Ivy & Aimee Overcome The Complexity of Visitors

Super proud of Ivy this weekend, but boy did it make me realise how much work we still have to do.

We had friends over to stay the for the first time since we’ve had Ivy, about 18 months. We have been working so damn hard on a lot of things with her since our retreat in July, but not really house stuff so we were super unsure how it would go… especially when we found out a couple days before our friends girlfriend is scared of dogs…. Just the energy you don’t need for a stranger danger, human reactive girl.

We worked up a plan focusing on making sure Ivy’s needs were 100% met before our friends arrived so we can start from a low base of stress. We did some low pressure walks, some breed specific bits (‘hunting’ through the woods / overgrown shrubs), some play and plenty of rest. The plan when everyone arrived was none negotiable, Ivy was either in her crate or muzzled and on lead unless she was through a closed (and locked) door so no incidents could happen. She’s never bitten anyone but we don’t want to start now…

She was the best behaved girl, a bark when the doorbell went and a low level grumble when someone after a few drinks saw her snoozing in my lap and thought by then she’d be ok to stroke… absolutely not. He didn’t actually touch her but the movement towards her woke her and she low level grumbled as I told him to leave her. He thought we were being dramatic about her reactivity as she had done nothing in the time they had been here and looked (to a non honest hounder) like she was chilled.

She was 1000x better than we could have expected, I actually cried when I went to bed because I was so proud of her settling, trusting being around us (choosing us and not the guests) and tolerance.

But our other dog Fred who is super chill really showed how much more we have to work on. He was 100% reliable as always, but I have started to feel like Ivy is (in some areas) getting to being as ‘easy’ as Fred. People and people in the house are not one of those areas! It really made me realise how much more we need to do to have people over and not have to manage Ivy 100% of the time. Our friends were playing with Fred, holding his collar and doing ‘normal’ things you do when you see a friends dog. It made me really realise how much more we need to do with Ivy to get her this comfortable around people at home but my goodness she exceeded our expectations this weekend.

I am now feeling so much better about people (other than family who she loves) coming over and working with Ivy to move past 100% management. From closing our house off to people (other than family) because of her reactivity, it’s going to be an open home for everyone to visit now. Visitors = reps and practice.

But first so super chill days so Ivy can process everything and de-stress 🧘🐕