First – a note about last night. Pippy is a real cuddle bug. I decided to leave her loose as she was sticking close to me. She was so quiet when she was ill, I did not want to take a chance of her becoming sick in her crate and being stuck in there miserable even part of the night. She snuggled right in on the bed and went to sleep (Okay, I did have to hide the squeaky toy she was gleefully eviscerating). At least she wasn’t eating any of the parts or stuffing, just happily pulling it apart like all good terriers do. About 1:30 am she became restless and we went outside for a quick potty break. She snuggled right back in and slept soundly until 7:00 am. She then played a bit while I got dressed and we made an uneventful trip out for her to go potty. 

Now, on to today. There is a reason today’s blog includes the word pioneer. As the accounts from our human pioneers make clear, a pioneering life of any kind can be horribly difficult. This trip is turning out to be truly pioneering for Pippy. I started seeing signs of problems on the trip out, but chalked those up to the stress of long-distance travel with a veritable stranger.

We really started our day around 8:30 am. There was another dog on a leash in the parking lot at the hotel and Pippy reacted in a way I had not seen previously. She began barking and lunging at the other dog long before the two of them even came close to each other. She and I did an evasive maneuver (having a party as we ran away) and I placed her in the car where she quickly quieted down. During the drive to Peaceable Paws, I kept trying to convince myself that I did not inadvertently bring a reactive dog to my internship (they try to avoid this situation in order to limit stressing the other five dogs and interns). This one event turned into several more as the day progressed and I quickly altered my plans and focused my efforts on working with a restraint frustration problem. All during the people portion of class, I used classical counter conditioning with Pippy in an effort to diffuse the behavior with some success. We use treats for the classical counter conditioning as it is the easiest of the primary reinforcers to manipulate. Of course, she is a little dog and fills up FAST! During our lunch/hike break, she did take a nap and we used the opportunity to move her to the tack room in preparation for serious work with modifying all of our dogs’ behavior while working in teams of two. Since Pippy was full up, my partner and I decided to work with her last.

During Pippy’s session, we did make some noticeable progress with her and were able to slowly bring her towards another dog while keeping her under threshold. She only let out a few short barks and was easily redirected. At this point, a new person made a sudden movement, and the behavior started anew – this time directed towards the human. She also reacted with a similar response to the sounds of horses neighing and a pig oinking. While we are still evaluating what we are seeing and making changes to the behavior modification protocol I had already started, it appears that Miss Pippy may have more issues than we suspected.

What would have been a dream world to so many dogs (and people, for that matter) has the potential to be a scary place for Pippy. Peaceable Paws is located on an 80-acre campus with woods, horses, wildlife, and a lot of things that Pippy would never have experienced on the urban streets of Indianapolis. All of these are now novel to her and every one of them a potential source of anxiety.

Now, before anyone thinks that Pippy is a “bad” dog, I want to remind everyone of a few things. We have no idea what she experienced as a stray on the streets of Indianapolis or how she was raised. She does appear to very much like other dogs, but have inappropriate manners. In addition, her successes in only two days have been huge. Pippy has learned her name, learned to sit to ask for food, has stopped actively begging for food while I eat, is one of the best cuddle bugs I have ever encountered, has quit mouthing my hands in play, has not had an accident, has not damaged anything other than her own toys, and has made measurable improvements in only few short minutes in response to the behavior modification protocol we started today.

While disappointed to discover the new behavior problem, I am exceedingly happy that the behaviors came to light at this time and place where there are experts available to help us help Pippy. Pippy is a lovely girl who only needs some time and dedication to help her succeed. I took these pictures of the now exhausted little girl earlier today and only a few minutes ago.