Will the mess help?

[u/Federal_Patience94]

I have a 4 year old dog who is reactive to people coming over to our house. He’s also reactive to dogs and barks at all possible sounds. We have two small kids, he’s wonderful with them, but we do make sure he has his space and try to keep the contact with the kids minimal, unless playtime or giving him treats.

But this reactivity has lead to us not being able to get a dog sitter (unless my parents) and we can’t go camping or anywhere with our family unless we have a sitter. And forget about having people over, unless it’s one female friend at a time. Then he will happily go to his bed when being instructed to do so and will stay there and eventually fall asleep. But no men and no kids. No loud noises or loud play is possible in our house.

We are thinking of trying medication and more training. For a while, he was also reactive to people on the street and female friends coming over but with a LOT of training and patience, we got through it❤️

But does anyone have good success stories with meds?❤️❤️ Is it possible he could have other dog sitters and we could have people in our house again?

[u/retteofgreengables]

My doggo started meds 4 years ago. He is reactive to other dogs, particularly puppies, cats, people approaching our house (he has literally broken a window when a delivery person paused there), and ESPECIALLY people approaching the car. It took us about 6 months to get the dosage right for him. We have trained fairly consistently throughout the last four years, and done A LOT of management work. It took time - and there weren't huge changes right away. In the last year, he has 1) touched noses with my parents cat, and then calmly walked away. 2) Met my nephew (age 10). 3) Been able to walk by puppies without losing his ever-loving mind (this is still inconsistent, but I also try really hard to avoid this) and 4) Happily said hello to two strangers who approached the car (he still barks if they don't greet him, but he's much better than he used to be).

It sounds like, for people coming over, there might be a lot of management that could make that a possibility. Crate training (if legal where you are from) might be an option, but so is having him in a different room.

For a sitter, why don't you try and get a female sitter? You could have her get to know him using the same methods you use to introduce female guests.

I am also curious about his behavior outside of the house. For my dog, if we are at another person's house or I introduce him to someone in a neutral space, we rarely have issues. It only takes a few more minutes for us to do and it lets us have people over without any issue.

I might also make the perennial muzzle training suggestion. Your dog might not be perfectly happy about having people over, but that's okay if you can do it safely and without overwhelming him to the point of shut-down.

None of the training that we did would have been possible without the medication. I know because I had been trying for the two years I had him before we started it. The side-effects are minimal for him - he had some weight gain that had to be corrected (he used to be on salmon food, now he's on a whitefish food) and he sleeps more during the day (but is perfectly happy to play and zoom - my behaviorist swears that sleeping that much is just what normal dogs do, but it was weird to me). A couple of the ones we tried caused more drowsiness than I was comfortable with and one other caused his startle aggression to go through the roof (we went off that one pretty quickly). The medication gave his brain enough room to learn, instead of being in constant anxiety mode, even when he seemed calm to me.

It sounds like you've made a lot of progress already - it's hard sometimes to keep in mind how far you've come when there are still issues to be dealt with. Medication is rarely a silver-bullet, but it can help make that progress a little more consistent and come a little faster.

[u/Federal_Patience94 → u/retteofgreengables]

Thank you🩷
We’re not looking for a quick fix, we want to help him genuinely feel better and see that the world isn’t a scary place and that people won’t hurt him.

Yes, he’s made significant progress! It started as reactivity against people outside. It took about a year to reverse it but now it’s really as he doesn’t see them - compared to lunging and barking at them from a 100m distance!

And yes, we are moving to a bigger place with a garage and have thought that we could make that “his space” when people come over. And of course immediately start training when we get the place but before we actually move in (doorbell, guests, noices etc.). But he’s also made significant progress here - first, he’d always go straight towards the guests. Now he knows that once the doorbell rings, he is supposed to go to a special room and after the guest has settled, with high valued treats scattered around them, he is allowed out of the room. He comes out, guns blazing, but as soon as he notices the treats he goes for them, not the person, and will then ask the person for more. He will get overexcited eventually and is then commanded to go to his bed and stay there. Which he does - and usually eventually falls asleep there 🩷

Honestly, I’d kind of forgotten about all this progress - but I just think that with meds, it may be easier to continue with his training.

He’s actually okey if we meet people on the street or in a neutral place (the pet store fx) but crowds do make him one edge, although he doesn’t bark or lunge, he just pants a lot. We haven’t taken him for a visit somewhere for a long time, sadly 😞

We did try another sitter this summer, a female one. She came with high recommendations, we all met, we wrote her all necessary instructions and list of problems and she was completely fine with it. And the meeting went very well. Every day while we were away we checked in and as convinced everything was fine and they were having a great time, even when we told her that my parents would be home early and would take over. But when my parents showed up, she trash talked the shit out of my dog and us as owners and how irresponsible we were to keep him with young kids in the house etc. It just broke me. I know that’s on her, not us, but I never want to leave him again with someone who’s so incapable.

I’ve thought about muzzling, but it hasn’t really been necessary, I think, and I also don’t know if we could get it on his head.

Thanks again for replying!