I was working with a little terrier the other day and have been thinking about him a lot. He cannot tolerate having a lead attached to his collar or having a harness on. I started working with his carer using a long dressage schooling stick (wand) and a clicker to introduce contact in a non-threatening way. At first it appeared that he did not have a very good sense of smell as he could not locate the small pieces of sausage that we were using. At one point he even trod on the treat whilst sniffing the ground. A terrier without a brain or a nose? Surely not. We worked for a few minutes and gave him breaks within that first, short session and then he went back to his kennels for a complete break. In the second session, he was a completely different dog. His tail was wagging, he had made the connection with the click and the treat and he found every treat I was dropping on the floor immediately. He could accept contact all over his body with the wand and also with a different texture as we wrapped a body wrap around the end of the wand to continue with the session (which he had not been able to tolerate in the first session). Of course he did have a brain and a nose afterall! He was amazing. He had been shut down in both the brain and the body during the first session. As awareness increased we noted in the second session that his skin twitched when he was touched on the left side of his lumbar area. It was then apparent that he was actually quite unstable on his left hind leg so this was noted by his carer and further monitoring/vet investigation will follow. TTouch and clicker training are such useful tools for many reasons, and working in small sessions can be an excellent, safe, and rewarding way of unpeeling the layers so that appropriate management can be put in place as our understanding of the potential underlying triggers for behaviour is increased. More importantly perhaps, it was another really clear example of how much change/learning can occur during breaks. He was an absolute star and I look forward to following his progress.
Posted on: Tue, 04 Jun 2013 08:29:21 +0000
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