Freddie the Lucher Cross Collie

Freddie’s owners recently rehomed Freddie from a local rescue centre. Freddie hasn’t had the best start in life, having spent a lot of time in kennels, including coming over from Ireland. He had a few re-homes, however one resulted in a serious altercation with another dog, leading to extensive injuries, which luckily, he has physically healed from.

Throughout all these experiences, Freddie still has an amazing personality and shows such love for new people and his owners. He is a positive dog, who has shown great resilience with all the changes in his life. The only area that Freddie was struggling with was dog interactions during walks.

First Assessment

We found that Freddie is not scared of dogs, but actually, he was showing what we call the Hate emotion. This is where Freddie doesn’t see any value in dogs being around. Therefore, he would use his unwanted behaviours to get them to move away. This is completely understandable given his previous experiences in kennels and his previous altercation with a dog.

Treatment

We have continued his safety management that his owners had already put in place and introduced some new behaviours to Freddie. This means we are changing his value of dogs, making it positive to have other dogs around. In addition, we have introduced some behaviours for focus, so that Freddie can offer extended self-control to his owners while approaching dogs.

Outcome

Currently, Freddie is progressing well with his new tasks and already showing great steps of improvement. He loves his new task of giving eye contact to his owners and also has managed to calmly watch a few different dogs walk past him already. We look forward to hearing how he progresses in the next few months.