Mila

One of our recent interesting cases has been a beautiful, friendly Rhodesian Ridgeback dog called Mila who came to see Nicola for a behaviour medicine consultation. Mila had attended obedience classes as a puppy and a young dog and has completed the Kennel Club Gold Citizen award. She has loving dedicated owners who have taken great care over her socialisation, training and welfare.

However Mila was suffering from severe anxiety problems. She was terrified of travelling in the car. She had become very anxious and jumpy whilst out on her lead walks in the local area and was experiencing panic attacks when spooked by sudden noises, movements, darkness, rain or wind. When these occurred she would jump up at her owners and bite their arms.  Mila was also becoming overly vigilant indoors, sitting on a sofa by the window to monitor activity on the street outside.

After discussion with Mila’s owners Nicola felt that Mila was suffering from a combination of anxiety and stress. As a young dog she had been exposed to busy, noisy training classes where she had found it hard to concentrate. She had been walked along residential streets and taken to busier areas as part of her training and exercise routine. However in the winter darkness comes early and as a young dog Mila had not coped well with walks on the dark, wet, windy nights and became fearful of wind, rain, traffic, sudden noises or movements and changes from well-lit to dark areas. Part of her training was to perform sit-stays and down-stays in various locations out on her walks and she had struggled to maintain these as her concentration was affected by her anxiety levels.

Mila’s panic attacks and episodes of jumping and biting coincided with places where she had been spooked by exposure to sudden noises or movements whilst being restrained on a lead and was unable to escape; or had been under stress whilst trying to comply with training commands whilst feeling anxiety regarding her surroundings.

Nicola’s plan for Mila involved an initial period of ‘time-off’ from the stresses of car travel, walks and formal training in order to reduce her anxiety levels. A few weeks were spent relaxing in her own house and garden, playing and using clicker training to reduce her tendency to jump up and mouth her owner’s arms as a way of gaining attention and reassurance.  The sofa was moved to prevent her surveillance of the street from the window.

 After this a steady programme was begun to enable Mila to start short walks again with the emphasis on avoiding known triggers for her fears and removing any bribery or coercion to move towards anything scary (to reduce feelings of conflict), but instead allowing her to choose to turn away when scared and retreat to a safe distance. At the same time when Mila did move forwards confidently on her walk this was reinforced by using the clicker followed play or treats. Mila’s owners also enlisted the aid of her brother Rum who gives her confidence by walking with her. Over time Mila has gradually become more confident and is starting to enjoy her walks again.

Clicker training and desensitisation and counter-conditioning were used to accustom Mila to approaching the car and jumping in and eventually she was able to travel in her owner’s sister’s car together with Rum for moral support! She will now happily travel in this car but still has an aversion to the back of her owner’s car meaning that a car change is on the cards soon!

Posted 23rd January 2014