie's Story
Charlie is a four year old Yorkshire Terrier bitch.
Charlie's Story
Charlie has lived a posh life and is adored by
everyone in the family. She is included
in most the family activity and has free reign of the house and garden,
including a pet door that enables her to come and go as she pleases. Charlie is not a socialable dog with
strangers or other dogs, but it never has been an issue with the family given
their lifestyle with her - she is often carried, picked up or coddled when she
is stressed and the family prefers to maintain a pampered relationship with
her. However, when Charlie reached
roughly the age of two, she started displaying mild forms of aggression, most
noted in the evenings when she was disturbed from sleep. At first it was mild grumbling and sometimes
she would randomly nip as if startled. The family did not care for this behaviour, but did not see it as
dangerous. Instead, they decided not to
disturb her when she went down for the night - they knew she had access to the
garden in the event she needed to go out, so they would avoid her chosen
resting place and work around her slumber best as possible.
Outside of the handful of inconveniences, such as when she chose to sleep in the middle
of the couch and the family members had to resort to sitting on the floor, or
other less desirable seating areas, the solution was accepted by all within the
home. Then one evening when Charlie
chose to sleep within a main thoroughfare, one of the children accidentally
touched her with their foot while walking past and she jumped up and bit the
child hard on the ankle. When challenged
by one of the owners, she continued to grumble and went as far as to bark at
them before electing to leave the room on her own accord.
The
second incident was when one of the owners had her in their lap and was
stroking her belly - without warning, she flipped onto her feet and, again, bit
the owner hard on the hand.
She has
since had repeated incidences, but this time with visitors to the home - when
directly approached, she has taken to lunging and barking. Until this time she was indifferent to
non-family members, regardless of their interest in her, but her behaviour is
worsening to where her reaction to people and events can not be easily predicted.
Charlie
is otherwise a loving, sweet dog, but the triggers to the sporadic aggression
are to the point where they are without warning and impossible to "work
around", thus professional support was required.
Charlie's
assessment concluded that she is deep down an overall cheerful dog with an even
temperament, neither dominant nor submissive. However, due to the lack of leadership within her family unit, she has
taken it upon herself to assume a dominant role, a role for which she is not
wired and often stressed, the stress often manifesting into bouts of aggression.
Charlie's
case is relatively straight forward with clear-cut adjustments needing to be
made to re-balance the relationship with the family, lower her status and
provide the leadership she needs. The
programme itself was easy to structure, what was difficult was convincing the
family that they must be steadfast and absolutely consistent, moreover that
they will still be able to enjoy their dog as much as ever, without risk of
injury to themselves or others.
In short,
Charlie needs boundaries for living in the house, including rules as to where
she can sleep, when she gets attention, when she gets fed and how she should be
granted access to the house and garden, etc. It was also very important that Charlie be provided her own sleeping
quarters and be given a "bed" command to ensure that her space is
exclusive to her as the furniture should be to the family during the time of
the programme and re-shaping process. The family was also instructed not to "work around" her,
rather have her move for them and re-gain claim to their rightful home. Obviously this was difficult at first with
the history of biting, so it was necessary to affix a lead to her before
bedtime and should she fall asleep in any other place then her own bed, the
family could reinforce the bed command by gently guiding her
the bed with her lead and a treat.
As
suspected, Charlie challenged the new rules and her behaviour did worsen before
improvements were reported. After all, some
of her perceived privileges were worth fighting for and the family was warned
to persevere through these early stages.
Today,
the family enjoy a much better and healthier balanced relationship with their
dog. Following the programme, they did
decide to allow Charlie back on the furniture, because that was important to
their lifestyle with their dog, however, what is different is that Charlie is
only allowed on the furniture by invitation only and she is periodically asked
to go to her bed to reinforce the hierarchy within the family. Charlie is happy to comply, because she is
settled in the relationship and no longer stressed with decisions - she is
still loved, pampered and the centre of attention, but she is also trusting in the
leadership. She still does not care for
strangers, but is more than happy to go to her bed where she feels safe and comfortable
until she can have the family to herself again.
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