FINALLY making progress

belongtojazz

Well I have mentioned my Springer on here a few times but for those who don't know about him, he is an 8 ys old pure bred guy who I aqquired about 18 months ago. He spent the first 6.5 years of his life locked up as he was "hardwork", he had to scanvenge for his food and was all in all a bit of a mess.

Tonight I had 2 realisations that we are still making progress.
He has always been an absolute nightmare on the lead, and as he's a big springer (currently 27kg but is on a diet) he was horrible to walk. Over the past 2 months I have taken to walking him on his own and now so long as he has his halti on and I walk incredibly fast he is brilliant He does try every now and then to get the halti off but he stops when I tell him to, he also waits while i'm cleaning up his poo and at kerbs. We had a great walk tonight, met loads of other dogs and he was a dream.

The real breakthrough though was this evening while I was sitting on the couch eating a rice pudding HE DIDN'T BEG!!!!!!! This guy is completely and totally food obsessed, he followed me into the kitchen, watched me heat up the food, followed me back to the living room, then took himself off to his bed

This might not sound like much but these have been big issues wih this guy and it is so nice to see my hard work finally pay off.

To everyone out there with "difficult" dogs who worry that progress is slow, keep going it is such a good feeling when you realise you're getting there

LucyBliss

That's fantastic. I'm so delighted for you and for him. It really is a great feeling when you realise you haven't been banging your head off a brick wall and that they were paying attention on some level!

I hope this is the start of many more positive happenings for him and can I say, fair play to you for taking in a dog who needed extra attention and work and sticking with it. He's obviously in a good home and I'm sure he realises it...even if you won't share your rice pudding with him. ;-)

littlebug

It could have been me writing that post except my dog is only "about" 2 and I've had her 3.5 months. It's only in the past 2 weeks that I've noticed the changes and am seeing the benefits of my hard work (yes "my hard work- the rest of the family get all the cuddles but for some reason the rest of it is left to me :rolleyes:). Walks are great (thanks to dogmatic:)), little to no reaction to cars, dog agression has turned to curiosity and tolerance (not quite at the liking stage yet), jumping is much reduced and nipping is rare. We still have some issues but it's great to see progress and I think within another 3 months we'll be well on the way.
I would echo what you're saying to anyone in those difficult early days, persistence and perseverence and you'll get there.

belongtojazz

littlebug wrote: »

"my hard work- the rest of the family get all the cuddles but for some reason the rest of it is left to me :rolleyes:)there.

Haha exactly like my house, I get in from work to my Dad and daughter watching telly..... And the dogs needing a walk :rolleyes:

I then get given out to that the dogs are loud and dinners late