Hello. I am new in this forum . I have seen how nice you are and how you help people with problems with their dogs, and I dare to abuse of your kindness.
We have a 5 months-old male German shepherd, and you can imagine how active it is. We have recently discovered its protective instinct respect to our family: when we swim in the pool it barks loudly and alarmingly and runs around, trying to take us out of the pool. It seems it doesn't like water, because it falled thrice into the swimming pool (because of this behaviour) and, even when it realised that it can swim and went out succesfully through the stairs, kept on barking and runnning around the pool.
I have tried to calm it, unsuccesfully. Now I am trying to praise it when my children go calmly into the pool and it keeps quiet but, when the uproar increases, it resumes its previous behaviour.
Can you help us to change this conduct? The neighborhood is starting to complain...
The answers to your question lie in prevention, management, and determining what you want your dog to do instead of bark and pace.
How much training have you done with your dog? Have you attended group classes or worked privately with a trainer? What techniques have you used so far to calm him near the pool?
What kind of exercise does your dog get? How do you engage him in play? What does he eat? Where does he sleep? Although seemingly not related to your specific issues, all these elements and more contribute to your dog's behavior just as your own diet, exercise, rest, and entertainment contribute to your overall well-being and behavior.
Assuming that you would like your dog to lie quietly near the pool while your family swims and splashes, there is a way to teach this but it will require patience and consistency. If there is a time that you cannot work with him on the protocol (such as a very warm day when the kids just want to play), you must keep him out of the stressful environment entirely, such as in the house or on a walk. Exposure to the stressful environment before he has been desensitized to it will only set your training program back. This is especially important while he is about 5-8 months old, while he is going through an extra-sensitive period of emotional and intellectual growth. As he matures, and by the time he reaches 1 1/2 to 2 years of age, his behavior will become more reliable.
Have you worked with your dog on peacefully accepting a tether? Of course, you never tether him while you are not there to supervise, but this tool will help manage his frenetic pacing and keep him in one spot while you work with him. Once you have followed a protocol to teach your dog to wait quietly while tethered, you can slowly begin to desensitize him to the sights and sounds of play around and in the pool. You will need to go slowly so that he never gets excited or stressed. You will need to keep stimulation (such as running, splashing, shouting, etc) below the threshold that he can tolerate but gradually build it up so that he can handle greater and greater disturbances without showing signs of stress. As an alternative to tethering, or in conjunction with it (because it will become useful later when you no longer need to tether him), you can teach your dog a "go to your spot" cue to lay quietly on a mat or piece of furniture where he can lie and watch the activity in the pool.
You may wish to consult a behaviorist or trainer in your area who can come to your house and teach you a step-by-step program that you can use to work with your dog. APDT.com is a great resource for locating a trainer near you who uses positive, non-aversive training methods.
I think I saw a similar answer from you in another thread, and I started to do what your propose: I sit by my dog at the edge of the pool, and my wife go slowly into it while I praise, fondle and give him his favorite treat (I think you suggested that the dog should associate this situation with a pleasant thing, and that's what I think I'm doing). He still keeps on very strained and stay in a liying position some minutes, until uproar increases; this time is less when my children do the same, specially my 9 year-old daughter. When he stands and starts running around, we put him in a small room until we finish the bath.
"Ball" (as we have named him, because he looked like a ball of hair when he joined our family, 3-4 months ago) has a 45 min. walk (not running, as my vet recommended) in the morning; we live in a detached house in a piece of ground of 2000 m2, and we try to make sit-give me your hand-lye-roll (as Ian Dunbar says) many times in a day. We try to socialize him as much as we can, but it is not enough (not a lot of dogs in the neighborhood; but many children playing with him). We are seriously considering on taking private training classes, but we are not in a "favorable scenario" (you know what I mean...€€€). We have not tried the tethering yet; I thing it will not solve the problem, because he will hear the gabble from the pool, but is an option. He only eats dog food.
As "The Police" said: "One year has passed since I wrote my note"... (great song).
And the problem is still the same. We (my dog and I) are attending obedience classes with a professional trainer. She (the trainer is a girl) doesn't have an answer to my problem. We tried tetheting him, and didn't work. We tried to calm him by feeding him with what he prefers while we go into the pool, and neither did this.
We have sterilized him last winter.
Recently, I am doing what my dog likes more (to play with a stick, pulling one aganist the other, triyng to get it) while I go in to the swimming pool; this way, he only barks a little but still gets very nervous, and I cannot splash too much or go far from the edge of the pool. The other part of the family (wife, kids) cannot do this and simply take the dog where he is not able to interrupt the bath (but he hears and sees us, so he barks and gets nervous). Bathing while one of us is having a walk with him is not an option: my family says that we cannot be slaves of the dog.
Do you think I am in the right way? Will you please suggest any other strategy?
. I have seen how nice you are and how you help people with problems with their dogs, and I dare to abuse of your kindness.
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