Meet Grace. She’s a 5(ish) year old collie mix. Grace was adopted 3 years ago. When her Mom and I spoke on the phone initially about Grace a couple weeks ago, she was teary describing Grace’s behaviors. Grace has an abundance of anxieties. Thunderstorm anxiety, separation anxiety and containment phobia are at the top of the list. She’s recently started anxiety medication, but she hasn’t seen much improvement. Also, Grace is not house trained. I assured her Mom there is hope.
In our first session, I saw that Grace paces and cycles behaviors. So I started our work immediately, teaching her Mom how to stop the cycle. We want to teach Grace how to calm her brain. It took a while, but this was the result. When we calmed her brain, Grace then chose to rest on her own. This was remarkable.
Training is so much more that obedience. Obedience and/or prescription medications alone, will not help a dog like Grace long term. I’m excited to see Grace and her Mom start a new journey together.
