Sooooo…. this episode is a long one, but in my humble opinion it is worth a listen. Though we talk about Atlas’ story, for the bigger part of the episode the talk is about acceptance and personal growth.
Leana fell in love with the gorgeous black pup with the recently operated on, crushed, leg being fostered by her brother. That leg caused him to be on house rest for half (!) of the first two years of his life. During that time he slowly transformed from a mr. Wigglebutts to a fearful dog- and human reactive pup.
Three surgeries on Atlas’ leg allowed him to keep the leg, but forced him to be on house rest for half of his first two years of life.
Working with an arsenal of trainers, trying out a bunch of different types of anxiety medication, and finally at least a year and a half worth of work with a vet behaviorist brought no relief. And so a different type of journey started, one of acceptance and of “it is what it is”, and that is what this episode is really about.
We talk about the public perception that all dogs “should” somehow be lovely, cuddly, non-barking, non-biting living cuddly toys; about embracing the “and” and not the “or” in all aspects of life including life with our dogs, which can be amazing and hard at the same time.
Then there is what the feeling of being judged does to us. Also, you will hear a bit of my own story with Rusty as we ponder the question what life would have been like for our dogs had they grown up with someone else.
Finally, we sing the praises of another podcast: Paws and Reward
Meet Bodhi, who is aptly named as his name means “enlightenment”.
On this episode I talk to Elissa Chasen about life with her leash reactive dog Bodhi.
We talk about the concept of “socialisation” and how we’re still not clear on it but that we’ve found out the hard way that it does not mean “meet every dog”. We discuss the differences we see in our dogs when we move them out of the trigger-rich city environment.
Elissa mentions how she regrets not having filmed Bodhi’s reactions at first so she would have been able to better see his improvements. In that light, we consider how we are our own worst critics and how we are each trying to embrace the “We did the best we could at the time”-adage. Finally Elissa tells us how her life has changed since getting Bodhi.
Elissa and Bodhi braved the ridiculously low Wisconsin temperatures for a brief moment to snap this image of the two of them…
…though the weather lent itself more to doing this 😉
In the first episode of Ruff Around The Edges I talk to Kate Oates about her Australian Shepherd Vader.
It seems only right she be the first to be featured on the show as she inspired the name.
We talk about all the small things that in combination led to his reactivity, and about the the stress she felt when she got a warning from the municipality threatening her with a $2000 fine if Vader wouldn’t stop barking.
We discuss how we each deal with “my dog is friendly” people and what feelings these people invoke, how she got around to telling people “my dog bites” in order to keep them at bay, and what finally led her to not only try force free training but to become a force free trainer herself.
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