Rakka vs Duane
Duane is my father-in-law and Rakka hates him. Every single time she sees him, he barks at him like he's death incarnate. We tell her not to bark at him and squirt her with water when she barks and praise and click/treat her when she's calm and nice around him. Every so often she doesn't bark at him and she gets the grand treatment like she's just won us a million dollars. She eventually calms down when she sees him, but if he even goes out of sight and comes back (like he leaves the room and re-enters it minutes later) it's back to square one like she's never seen him before. It's improving very very very slowly, but something has to give here, she can't keep hating him. Noah's parents just moved their mobile home out close to our recently, so Duane's going to be around all the time and we can't have Rakka flipping out every time she sees him.
So... advice?
Comments
Maybe you can have Duane give her the treats. Thats what we did with Ninja to keep him from running away. We gave strangers treats, they would throw it close to him and then eventually he would take them out of their hand. Now that he's more comfortable, we can have him do a trick and then we click and the stranger treats. Is there any particular reason Rakka doesn't like Duane. Bad first experience or something?
If Duane has the time and patience, have him come over and sit him on the couch. Then give him a big bag of yummy treats. Have him just sit there and toss treats to Rakka. If the other dogs are around that could help too, if they are up on the couch getting yummy treats from Duane, Rakka will probably want to be in on it too.
Have him do this a few times a week (or more), after a few weeks I'm sure their relationship will have improved.
It took Nemo a long time to get used to my dad and my father-in-law, but now he loves them. Also my Dad lays on the floor a lot when watching TV, Nemo always liked that because he could sneak up behind him and sniff him out.
Some background would be helpful. Mika is frightened of my FIL. When she was young, he would greet her in this loud boisterous way, which resulted in her running, full speed, in the other direction and barking at him from a 'safe' distance! So funny. She's still not so comfy around him.
Since Rakka is clicker trained. I would give your FIL her favorite treats - whatever it is and have him click/treat Rakka a few times. Leave the room, click/treat a few times and repeat.
Dave - I don't dislike Duane at all.
I think the problem arises from the fact that Rakka generally dislikes men at first and Duane isn't huge on dogs. I think the problem here is that Rakka barked at Duane when she first saw him, like she does with 90% of men (including Noah at first), and Duane yelled at her to shut up, and this cycle is getting out of control. Rakka barks at Duane and Duane yells at Rakka, so in Rakka's mind, every single time she sees him, she gets yelled at. Of course, the flip side to that is that Duane just keeps liking her less and less because she barks at him every time he sees her. Tojo and Loki were never so antagonistic, so Duane just says hi to them, maybe pats them on the head, and that's that.
First things first, I need to convince Duane to stop yelling at Rakka. He's extremely stubborn, though, so I'll have to talk to Joyce (Noah's mom) and get her to make him think it's his idea. She might be able to talk him into giving Rakka treats, but I'm not sure. Joyce says she wants to put Rakka on a leash and attach her to Duane for a day and have Duane in charge of all her meals and everything so that she thinks of him as a friend. I think that'd work if Duane would go along with it, but I seriously doubt he will.
I think the problem I have is that what I can get Duane to do is very limited because he's quite stubborn and not likely to be talked into any of these schemes, so I'm trying to just modify Rakka's behaviour. I will work on getting Duane to help out on his end... in the mean time, anything I can do just on my end with Rakka that doesn't require Duane to do anything? I can't think of anything beyond what I'm doing.
That's definitely a tough situation. My cocker spaniel didn't like men either - except my dad. She was just so small and some men are just so tall, it was really scary for her. I believe this was on 'It's me or the dog'. Great show, btw. What the trainer did was have the owners walk their dog in London. When the dog started to bark, the owner quickly pulled the dog in the opposite direction. When the dog was good, it got a treat.
Since this happens in your house, maybe you could have Rakka on a leash when Duane comes over? That way, when she starts barking, you can tug her in the opposite direction. When she's not barking, she gets a treat. A variation is just having her on the leash with Duane around and giving her a correction when she barks.
Ditto.
HE is actually the one acting out of line. Since he is your father in law, it really is your husbands responsibility to let him know that he shouldn't be yelling at any of your pets. So as to keep you out of the middle (where it sounds like you are being stuck). When my mom was out of line with Jays family I had to repremand her, and when Jay's mom was being nasty to me, Jay had to put her in her place.
It isn't fun. But parents often have a hard time letting go of the fact that they are no longer the boss. Sometimes they need a gentle reminder.
Yeah. This isnt Rakka's fault by ANY means! This is all on Duane and not to be mean but you guys. That is UTTERLY not ok. Someone reprimanded Niko and hit her. She cried and screamed for a long time. I had to walk away for a minute and I was crying. Also when Chad's family was here and they were way too rough on Niko and Chad's sister got real lippy with me because I was defending my dog in HER home!!!!!!!! Oh HELL NO!
Sorry this is a touchy subject for me.
My comment in the other thread about Rakka barking at Duane reminded me to give an update on this. Duane has been told not to yell at Rakka anymore, and so far, he hasn't. He has actually started just laughing when she barks at him and otherwise ignoring her. If she doesn't bark, he says hi to her and that's all (that's the standard Duane greeting towards dogs). I think when he is out here more and has more time we'll get him to give her treats. Joyce has some plans to spend the day with all three of them together doing outdoor chores, making it enjoyable for all of them. I think that's a good idea. Rakka likes to accompany Noah and I when we're doing outdoor things so we'll see if we can transfer that over to Duane. For now, when he's out here, he's always really busy working on their place and he doesn't usually come over to our place at all.
I have also found that rather than correcting Rakka for barking at him, it works better to acknowledge her concern and redirect her. It's hard to explain exactly what I do, but I mentioned in the other thread that when she barks at him as he walks by, I usually just say to her, "Yeah, it's Duane, I know. We're fine," and life goes on. I know she doesn't understand the words, but I think she gets the message of "I acknowledge that you're concerned, and I want you to know that everything's fine." I also got a box of dog cookies for quick random training, which is helpful. If she's upset about Duane and can't stop fixating on him, I can get her to practise her obedience training and it gives her something else to focus on.
I think I will also start to treat the term "Quiet" as a command rather than a reprimand, rewarding compliance to the command rather than using it in conjunction with punishment (usually a squirt bottle). That's the only way I managed to teach her "Off" for jumping up. I taught "Up" and "Off" so that she would jump up on me when told to and get down when told to. I think I will do a similar thing with barking. Something to do instead of jumping up worked really well, too. If I give her the command to "sit" then she has something to do and I can tell her to sit and then squat down and give her lots of loves in that position, which also keeps her from jumping up. I haven't really thought of an alterntaive behaviour for barking yet, though.
I think I had the wrong approach to begin with. I was addressing the problem as if Rakka were misbehaving when I really needed to view it as an anxiety problem. I started to think of it more like a child being afraid of monsters in the closet. You don't punish them for being worried, you just show them that there's nothing to be afraid of and eventually, by being calm, you encourage them to gain confidence in the situation.
That makes a lot of sense Heidi. You'll have to keep updating us because I'm curious as to how its going to work.
I have heard that training a dog to "speak" is a good anti-barking behavior oddly enough. If you put a command to speaking, then you can put a command to telling them to stop. I'm not sure if it will work in your case, but its worth a shot. Good luck!
It's funny you mentioned the acknowledging why their barking. If a siren goes off or someone is outside and Piglet starts to bark, if I correct her she keeps barking, if I say "Thank you for protecting us Piglet, we are all safe" she comes and sits down.
I still think they speak english and just don't tell us.
Kitsune was very VERY wary of new people, still is, he never had any
socialization his entire first year of life and would bark like MAD
crazy at anyone who entered our home and would go into 'beserk' mode on
walks - like bee-line 180 degrees to avoid any contact with anyone
else.
when people come over, i have them disregard his
barking, like pay NO attention to him. Kitsune eventually stops barking
and will sneak a sniff or two. Then we have people (who are willing)
feed him a treat. He keeps his pride and distance but its a lot more
peaceful while company is there.
But I don't think he singles out anyone yet, he's still so new to tell.
Aren't Shibas supposed to be aloof of strangers (like any family that doesn't reside with them)?
Shibas are supposed to be independent. I'm not sure aloof with strangers is exactly how I would put it. Lucy *LOVES* strangers. She pulls at her leash and waves like crazy until she gets pet and then she could care less about them. Its a bit too early to tell with Joey, but he seems to be a bit wary of strangers. He isn't excited to meet them, but he isn't afraid either. He'll go up and sniff and then walk away. I'm working hard to get him more socialized with strangers. I think I read somewhere that females tend to be more outgoing with people they don't know and males tend to be more reserved.
If Shibas are not socialized when they are young, then they can develop issues with people they don't know. Many are nervous or afraid.
females being more apt to like strangers, my Tsuki girl is a 'social
butterfly' and will wave with both hands to get a new persons
attention. But Kitsune doesn't want anything to do with new people.
tail goes nuts. She's hilarious! And people just give her more
attention because of it!!!
Lucy IS a social butterfly who LOVES people. I got such great waves during our visits and I TOTALLY melted. So sweet. No matter how uncomfortable Mika made her, I got waves galore.
Romi: So glad Ninja is doing better. Is this the result of the new behaviorist or your own training? Either way, YAY, Ninja.
Barbara - This is my own training that I tried out from reading up on various techniques. I tried many and then I tried the ignoring and it totally worked! So i've been sticking with it. The behaviorist is coming on April 12th so hopefully he will fill me in with more techniques.
Heidi - Since Duane isn't present often, you might want to tell him to ignore Rakka completely, don't even say hi when she's quiet. When she stops barking at him totally, then you could start working on praising and treating with Duane. But I think for right now, when Duane ignores Rakka and she calms down, you should praise her yourself before he does.