EDITED to add: Liesje, do you have any articles/book names that you used to help prepare your husband how to interact with a fearful dog? If so, can you please send them to me? Thanks!
I'm not a fan of Cesar Millan's methods nor do I condone practicing something you just watch off TV, BUT most of what he actually did with Chopper came from the CM episode with the large white dog that was afraid of men. I had DH watch this episode. Basically, CM enters the home and totally ignores the dog, doesn't even look at it once. He sits down on the couch and starts conversing with the owner. You can see the dog in the background look nervous for a minute, but then get curious. As they talk, the dog circles CM and starts to move in closer to sniff. CM is holding a treat. He allows the dog to move itself in close enough and take the treat. After only a few minutes of talking, the terrified dog had her head in his lap!
Then they went outside, and of course dogs are contextual so the dog got all skittish of everything outside, not just men. CM had them practice walking along at a steady pace and not allowing the dog to stop and get scared. The walked past several people and I think one of the girl's friends came out and they practiced walking past this man.
After watching this episode, I explained to DH several times that he needs to ignore the skittish dog. DH is very boisterous and when he arrives to his parents home, he will get his dog all excited. I made it very clear that he cannot do this to Chopper. It's hard for him to ignore a dog, not look at it, and not reach to it, but that's what had to be done.
Also, we volunteer at a shelter and we did practice with hand-shy dogs that had been beaten. Going on walks with these dogs, he became more aware of how the changes in the tone and volume of his voice and any quick stops or movements are interpreted as a thread to these dogs. Practicing with them demonstrated that sometimes, being himself is too much for the dog, and he needs to be conscious of his movements, posture, and tone of voice. I also had him practice squatting down and letting dogs approach him and take his treats. He is very big and tall and he loves dogs, so it's hard for him to see how threatening he appears to the dog at times.
When we met Chopper, it basically went like this: her owner brought her out on a lead and handed it to me. Chopper came right up to me and I started petting her and giving her treats. DH crouched down a few feet behind me and focused on not staring at the dog. Right away, she approached him on her own and took all his treats from his hands. When the owner handed her off to me, she panicked. The owner said she would be really anxious b/c she's really bonded with her. As the owner walked away, Chopper started darting to avoid DH and pulling towards her owner. I decided that she was getting too worked up and we started walking at a fast pace away from where her owner was. Chopper was nervous of Phil being behind her, so I asked him to walk in front. She was fine following him, and as we walked away, I stepped a little faster to move us closer to him, until after a few minutes she was walking alongside him even though I had the lead. If he spoke to her or looked at her, she would duck to the side. Once we were away from her owner and she was no longer panicking about that, I had DH sit down in the grass and I basically walked Chopper back and forth, getting her closer and closer to him and doing circles around him. If she showed fear, I widened the radius back a few feet, but didn't really say anything to her or touch her, for fear of unintentionally reinforcing her anxiety. After this exercise, we continued walking with DH in the lead, Chopper basically at his side. Then, I handed the lead to DH and stopped walking. She did glance back, but kept going with him and was not ducking to the side or darting backward like before. This is the point where we shot the video I posted earlier. You can see she is not comfortable being nicely at heel, but she is not trying to get away from him. After our walk, we went back to the other people and found a spot in the shade to rest. Chopper sat right next to me with DH sitting about 5 feet away. He tossed her treats and then started tossing them halfway, so she had to move closer, and finally he was petting her and she was sitting next to him.
Sorry, this is getting long! Just trying to share what is working for us. I'm not trying to say that she is "cured". Not by any means. Like Jester, any time we moved back towards the crowd where there were other men, she started getting figety and anxious again and then DH was back to square one, she would duck away from him.
I'm hoping that by continuing these activities between DH and Chopper and slowly exposing her to more and more men, we can overcome it completely in time. Like you said, it's hard b/c DH will spend 45 minutes getting to the point where she is comfortable sitting with him and she knows DH = treats and good stuff, but then we approach other men and suddenly DH = also a man = bad/scary again and we have to start over.
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