Training set back any advice gratefully received! long sorry

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emmaln

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Hi there,

Well what a pain! My 9 month old Ridgy puppy has been so so brilliant and can do all the usual sit, wait, stay, come, heel and is the perfect puppy in the house to boot! We had started spot training her at the yard- she has a spot where she sits outside the field and in the stable yard if asked she will return to the spot or wait on the spot this way i can get her to wait outside of the field whilst i put my 3yr old (who would love to play mm) in her pen then she is allowed in the field whilst i poo pick etc. anyways it has been going so well and her and my TB ex racer have a fab relationship (they mostly ignore each other but show each other respect!)

Unfortunately yesterday she got a nasty shock from the electric fencing (which often doesn't work, think yard owner has tried turning it up so it works better or something?) She ran all the way back to the car screaming her head off! Walked her back to the field on the lead calmly and she seemed fine (she has had a little shock before which didn't bother her at all.)

Anyways took her home and she was so clingy all day was sick twice (having said that not sure if it was related she was sick during the night before as well oh joy of joys!) Slept well over night and seemed fine this morning, took her to the yard and she was quite happily pootling about whilst i mucked out then i took her up to my friends field (no electric fencing on the field) so that i could check on her horses and half way she turned on her heels and ran back to the car!
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Put her on the lead and calmly walked her up to my field she was ok but not happy then when Toffs came oveer to say hello and have her morning sniff puppy started shaking and hiding her head behind my legs!

So frustrated now as i know that all the hard work we put in will have to be done again slowly! Ridgies are quite sensitive dogs and have a long memory, just really hope with little and often trips to the girlies we can get over this hurdle!!!

Sorry that was so long i have verbal diarhea (and can't spell that word)
 
thats such a shame! puppies are hard enough to train in the first place, little set backs like this just make it feel like ARGH!!!

maybe, go back to stage one of treat training (so when walking up to the field (with no leccy fencing) give treats as you go so she is focussed more on you rahter than where she is etc. At first keep her on the lead (and ocntinuing with treats) so she learns again that its ok, and actually quite a nice expereience going to see the horses.

Normally you get told to ignore the silly scared behaviour. I would try this for a little bit....... then see if she improves (and obv lots of rewards when she gets confident enough to come out and say hello again)
and gradually increase no lead

sorry its back to square one! but.......
 
What a shame. As LN says try giving her little treats wjen she is confident and happy and ignore the scared behaviour. It must have hurt her bless her and she hadn't done anything wrong!
We have a Freedo, Fence and my ridgeback only "felt" iy once nad never even had to wear the collar again. She is now 10 years old!!
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We've had a similar experience about three, four weeks ago and we're not over it yet. I was standing beside a field of horses and sadly one of my leashes was just a tiny millimeter to long, so when one of the girls carefully stretched out her head to just sniff a little closer in the air, her wet nose made contact with the thin metal wire in the electric fence. When I think of it, I still feel very bad over that I let it happen, I know it was just an accident and that I thought the leash was short enough but still, I feel very guilty. And the nose, we all know that wet/moist things are not a good combination with electricity.

And she didn't see the metal wire, she only saw that a bit away but still the only thing in front of her was a horse, when something attacked/bit her. Horses riding past our house is no problem but out on walks some horses are just out to get her.
Basically what I have done is walk past horses in fields just dragging her along pretending as if I don't notice that she doesn't want to walk past, I've sat down and made her sit next to me watching horses in fields and not continued walking until she relaxed a little/accepted that we was going to sit there within, according to her, the horses magic attack reach and if she walks at my side ignoring any horses in the fields we're passing there might be a treat or two coming her way.

So we're working on it but she has certainly not forgotten yet.



I think there's a big difference in if they see something that they put the blame on, maybe 10 years ago, when my mother was holding the leash to one of my late dogs, that dog managed to touch an electric fence wire but when she screamed and stared wildly around her to try and spot the culprit, she only saw us and the two other dogs (and of course the road, grass and trees) so she never saw anything to blame for what happened and forgot about it.
But f.ex. I've heard about a Pumi (a Hungarian herding breed) that worked as a sheepdog, one day it ran into an electric fence while having the sheeps in sight and after that day it had to be retired because it refused to go near a sheep again.



Good luck with your dog and if that thought crosses your mind, don't feel bad over forcing her to face her fear, learn to ignore it. You own both horses and a dog and it will make her life as a dog with you much funnier in the long run, if she can continue to be with you around the horses.

PS. Please, could you re-size your siggy to a little bit smaller? Your text disappears beyond the right side of my screen and I have to scroll sideways to read.
 
All good tips thank you she seems fine with other horses or horses on the yard should i say it's just mine! Gave her the day off yesterday and didn't take her up the field as usual just on the yard where she behaved impeccably as usual (lots of horses around) So will get her going up the field again today and see how we go!

p.s. sorry will try to make siggy smaller
 
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