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I wanted to work with her for a while before commenting.
Mike, what you said about going with mother nature is spot on. Once the puppy settled in and realized this was her place and she had a routine a lot of the behaviors started to go away on their own. Her desire to be near me, made her naturally wanting to learn to gain praise and she started to learn very quickly once we found our groove. All I had to do was encourage the things in her that were potentially positive. …In hindsight I think part of her anxiety could have been anticipating something unknown or scary. I do know the breeder is a screamer and I did once see her hit a 5 week old puppy in the nose with a flip flop so … who knows. That stuff doesn’t happen here so that had to be weird, waiting for something that just doesn’t come… till finally it just stops bothering you. I guess that could have been going on?
Now though she’s awesome! Bold, inquisitive, outgoing, friendly, happy, joyful – she’s like that cool hang out dog. Emelee won’t chase the cats, rabbits or chickens. She doesn’t go after the horses (Magic will screw with the horses) The only problem now is that I’m no dog trainer, and at this point I’m at the dangerous juncture of I could accidentally teach her bad things out of ignorance because she’s a learning maniac. This is the point where I completely cry about distance.
The trick you said with the submissive urination also worked. I just never acknowleged it. (spelling it’s early) I never looked at it or commented at it or even looked in her face when she did it. Once she started to relax it started to abate. Again, I did as you said, kept a predictable routine, never acted in anger, never over reacted, always positive. It works. She actually went for a microchip the other day and didn’t even poop or puke in the car a total FIRST although I still had to drag her up into the jeep because she doesn’t know climb and doesn’t voluntarily climb or jump on anything. Gonna need some help with that lol.
