Yesterday we posted a lengthy account from our first foster’s forever-mama about Lily’s tough transition from our foster home to their forever-home. Our hope was that Jen’s very honest story would help others feel less alone — that transitions can be rocky and outcomes can still be good in the end. Some patience, love, and work with a dog who doesn’t understand what is expected can come a long way.

Below is the second half of Jen’s story, about teaching Lily how to relax around other dogs when out and about. Many dog people struggle with this issue — where their dog is too nervous or too excited to act cool when other dogs are around. Jen used a creative strategy to countercondition Lily to other dogs’ existence — she brilliantly took advantage of a dog park fence line to provide a steady supply of unfamiliar dogs at a controlled distance, so that she could work with Lily and not worry about the other animals at all. Read on for more:

To work on her excitement about dogs outside the house, I took her to the dog park. But no, not in the way that you’re thinking!

First we sat in the car a distance from the dog park. When we saw a dog — JACKPOT! Begin the string cheese stuffing in the slobbery dog’s mouth! We’d spend about 30 minutes each visit, eventually getting closer and closer to the actual park, WHILE SITTING IN THE CAR!! This was fantastic fun on beautiful spring days, jackpotting all the way.  Soon we were ready to get OUT of the car…. (I was no longer the weird girl stalking dogs at the park…) We would sit about 30 feet away from the fence and I would give her a bunch of treats for LOOKING at the dogs and not barking….after she calmed a bit we would practice some basic obedience commands that she could do easily.  Again, we would get closer and closer to the fence, jackpotting for looking at the dogs and remaining calm…after a few visits, we WALKED UP TO THE FENCE!!! I’m not going to lie, I was stressed, and of course a feisty little chihuaha came right up, barked at us and set us back a bit . . . but eventually Lily got to where she could sniff through the fence at the dogs IN the park.  I was kind of feeling like the local predator at the playground, lurking and peering in at the dog park dogs, since we never went into the dog park, but it was a great place to practice her tolerance around other dogs.

During this period, I would use the “turn around” technique while walking her. If we saw another dog, we’d just turn around to avoid any overexcitement. As we got closer to the fence at the dog park, we progressed on her walks. When other dogs came our way, I would have Lily sit and just feed her a constant stream of treats, while the dog went by. It forced her to focus on me, and she got something good for sitting and ignoring them.

Like many dogs, Lily didn’t great well nose-to-nose on leash, and I had no idea at the time how stressful this could be for dogs. I did a little research, and learned that some dogs just can’t sit while other dogs are going by, because sitting still is too stressful in social situations. Luckily Lily is food motivated enough that all her concentration was on the string cheese. It was at this point we suspected a bit of lactose intolerance on her part — No wonder Chick remembers her as “farty pants!”

When she seemed to be doing better we went on a parallel walk with our little friend Kipper. Kipper is a super feisty, high energy, Jack Russell/weiner dog mix. It went well! Lily no longer viewed Kipper as a snack. They began to play, and then slowly Lily started welcoming other dogs.

Back in December, we took Lily for her “Santa” picture, an annual fundraiser for the Montgomery County Humane Society. Lily slobbered like a maniac all over her old friend from the shelter, Santa Dave, and we were lucky enough to meet Juliana, foster mom to another MCHS dog, Baxter. We arranged a walking “date” to work on both dog’s issues and from there our dog hiking club, “Pittie Trails,” was born! 

photo courtesy Peace, Love, & Fostering

To help some of her still existent pulling-on-the-leash issues, we attended a drop in “leash manners” session recently. We spent some intensive time with a most wonderful trainer who gave some more great tips for walking — the ever frustrating but effective “stop and go no further when pulling,” and then the call her attention and go in a different direction when she is pulling. I learned to treat her for good walking and to reward her by letting her sniff things she wanted to “fire hydrants, random dog poo etc”….But best of all, Francine (of Francine’s Fun Walks,) emphasized that there are “training walks” and there are “exercise walks.” Essentially, it’s okay to put the gentle leader (the horrible looking head collar that she walks WONDERFULLY ON — thanks for the tip, Running with Squirrels) and take some time off of leash training and just walk! We’ve made a lot of progress by finally buckling down and doing the “no further progress” walks and I’m back to reeking of hot dogs, but we’re doing well!

I’m not by any means, saying any of this was easy.  Lily is a 60 pound hunk of muscular love. While we were working on the dog reactivity issues, we (sigh) haven’t worked on her people greeting manners.  She thinks that all people on the planet exist only to give her love and snuggles, and that every person wants her to jump up on them. I’m still a little embarrassed to have people come in the house still because she’s SO exuberant. I try to point out to people that isn’t it amazing that a dog that was tossed in a dumpster still LOVES people, but most people don’t see that, they simply see a spotted beast flying at them!

Through this work, I think we have curbed her desire to jump over our BRAND NEW 7 foot fence, which is a good thing, as I was going to have to bring some barbed wire home from work and coat the top of our fences . . . JUST KIDDING!!

Lily is a big huge, licking, stinking butt, monster commitment, but we adore her. And she has come a long way: Just last week she was attacked by a miniature schnauzer — yes, a 20 pound schnauzer attacked Lily on a run. The dog was off leash and came charging at us. I stopped running and panicked! Lily immediately sat down. The dog was baring her teeth, growling and then jumped on Lily. As this happened, I immediately saw headlines written all over this, if Lily reacted in any way to this off leash dog . . . The dog jumped all over Lily and she just sat there looking at me like an angel. After what seemed like forever, but was probably just a minute or two, the owner came flying out her door, yelling “OH MY GOSH! IS THAT A PIT BULL?!?!”  She came up to pull her schnauzer back, and as she did, the dog nipped her hand.  I suppressed a smile and said “yes, she is,” and led my well-behaved dog away.

We’re so excited to share this very personal, intimate story from our dear friend Jen, adopter of our very first foster, Lollie Wonderdog (now Lily). We try our best to portray each of our foster dogs in a fair and honest light, while highlighting the positives more than the negatives. It’s both how we naturally see our dogs, and a better way to find their forever-homes than focusing on their “areas of opportunity.”

In the case of Lollie Wonderdog, we did this too. The truth is, Lollie/Lily was always a wonderful dog. But, a lot of readers will understand what I mean when I say that she is a lot of dog. She has a big personality. She is full of passion, and as a result, she was somewhat reactive. Not aggressive, just excitable and explosive — reaction types that can, unfortunately, lead to the same result as aggression in some cases. In the coming weeks we’ll be exploring the concept of reactivity and dog communication — but for now, we want to share this account of Jen’s first weeks with Lily. We think this is so important because it’s a glimpse into how challenging a dog’s transition can be into a new home. Many families adopt a dog expecting the dog to fit seamlessly into their life right away — but that’s asking an awful lot of the dog, who has just lost everything familiar and been plopped into all new surroundings with new people and new rules. Some dogs take this in stride, while others have a harder time.

We realize now that our environment was great for dogs coming out of a shelter — our home is calm, we don’t have any kids running around, and our neighborhood is quiet with relatively little car and pedestrian traffic. It’s a great place to recuperate from a stressful journey. But on the flip side, it’s a fairly low-stimulation environment compared to the homes of many of our adopters — we learned this through hearing about Lily’s transition.

I commend Jen for sticking with Lily and working so hard to acclimate her to her new home, family, and neighborhood. And I thank Jen for typing up her experiences for us to share — she writes with great frankness. We hope that rather than discouraging folks from bringing home a dog who needs work, Jen’s tale will help folks who are in similar situations feel less alone. Please keep in mind that Lily’s transition into her new life was the most challenging of all of the eight dogs we’ve placed into homes. And you should also remember that despite her rocky start, Lily is now studying for the CGC, and is on track to become a “warrior companion” dog at the Bethesda Naval Medical Center.

Without further delay, here’s Part 1 of Jen’s story:

My heart broke when I read that Nutty Brown has been returned. It hit me right in the gut. All I could think of was that it could have been the same for Lily . . . She was so close to being an adoption return.

About 2 months after we adopted Lily, she nipped my son. She didn’t hurt him, but I freaked out. I frantically told Aleks: I couldn’t do it anymore. I needed to find another home for her. I was desperate and heartbroken.  Might Aleks take my kids and I keep Lily? I didn’t want to let her go, but I was worried about whether it might happen again?  My son, being a 10 year old boy with some impulsivity issues, wants to love her and squeeze her and hug her ALL the time! Try as I might, I was worried that I would turn my back and he might not follow the rules and stress Lily out. Lily had had a difficult time transitioning from quiet Foster Casa to the madness of two working parents and a herd of kids! It had been weeks of frantic barking throughout the house, barking through the night, running out the front door at any opportunity and setting off panicked “ there’s a loose pit bull in the neighborhood hysteria”, and lunging at other dogs on the leash.

I had fallen for Lily….Her big brown spots, her giant tongue, her white spotty tail…and I felt like I had failed her.  Lily’s transition from foster home to our home was a difficult one.  Unaccustomed to a loud street, she barked at all the cars going by ALL THE TIME.  We have huge floor to ceiling windows with views of the street with a non-stop dog walking parade past our house that she barked at ALL THE TIME…It was a nightmare! Lily would look out one window, bark and race from window to window, running through the house at top speed….She’d throw herself against the windows barking at dogs, birds and squirrels! Oh, the squirrels drove her nuts! And walking her was a nightmare, she would bark and lunge at other dogs, nearly rip the leash out of my hand going after squirrels…I came to dread walking her and tried to do it early in the morning or late at night to avoid the madness….

The day she told Isaiah to back off, it all came to a head. Aleks and I traded many frantic emails that day. I just couldn’t pick up the phone and say that I couldn’t handle this dog, that I was ready to give up… All I could think was “where would she go?” If she went back to the shelter, surely she’d be overlooked. I realized in talking to Aleks, that the problem wasn’t Lily, it was her humans! I either needed to recommit to taking care of her, or hope for a better home for her. As a huge, muscular pit mix, we realized her chances for a good home were slim. We decided to start to really work on things . . . 

First, we had to change her environment. We bought some “frosted” film to put over the lower parts of the windows so Lily couldn’t see out. An amazing barking reduction! After all, she can’t bark at what she can’t see, right? A trainer explained it this way: Lily thinks her barking is scaring off the dogs.  She follows them from window to window barking and eventually she “scared” them away (when really they went walking down the street). After we covered the windows, we started some serious retraining to reduce the barking at other dogs.  Whenever I saw a dog walking by, I opened the front door and sat with Lily watching the dogs go by through the storm door.  When the dog came into view, I “jackpotted” Lily.

Essentially, from the second the dog came in our view, I fed her a constant stream of “super” treats. For Lily, this was pieces of chicken, string cheese, hot dogs — the good stuff. If her mouth was full, she couldn’t bark.  The second the dog went out of view, the treats stopped, we closed the door and went on our business.  On the weekends, I could do this 7 or 8 times a day, maybe more. I was great fun to be around! Weekends would find me ripping the front door open, ignoring the neighbor walking by and frantically stuffing hot dogs in Lily’s mouth. I smelled fantastic!

Pretty soon, Lily was anticipating treats instead of getting upset when dogs walked by the house, and our frantic window barking was fading away. Then it was time to work on seeing and meeting dogs out in the neighborhood . . . “

. . . to be continued