Josie...The Dog I Thought Couldn't Be Trained
It’s hard to believe but Josie is nearly 3 and in the past two and a half years we’ve certainly had our ups and downs with her. There were times where I felt we were too out of our depth and couldn’t give her what she needed to be a good dog and that’s when we decided to work with a one on one dog trainer. Since that point, it’s completely changed our relationship with her and not only does she seem happier but so are we. I thought in today’s post I’d share what it’s like to have a dog who is difficult to train and how it’s made us love Josie even more than we thought possible.
we weren’t prepared for her needs
Often when you see sighthounds up for adoption there is usually a request that you’ve had experience with the breed and now I completely understand why. I’d had a dog before, my families West Highland Terrier and whilst I knew Josie would be completely different I wasn’t prepared for just how different she is and what she required from us. I thought I’d done my research well before we went to go and see her as a pup, the only problem was is that I’d done the wrong type of research. I’d got so scared by what I read online and the types of training I read about weren’t suitable for a sighthound at all. So many people believe the breed are impossible to train and whilst we found Josie difficult, she isn’t impossible by any means it’s just about what finding what works for her which might not always be the most obvious option but the answer is out there. She was such a bouncy pup and I’m truly not sure we could have ever met all her needs being first time sighthound owners but there is so much I would do differently now. The biggest being recall which should have been one of our biggest priorities from day one but reading different sighthound forums truly made me believe we’d never be able to have her off lead but that’s not true especially when you have a hound from a puppy.
the things that we found difficult
Any puppy is difficult in some respect that’s to be expected because they’re puppies and their bodies and minds are constantly growing and changing. I thought I somewhat knew what I was doing but I had no idea when it came to Josie in so many ways and I think that happens to a lot of first time dog owners. In the house, she was a brilliant little pup and got her toilet training down so quickly and didn’t chew any of our belongingss like we thought she might but where our problems manifested were on walks. She wanted to go over to every dog she saw, she was desperate to play and run with everything she saw and some dog owners loved letting her have play but there are plenty of dogs that don’t want to be around other dogs which we completely respect but Josie didn’t understand that. She would get frustrated, yank at her lead and try and chew it and trying to lead her up to other dogs was a complete nightmare. Not only did we have an issue with her running full speed to other dogs, no matter how far away they were we also had problems with her around cyclists, runners and deer. Josie is a true sighthound and is extremely stimulated by things that are moving at speed, and in a world that moves at speed you can probably understand why we struggled so much but now we know it is possible to train her, we just needed a different approach.
feeling like I’d failed her
After Josie was repeatedly kicked by another dog owner I truly felt like I’d failed her, I’d been unable to get her to come back to me because someone else had scared her and I never wanted to be in that position again. So, off we went to traditional dog training class, after being told to give up half way through because I loved my dog too much that I wasn’t willing to use forceful methods of training it was probably one of the lowest points of dog ownership. Feeling like you cannot give your dog what they need is awful, and I’m sure if you’ve got a dog that’s been challenging to train you can probably relate to this. I needed assistance giving Josie the tools that she needed to thrive instead of setting herself up for failure which is something we had been doing. These are the things that we no longer do;
Walk with a lot of other dogs, especially overly playful dogs.
Allow other dog owners to give Josie treats.
Put Josie in situations that are overly stimulating.
Walk on open fields.
Leave Josie off lead in certain areas of woodland where she has chased something before.
Walk in patchy woodland.
our new approach to training
When we worked with a personal dog trainer (I wrote an entire post on our experience) for Josie we left the session feeling completely different. The training methods he suggested weren’t revolutionary by any means, but our biggest take away was that we had to learn how manage Josie’s behaviour rather than trying to train out her sighthound instinct. Something else we learnt about was her body language and we’d been reading her body language completely wrong, we now know that she’s nowhere near as confident as we once thought and she’s quite an anxious dog but not in the ways you might typically think a dog can be anxious. Now we pay a lot of attention to her body language and we’ve got good at understanding when she’s not comfortable in a situation or when she might disappear and that has helped us progress a lot. As well as being more in tune with Josie we've also worked on how we train her, we only use positive reinforcement through our body language, tone of voice as well as high value treats. There was a long period where I used to be pretty stressed walking Josie, and she could sense that and I don’t know about you and your dogs but both Josie and Edie are very sensitive to what mood I’m in. So now it doesn’t matter how annoyed I might be that they’ve covered themselves in fox poo or ran off into the thick of the forest for a few minutes I try as hard as I can to be in the best mood I can be.
josie now
This time last year I felt very deflated with Josie, whilst she had made progress with some things I still didn’t feel like I had a dog I could trust as much as I'd have liked and walks could still be seriously stressful. I’m so pleased to say that a year later I have a dog I’m proud of and one I can trust so much more, is she perfect? Absolutely not, and nor will she ever be because she’s a dog. Walks are no longer so much of a stressful experience and we can all enjoy being out, we’ve been able to have her off lead in places I never imagined possible. However, we’re really aware of the situations we know Josie cannot handle very well and use a mixture of being on lead and distraction, we’re trying to lessen lead use where we can but sometimes it’s the only option as we’re very against putting her in a situation where we know her instinct will override our training. Having a dog who is independant and strong willed to lean into all her natural sighthound instincts is something we found quite isolating. Other owners can be judgmental about dogs doing things that they deem undesirable (behaving like an animal) but there is no such thing as a perfect dog owner. Something I had to stop myself doing was reading sighthound forums or recall posts where others would mock others if their dogs were stimulated by things that their dogs aren’t. Not only did it make me feel like I was failing my dog but I wasn’t learning anything either by consuming those type of posts so now I try to stick to positive places on the internet where people share what works for them without judgement or harsh training methods.
Whilst we have made unbelievable progress with Josie there are still some things we have to work on as dog training is something you do for life with a dog bred to hunt (in my experience). At the moment we’re trying to find an activity that we can do one on one with her so she can get that time with just us as well as giving her more mental stimulation so we think agility might be something she’d like as well as taking her on more runs when the weather warms up a little. Even though there are so many occasions I’ve cried from pure stress from walking with Josie I cannot imagine life without her, she’s my first dog as an adult and she’s truly special. She's taught me an incredible amount in her short little life and I know it's made me a much better and more tolerant dog owner.
