Calm and relaxation at home

This was our top priority as neither of us could catch a break. We could reduce/stop walks and try to avoid busy times when leaving the house, but if home wasn't a calm and safe space, it felt like a losing battle. George would pace and bark for hours at a time. It was relentless and nothing seemed to help.

As we are able to block most visual triggers, the main trigger for George at home is noise.

It's one of the quieter places I've lived but it's still a developed suburb in a city with lots of neighbours in close proximity.

We have done a lot of work on this but it felt pretty impossible to make any progress until we found a medication that helped (see Our journey with noise reactivity).

Medication just enabled us to start the training really.

Once we had started making progress with noise sensitivity, we made faster progress with calmness and relaxation at home in general.

George's constant pacing and high alertness had meant that he wasn't getting anywhere near enough rest (and neither was I!).

We were advised that he should be aiming for around 17 hours a day. Anxious dogs need more rest and recovery time than non-anxious dogs. He was probably hitting 9-10 hours on a good day.

Even that wasn't quality sleep. I read that if your dog startles at the slightest noise or movement, they were not really asleep. George would have been getting very little quality rest.

Our trainer recommended Karen Overall's Relaxation Protocol. The basic premise is to slowly (very slowly) build up the time they are able to stay in place while you take steps away, clap your hands, jog in a circle etc.

Taking it really slowly and rewarding throughout.

It definitely helped us in those initial stages when George was learning that it's ok not to jump to his feet if he hears a noise or if I shift slightly in my seat.

It progresses all the way through to leaving the house. We didn't actually get that far with this protocol as by that time we had started working through Julie Naismith's protocol for separation anxiety with our trainer.

Julie Naismith's Magic Mat training follows a similar protocol and 'Door is a bore' leads towards leaving the house.

I also found it really helpful to carry some of his daily kibble allowance on me at all times and reward the behaviour I wanted to see. So whenever he sat or lay down calmly, he would get rewarded. If I was walking past and he stayed calmly where he was, I would calmly drop a piece of kibble (near enough that he didn't need to move).

With rewarding consistently, he soon figured it out. It then started to become more of a natural behaviour for him.

A really useful game for us was the calm or variation on the mouse game. We learned this at puppy school and have played regularly since then. He wasn't good at resting from an early age (I would hear about all his siblings sleeping for hours on end and George barely slept!).

This simple game helped him to settle as a young puppy. When he was endlessly running around, I would say 'Shall we play some calm?" and he would run to his place and lie down waiting for the game. He knows the word 'calm' and I think he knows what it means as he can still settle (mostly) when I ask for calm. At home, at least. We are a long way from using a simple cue to settle out in the world!

We continue to do lots of calming enrichment activities which really help as well.

If we do further work on building calm and independence, I will probably use the Magic Mat method, simply because I find it helpful that the steps are on the app (with the protocol we were initially following I had printed it all out and was ticking it off with a pen). I didn't want getting the documents and a pen to become a cue for me leaving the room!

George is still a velcro dog and prefers to be with me if possible. In the mornings in particular, he still sometimes panics if I am briefly out of his sight. We'll work on that specific time at some stage. For now, it's not a priority and I'm really pleased with how he is progressing at other times of day.

He will sometimes choose to stay downstairs rather than instantly follow me. Sometimes he lies in the sunshine in the garden while I am inside. He will usually come and find me before too long but it's a huge difference for us. More recently, I was able to clean the bathroom in peace which is a small miracle!

The small steps in increased independence make me hopeful that he is generally feeling calmer, less anxious and more confident.

Nowadays he is hitting between 13-15 hours of rest on a good day, and 17 hours on a handful of very good days. It's not all quality rest though so continuing to work on this is still a priority.