Meet Kronk! We adopted him ~3 years ago, after being given up on by 2 other families. When we adopted him, it was clear he was never socialized and is very reactive to other dogs and some people (Specifically men, which makes me wonder what kind of life he had as a pup). We’ve been working with a specialized Vet and Trainer for 2 years now, and he’s on some anxiety meds. He’s improved quite a bit, but he’s also gotten quite protective of my wife. So while I can walk him with only small reactions, my wife cannot. He’s very reactive and is a bite risk when someone gets close. And since he’s a cutie black lab, everyone wants to get close to pet him even when he’s actively snapping at them since they’re “Good with dogs” 😑 Anyways, we found a place that does a 3 week board and train to work with aggression, but I’m not sure how effective they are. I don’t think he’s going to get much better with us, since we have to focus on safety instead of training. And since he’s been given up on twice, I don’t want him to think we’re abandoning him since its a long program. Does anyone have experience with these type of training programs?
I put my doodle in a local board and train for 3 weeks a little over a year ago for his separation anxiety. When he came back, his separation anxiety was totally solved. I think the value is really in having someone who can dedicate all of their time to focusing on the behaviour you want to train. Like maybe I could have trained my dog’s separation anxiety myself, but I’m neither a professional dog trainer, nor somebody who can dedicate more than an hour or two every day to dog training.
If you’re worried about your dog feeling like you’ve abandoned him, maybe ask the trainer if you can visit a couple of times? Or, what I did was give the trainer I hired one of my t-shirts that I had worn for a day, so it smelled like me, and asked her to keep the shirt near my dog’s bed.