Ever since Kaiju got rejected from the nosework class, I have been obsessively reading online about fearful dogs, trying to find any signs that Kaiju is “not so bad” and that medication is not really necessary. We’ve been struggling with Kaiju’s fear issues throughout the recovery periods after the injuries/surgeries but we always hoped that this was a temporary aftermath, and that as soon as he resumed training in various obedience classes, started exercising more, and felt less and less pain in his legs, he would show noticeable improvements towards becoming a happy active dog. However, in the nosework class, watching other dogs easily and happily perform the tasks, then seeing Kaiju unable to take even one step forward towards the boxes, and being advised to medicate him by the trainer, totally bursted our little wishful-thinking bubbles.

That’s how I found fearfuldogs.com. I bookmarked it and went back to it several times because it seemed to offer relevant suggestions and perspectives for Kaiju. You find a lot of tips on mildly fearful dogs online. Most of those involve treats that help dogs make positive associations with frightening objects. Kaiju, however, snobs treats in a most of those situations. He shuts down and refuses to even glance at a high-value treat right in front of his nose. This site, and the Yahoo mailing list called “shy-k9s” are the only two places I found that discussed severely anxious dog.

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For the labor-day weekend, we drove for a couple of hours to this beautiful lake in NH. There, we met up with 4 friends and rented 3 canoes. We loaded all our stuff and paddled away for about an hour to a peninsula on the lake where we were to camp.

Kaiju was very nervous on the canoe and tried to lean out and possibly go into the water several times at the beginning. Since he had been familiarized with water at Flowdog for the past month, he may have figured that it would be better to be in the water than in this strange thing called canoe. Thankfully, the life vest had a handle on the back which we pulled back to keep him in place. He eventually settled down to a very strange position. You can see it in the previous post. He kept his one front leg dangling out and dragging in water. Sometimes, he would stick his nose in the water.

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Since Kaiju is still not allowed to do a lot of physical activities but we are eager to resume his training which got interrupted by the injuries back in March (right after Puppy Kindergarten), we signed him up for a nosework class. The class was suggested to us by Kaiju’s Kintergarten trainer, Melissa. She told us that it often increased confidence in shy dogs. We had been looking forward to it for about a month.

omg, boxes and people... what are they doing to me??

Today was the first session. This is what happens in the class. Many small, cardboard boxes are placed on the floor. One of them contains some yummy treats. Dogs are brought into the room one by one, led by their owners. They go around the room and find the box with the treats. Simple enough, right? Every dog cleared this task. Some quickly, some with more difficulties. But all of them were happy when they found the treats, wagged their tails, and followed their owners around. Then Kaiju’s turn came. Paul led Kaiju out from his waiting area to the main room. Kaiju stood in one place and refused to move forward. He was too scared of those unknown objects on the floor. He wanted nothing to do with them. No treats we prepared for the class got him to move.

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An interesting little tidbit that we never got around to posting, but Kaiju in fact, has a song… and its a classic too! Not just one time, but BOTH times we took him back from the hospital after his surgeries… this song was on the radio… and it perfectly sums up those emotions.

Coincidence? I think not!

Kaiju is about 10 months old. This means he’s fully in his adolescence, the rebellious phase of testing and pushing the boundaries.

Case in point. He’s grown a mohawk. It appeared about a week ago, and does not seem to be going away with brushing. Geez. What’s next? Tattoos? A fake ID?

Yesterday was a big day. I went up and down the stairs for the first time since Feb. 28th!

For all those 6 months, my people carried me up and down the 7 steps of stairs to go outside for walkies. I was small when it started, but I’ve grown 9 pounds since then. They often complained that I was getting heavy, laughed, and gave me kisses.

Chris, the physical therapist, told us yesterday that we could now try the stairs as long as I went slow. My people were sooooo psyched!

I know I’m a bit rusty, but I’ll get better at this soon (and will try to go super fast when they are not looking!)

Kaiju will have his 2nd Flowdog session on Monday.

His first session was on the 5th of August. We were so nervous as to how he would react, to the therapist Chris, or to having to go into an unfamiliar building, being touched, and most important of all, the swimming pool…

Good thing we brought his favorite blue towel (and a rope toy). He let us walk him around in the lobby while waiting, but would go straight back to the home base to sit on afterward.

We had alerted Chris, the therapist, of Kaiju’s shyness via email ahead of time, so she approached him accordingly. When the session began, she ignored him completely for the first 20 minutes or so, and Kaiju hid behind the chairs.

Eventually, we got him out of there, laid him down on his towel, and went through some lessons of manual stretching. All those things we learned, we’d have to do at home every day for the next few weeks.

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They bought this thing called Wii Fit and they were having so much fun setting it up.

can someone teach me?

Kaiju has earned the following two new nicknames in the past month.

   druggy

Snappy McGrowly: The night after his knee surgery on July 9, he had come home and was quietly resting in his crate.  Before we went to bed, we wanted to take him out to pee. We tried to lure him out of the crate with commands and treats. This usually works fine, but that night, the drugged out pup would only raise his eyebrows to look at us, and would not even sit up.

We needed to take him out regardless to make sure he wouldn’t have an accident in the crate overnight. So we put our arms in the crate and tried to carry him out. We had done this many times when he was little, so we didn’t think too much of it…..  well, until Kaiju suddenly raised his head, snapped at the hands that were attempting to lift him, and let out some serious growls.  We were totally stunned. He is normally a very quiet and gentle dog. He does not mind being held, either. We realized then how scared and in pain he was.  We tried not to react, and went ahead to pick him up anyway. Fortunately, once he was held, he was okay. We carried him out to his “spot”. He did his business, got carried back into the crate, and fell asleep again.

Kaiju has not repeated the behavior since that one time, so that’s a relief. But, the thing is, when you receive such an unfriendly response from a cute and cuddly animal that you’ve been close to, the feeling of betrayal kinda shakes you and sticks with you…  After we recovered from the initial shock, though, we gave him this nickname. It helps us make light of the incident and move on, I think. Nowadays, we give Kaiju belly rubs, and say “Remember the time you growled at us, Mr. Snappy McGrowly? You were so scared… You’re gonna be okay, though, because you’re such a good boy!”

   don't call me p-boy!!

P-boy:  It seems that Kaiju’s skittishness has hit new high (or low?).

This past weekend, we needed to get some dog food, so we took Kaiju with us for the ride. He loves short car rides, and we try to take every opportunity to get him out of the house so he can see and smell outside things from the safety of the car booster seat.

When we arrived at the store, we carried him in because he was still not allowed to do much more than potty-break walks. Unfortunately, the setting for the entrance was bad (for him). You walk in and the first thing you see and hear is a laundry dryer going at a full speed. The place is called LaundroMutt. Aside from the nice little shop, it is mostly a self-service dog washing place, so it’s very lively and noisy.

As Paul stepped in and through the washing area towards the shop, Kaiju started peeing in his arms. He did not make any noise. He did not even squirm, so it took us a while to notice the situation. When we did notice, he had already made a wet trail on the floor.

Paul walked right back and out the door immediately, and I took the paper towel and spray to clean up the floor. Ugh. Did he think we’d put him in the dryer?  Or was he afraid for all those dogs in the big sinks being scrubbed by their owners? It was quite distressing. This nickname will help us get over it, too, I hope.