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Help me with my dog please

7 replies

JustMe1990 · 09/11/2014 13:50

Hello, I have a very lovely 2 year old dog with some small but really annoying habits..

The first one is knocking into me, it is driving me CRAZY. Basically, if I am, say, sitting at the table and she decides she wants to get past me, instead of politely walking around me she will simply trot past me and knock into my foot as she goes.
Being a fairly large dog and seeing as she moves past quite briskly it actually really hurts and makes me very cross.
She has also done the same past the pram, knocking into it and waking the baby up in the process.
I should add, that I do have a suspicion that she is actually losing her sight somewhat but even so, she knows where I am and plenty of completely blind dogs seem to manage walking past their owners without knocking into them.
She will also occasionally dash past me up the stairs, this I absolutely cannot have.
I have a weakness in one of my ankles so have to manage stairs slowly and carefully, I also often have a baby to carry.
The dog KNOWS she is supposed to walk behind me but occasionally will shoot past, then she will see that I am cross with her and puts herself in her crate and refuses to come out!

She is also a bit of a pain when visitors come, she likes to bounce all around the house and for certain favourite people she has reverted to jumping up a bit (something I had trained her not to do), I would like her to sit and wait and greet visitors politely.
I always end up having to shut her in the kitchen when people come because she is so bouncy and then she whines, I tried holding her in a sit once to stop her bouncing all over my mil and she made annoying whiny growly sounds while mouthing my hand the whole time...

And lastly, walking her is horrible.
Off lead she is amazing, she has perfect recall, runs past people, is perfectly polite with other off lead dogs.
But put her on the lead and she is a nightmare, she will lunge towards other dogs even those a fair distance away, she will try and jump at people walking by sometimes, she pulls then literally jumps backwards into a sit then pulls again then jumps backwards again, oh my god. I cannot get this dog to walk nicely on a lead, I have tried stop and start, turning around, leash corrections, running backwards, a head halter, a slip collar...
Unfortunately, I need to teach her to walk nicely on a lead, she cannot be off lead all the time as she is a car chaser.

Please help me.

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EasyToEatTiger · 09/11/2014 15:28

It may be worth a trip to the vet to find out about her sight and her balance. We are always tripping over dogs. I know this is entirely my fault as I haven't taught them to lie elsewhere and under our feet seems their favourite place. If you have trained your dog not to bounce around, have you stopped the training? Sometimes it helps to go back to the beginning.
With the on-lead behaviour, you could try lots of bribery and corruption and lots and lots of patience. If she is food oriented, you hold a treat in your hand and let her sniff and nibble it for staying close to you. I use a harness for one of our pullers. It does make him easier to handle and he's not going to hurt himself so much if he does pull. I used a lunge line for training. I found it much nicer to handle than a long line.
What kind of dog is she?
Dogs spend far more time watching us than vice versa. I think your dog may be getting a bit confused.

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JustMe1990 · 10/11/2014 15:45

Would the vets be able to do anything though? I don't think blindness is curable? I haven't taken her because she doesn't seem to be suffering and I dont think I have heard of blindness being curable :( she might not be losing her sight but I notice that quite often when playing fetch I will throw the toy and she will still be in the same place waiting looking a bit glazed then she looks confused and walks along searching for the toy. She also bumps into things sometimes, like the door frame or one of us.

We stopped the training a while ago as she was perfect, then we moved into a new house with a chain link fence so she can see next doors cat. Unfortunately, this cat is quite cheeky, it has tried to come into the house before. My dog likes to chase it if it will run but is perfectly friendly towards it when it stays put, sadly, the cat likes to smack her in the face for no apparent reason and she is a bit scared of it, when we first moved she had a phase where she became incredibly anxious because of the cat, wouldn't settle, was constantly pacing, checking the windows, whining and jumping about everywhere.
That could have something to do with it maybe.

She is a border collie.

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EasyToEatTiger · 10/11/2014 17:07

A change in behaviour is a really valid reason to get thee to a vet! Dogs are very stoical and just because she's not screaming in agony doesn't mean she's not in pain. Bumping into things needs to be looked at. She is a young dog and shouldn't be going blind naturally at her age. GET TO YOUR VET!

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Floralnomad · 10/11/2014 17:09

My friends dog went blind due to undiagnosed diabetes ,you really do need to see a vet .

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LoathsomeDrab · 10/11/2014 17:30

It's definitely worth getting her sight checked out. There are a number of different eye problems that can affect BCs (do you know if her parents were health tested and what their results were?) and some of them are treatable.

She sounds very similar to one of my dogs who is some kind of BC cross. She has limited sight due to having to cataract surgery in both eyes a few years ago. She's very neurotic and anxious, I think the combination of that and the limited sight means she's not always as good as she should be at remembering to actually watch where she's going and avoid objects. Keeping her and her environment as calm as possible does help, in the past I've used both Adaptil (the spray on a bandanna she wore round her neck in the house) and Zylkene with reasonably good results, at least for short periods of time.

With regards to her running past you on the stairs, instead of trying to teach her to wait behind you try sending her up in front of you instead. I've found it much easier to do that than to try and get mine waiting behind me.

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JustMe1990 · 10/11/2014 18:47

it isn't a sudden change in behaviour, she has bumped into things since about a year ago but very rarely, I am just starting to notice it a bit more as time goes on.
We always just assumed she was a bit clumsy and excited so not looking where she was going!
The jumping up again started after she got stressed about the cat, however I will take her to the vet.

No health testing, I knew nothing about genetic problems or pedigrees or anything when I bought her.
We just wanted a puppy and a sheep farmer had a litter for sale.

I have heard of cea and another eye disease in collies and thought it was incurable, in hindsight I wish I had researched more before buying but her temperament is perfect, I wouldn't change her.

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LoathsomeDrab · 10/11/2014 20:00

I think PRA is probably the other eye problem you're thinking of and you're right there's not much to be done for either that or CEA. There's also the possibility of cataracts (DDog2 was showing signs of sight loss before the cataracts were really obvious so it's worth checking even if you can't see anything), lens luxation and primary glaucoma, which are all treatable.

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