Boone-My Anatolian Unicorn

[peteyfoozer]

Boone had trouble in restaurant again. He was very anxious and didn’t want any part of being near table or booth so I went out and walked with him on lawn surrounding shopping center then put him in burb with air conditioning. Randy babysat while I ate breakfast as he had already finished. Talked to k9 trainer friends and they think he might be in fear period, as he used to be fine with it.
I had to go Hobby Lobby. He was super good about letting me get his boots on and the store was full of nasty little barky snarling dogs in baskets, some on ground with vests on (in 102 degree heat-Boone’s rockin’ a scarf). We stopped and watched again. The lady with the infuriated JRT snatched him up by the vest. I bit my lip while telling Boone what a good boy he was being. He shows undue interest but isnt barking or straining to go see them. I suspect he would love to play but he’s handling it well.

 

[peteyfoozer]

Boone appears to be in a fear period. The dirt road is exceptionally worrisome to him, but the entire long day in town is just too much for him right now. I hope to leave him home next trip rather than put him through that again. I don’t want to burn him out before he’s even had a chance to mature.
Fen will just have to take his place a few times. Maybe he won’t mind as much now that he’s older. Idk when our next trip will be, waiting to hear from pain dr.

 

[Baymule]

Fear period, that’s a new one for me. Care to explain?

 

[peteyfoozer]

Fear periods are part of puppies normal developmental stages. They become hypersensitive to things in their environment that may not have bothered them before. (Loud noises, or being fearful of something they had not reacted to before, etc)
There are 2 fear periods in each puppy’s life.
The first is around 8-11 weeks and the second is anywhere from around 6-14 months and lasts a couple of weeks. As long as nothing really traumatic happens it will pass without any problem but if something really triggers the pup it can have a life long consequence. It happened to Heath. I had left him in the house alone just for a few minutes while he was in his 2nd fear period. Unfortunately, before I made it back, the cowboys blew up some tannerite and Heath went into a melt down over any loud noises, the rest of his short life. Prior to that event, noises hadn’t bothered him.
So I want to keep Boone comfortable with things until it passes

 

[Baymule]

Sounds reasonable. I can remember the dogs running to the front barking at danger and Carson running the the house barking over his shoulder. You just explained it perfectly.

 

[peteyfoozer]

Boone is exhausted. Even after a great week, both of us are pretty wiped out. He had a little misunderstanding with Josh that was totally innocent on Josh’s part but was very unfortunate for Boone. They have a couple dogs that enjoy roughhousing and Josh put on a predatory posture and it scared Boone badly. Boone was barking and backing up before I saw what was happening and I had to ask Josh not to do it. It’s so hard to explain how different the thought process is between LGD’s and all other breeds except to tell him they don’t play like that due to their abnormally high defense drive, and that his barking or any aggressive looking posture from him would ruin him as a Service Dog. It took days of Josh making up to him and giving him treats to begin to gain his trust back again. I’m just grateful Boone is a puppy and his instinct was to back away instead of an adult who would have attacked him instead.

 

[peteyfoozer]

Boone’s expression

 

[Baymule]

Good thing that Josh listened and tried hard to make up with Boone.

 

[peteyfoozer]

Good thing that Josh listened and tried hard to make up with Boone.

Yeah. I’m still a little concerned

 

[SageHill]

Better it happened at home with someone he knows so he can recover, than out in public when there is no chance of apology and time to recover. I’ve had countless people stare down my dogs, and little kids do the stupid things and of course there’s always someone who tries to “talk” to the dogs with a bark and a growl.