Well, we're on to day 2 of wearing the thundershirt. Bamm wore his shirt off and on today so that he's not just wearing it in his crate. I don't want him to think that the T-shirt always equals the crate because then the shirt will begin to lose the value and purpose for which it's intended. He wore the shirt outside playing ball and inside relaxing at my feet. He wore it a few times for periods of about 20 minutes each.
We also spent a little time today doing some crate clicker exercises while he wore his thundershirt. First you click just for him going into the crate with the crate door remaining open. The next step is to close the crate door, take one step away, click the clicker and return. You keep doing the same thing moving another step away with each time until you're out the door and out of the room. You eventually build up how long Bamm can remain calm in the crate. It takes a while and it takes patience. Since his anxiety seems to charge up when I leave the room, I'm not rewarding him with treats in this exercise, which is different for me since I use treats in the majority of my training sessions when we're learning something new. His reinforcer is my returning to him after I've clicked for him remaining calm. If he starts to whine at a particular step then I start over from step one.
Overall he did exceptionally well with the crate exercises and I'm hoping tomorrow we'll have even more success. I'm trying to stay at a pace he is comfortable with though so if we don't progress forward much tomorrow that's ok. It's going to probably just take some time.
I did have to crate him while I took my shower today and during the time my mom's dog was out of her own crate. I gave him a little rescue remedy, put on the thundershirt and set him up in Cricket's crate with his new bone. Cricket's crate is a tad bit too small for him, but he seems to be a little more comfortable in there so while we work on building him up to staying in his crate in the office, I'm just going to crate him in Cricket's crate when I absolutely have to have him crated for longer periods of time. He ended up falling asleep and kept pretty quiet the whole time. The only time he started barking and crying was when the neighbor kid rang our doorbell, thanks kid.
So, as of now day 2 with the thundershirt has been pretty successful. I think the fact that I paired the crate exercises with the thundershirt helped out a ton. We're still not out of high water yet though. This anxiety behavior is going to take more than a day or two to curb. It could take months or even longer and I need to be prepared for that possibility. I'm trying to be super patient and try different things to help build up Bamm's comfort, confidence and reward him for being calm.
Tomorrow if the weather is nice we're going to do some fun games outside to stimulate him some more mentally before his crate time. My husband bought him a soccer ball and 4 orange cones so I can start teaching him soccer. We had a great first training session with the soccer ball on Monday and he's already catching onto it pretty quickly. It helps that he already knows a target command (touching with nose) so teaching him to bump the ball with his nose instead of biting it is turning out to be a breeze. Eventually I'm planning to have him do more than just knock the soccer through a goal with his nose. Would be pretty cool to teach him to weave in and out of the cones pushing the ball with his nose if I set them up in a row almost like weave poles. I'm sure I'll come up with some fun creative ideas.
I do not have a video to show of Bamm in his crate today. I completely blanked and didn't even set up the camera. I will do so tomorrow though.
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