Some of the dogs we have helped:

We noticed our GSP Bea was suspicious of people from when she was a only a puppy. As she grew up she started confronting strangers with a deep scary bark. Her behaviour caused me concern, and I had to stop taking her places. After some 121 sessions we realised that she was fearful and we were taught how to read her body language. When she saw an unfamiliar person in the distance, Bea would hesitate and stare - this was our cue to stop and not let the distance lessen. We kept hearing "distance is your friend!" and it really helped. Sometimes this would mean walking away a bit, and then letting her look again. We played the Engage-Disengage game a lot and we understood that if she could eat treats she was ok (under threshhold), but if she couldn't eat then we needed to make the distance greater. She gradually started associating strangers with a tasty treat and while she was snuffling about to retrieve the treat, she seemed less stary and tense. There is still more to do, she definitely wouldn't be comfortable if a stranger tried to stroke her. She currently wears a harness saying "Nervous Dog" which helps me intercept people who are coming into her space.

Our adolescent rescue Shiba Inu dog Terri started growling at us when we tried to retrieve bits of tissue paper from her mouth. She even bit my partner once. Thankfully we sought 121 help and got some strategies to be going on with. The number one tip we learned was "avoid conflict" - we had been trying to correct her and teach her to Drop, not realising that when she was holding something she perceived as "treasure", she was stressed. She had become more and more defensive without us realising. The trainer explained what resource guarding was, or "possession aggression". We learned to read her body language - she was a relaxed happy dog 99% of the time, but when she had tissue she slunk away to a corner and looked at us out of the corner of her eye. We started to become much tidier so Terri never had access to the bins or any place she could find a piece of tissue paper. We played the "Drop" game but gave it a new cue "give" (as Drop had a negative association). Everytime we said "Give" we dropped some little pieces of dried venison (these were labelled high value treats) on the floor for her to go and find and eat. We gradually progressed to saying "give" when she was holding a toy (that she was not that bothered about) and continuing to sprinkle treats down. We started to see that Terri enjoyed this game and opened her mouth willingly to let go of things. We then tested it with scrunched up scrap paper, that she liked a lot more (but not as much as tissue) and she still gave it up to go and find the treats.

We have been told that if she does find some tissue in the meantime and adopts the slinking off, grumpy pose we are to ignore her, or if it's nearly walk time, go to the door and pick up the lead (she then changes back to happy and drops the tissue to come for a walk). In time, she will probably give up the tissue for venison, but we are taking it slowly. We don't want to undo all the good results we have had so far...... watch this space!