Beeing relaxed at home

At the moment we have two things we are working on.

Beeing relaxed at home when mummy is working at home as well.
And stopping jumping and biting when we arrive at home.
The jumping will be a seperate post soon.

I have discussed several strategies with my friends and I do not like any kind of box training. Boxes with open doors are great but do not help in my particular case.
Training relax on a mat with treats is also no choice because Lisbeth only gets food focused and doesn't learn anything. Capturing calm behaviour is one important part in our daily life but no special help for this particular problem.
So what is the situation at the moment and what is the strategy we are working on.
We often have the problem, that Lisbeth doesn't relax when we are at home. Then she wants our attention and tries anything to be successfull. Preferably she is chewing the chair or the table.
For a stressed dog as Lisbeth it is important that she clearly understands what is going one so you need a good training concept that she does not get frustrated. So we are working on two different behaviours. One is to train relaxation on leash. This means whenever I start my computer I put on the harness and the leash. Take Lisbeths blanket and something to chew she really likes introduce a special cue and Lisbeth gets her chew. As soon as she stops chewing I unclip the leash and stop the training session for relaxation. This behaviour and cue should help Lisbeth in the future to relax on her mat in many situations.
The second thing is the nothing happens when mummy is working. Therfore I have prapared a collar with lavender instead a verbal cue. When I put on the collar she gets almost no attention. She can come to greet me but I won't play with her or pet her. I have started the program after a good walk when I was pretty sure she is going to relax. Normally Lisbeths rests 1.5hours until she gets active again. After this time I remove the collar and we are doing something together for about 10 min. Then I put on the collar again and the no attention time starts again. I have started today and so far she did quite well. I have to watch this for a longer period to be able to assess this program.

Status quo

Status quo of our work...

Lisbeth is again a little bit more stressed. I think this is related to the work we are having to "make" our garden.

 But all in all we are fine.
We are no longer meeting our doggy friend, because in my opinion having some time off leash means more then having another dog around.
We only have one area where it is possible for Lisbeth to be off leash. But there she is perfect!
Actually it is the area from the post Stupid me".
Think Lisbeth feels save enough there to feel relaxed.
We are waiting for the results of the thyroid profile, because Lisbeth is what I would call untrainable.
Just due to the fact that she gets stressed and restless when you try to expose her to more stress.
But I will do a post about hypothyroism soon!
That's why there isn't much to tell! Due to less time and avoiding stress!

Scent discrimination - Search for Peppermint

Today something else than living with hyperreactive Lisbeth...
Its just search for peppermint!

She was already used to search for peppermint with a lot of other tea bags around. In glasses or some bowls or just on the floor, like in the video

But it was her first time, that she was searching peppermint in a ! But she did perfect!

Search games are definitely the best way to satisfy your (hyperactive, stressed) dog.

Yammmy

It's going to be food for the next 30 days.

Mhhmmm...

We are back to normality giving Lisbeth a lot of routine and less unfamiliar situations.

Live works but a little less reaction to new situations would be great.

I don't know if her new nutrition has any positive effect but for me its enough to see Lisbeth loving

her new food!!

I'm trying to set up a new training shedule and I keep you informed about our progress!

Healthy nutrition

 Let's start project healthy nutrition!

It's day number 16th since I have started B.A.R.F. Actually its only half B.A.R.F. because the vegetables and some meat is cooked.

And we both like it! I like it because her faeces are not that smelly and she likes it because its delicious MEAT!

I made this decision just to give it a try. For me it was important that her food is grain free, almost sugar free (except some fruit sugar) and a little less protein rich. You just read too often that nutrition effects hyperyctive dogs...

And I add magnesium to the food to have a better Ca, Mg ratio and to affect her cortisol level.
I've tried to find some scientific explanation for the Mg effect but I couldn't maybe some of you have an interesting link.
Even if this one is kind of advertise its worth-while to read.
http://nupafeed-dogs.co.uk/mag-calcium-stress/4582282178

We love Tracking

Tracking is my favorite dog game for my easily aroused dog Lisbeth.

She needs to work calm and concentraded to solve the task and I definitely builds up her self esteem.
Today I managed to film her working on her track!
It was her I don't know 15th-20th track... I do not count. So she isn't a newy but you can call her still beginner.
It's a 20min old track but I think the task was too easy. She follows a track I made without her watching me (she was waiting at home) The next step would be to make it much longer! And I would prefer that the track was made by somebody else.
But back to the VIDEO:
I like the scene when she stops because she lost the track - thinks and follows the track again (minute 1:13)
And I love the end when she is laughing proudly into the camera whem I arrive there.
What I do not like is that it took me so long until I praised her.

I'm sorry for the bad quality, but I have just a pocket camera. And its not so easy to organize the long leash, the camera, watch and follow the dog....

It was all too much

Driven from the great success we had - I exposed Lisbeth to more frequent stress situations with a lot of treats and patience.

BUT
It was too much for Lisbeth....
Having a 2 hour walk with a new "dogfriend" in an unfamiliar environment - too much!
1 hour walk in a park (new environment) with seeing and greeting some dogs -  too much!
Visiting human friends - too much!

Lisbeth is restless again. Like in the beginning she needs my help to calm down on evenings. The chewing of shoes and furniture is worse again and bladder infection is coming back as well!

So back to the beginning!
We reduce walking time again, we will just stay in the familiar environment. A lot of chews during the walks.
Will it sometimes be possible to life a normal doggy life???