How to get back her confidence

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My 23 month old cocker spaniel girl has now been attacked/chased by other dogs (males) on 4 separate occasions, the first time being when she was only 7 months old. The result is now that whenever she even sees another dog in the distance she barks incessantly and becomes so stressed she starts shaking. I'm not sure if it is anything to do with the stress and/or attacks but she has never had a season either!

I also have her mother at home who is a very laid back girl, quite submissive with other dogs but will happily greet and play with them. My pup was exactly the same when she was young and happily joined in at puppy and obedience classes but since the attacks she has become completely neurotic.

I have tried loads of various methods over the last year to try and help her relax and gain some confidence again but it feels like 1 step forward 10 steps back a lot of the time. Every new attack/chase seems understandably, to send her to an even higher state of anxiety.She doesn't show any form of aggression to other dogs and at her best will actually approach them but the second they make any eye contact she will bark and run away again.

My heart bleeds for her as she was such a happy playful youngster and I feel life cannot be very pleasant for her being so stressed all the time. She is constantly moving and spinning around when we are out and looks ready for flight at any moment. Thankfully she has superb recall and doesn't stray far. Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

 

[eingana]

Hi and welcome to DogForum

I can't help feeling that your little one needs some careful socialisation. Are there any dog walking groups near you? Maybe your local pet shop will know, or other people with dogs, or local trainers.

I'm not referring to the 'let them off a lead and let them get on with it' sort of socialising BTW. I'm referring to some very structured parallel walking, which may take weeks or months to have the desired response. Parallel walking relies on the fact that walking at a decent speed demands that your dog pays attention to where they're walking and to you, leaving less of their brain left free to panic about their stresses.

You start off with you and your dog, and someone else (one or more people) with their calm dog(s), walking in the same direction as each other but about the width of a field apart. You walk at a good brisk pace with everybody communicating to their dogs so they're watching where their feet are going and flicking their eyes up to their humans as they walk. Because they're paying attention to you and where they're walking, they will only have moments to flick their eyes across to the other dog(s) before their attention needs to be back on what they're doing.

Very gradually you reduce the distance between the dogs as you walk on your second or third lap of the park/field. On the first occasion you do this you may choose not to reduce the distance at all, if your dog is starting off from a very nervous position. Finishing a good walk when she knows that she's been around other dogs and been able to see, hear and smell them but nothing bad happened is really important. Repeat dozens of times, gradually reducing the distance until you eventually have the dogs separated just by the humans between them.

At this point you can start introducing also being able to watch the other dog(s) whilst walking. You do this by walking round in circles with the other dog in front of your dog but a good distance away and not getting any closer. All of the time that this is happening you're reassuring her with lots of 'good dog' signals and once she's coping with this you gradually reduce the distance between the dogs again. It's quite important that you're still walking though, so the other dog can't turn round and make eye contact with her because they're busy watching where they're going.

If you can do some parallel walking at least a couple of times a week and spend the rest of the week without major anxieties then this should be a very gentle desensitisation process where she starts to realise that not all dogs are going to jump on her and as a result her stress levels about this should reduce gradually over time.

The alternative to this is to not take her places where other dogs are going to be present, but that's a lifelong issue which could entail a long time of avoidance techniques, whereas if you can teach her that being on a lead near by other dogs is not a problem then that could be a great outcome for her.

Good luck