Rehab Day 14

Day 14...yesterday we completed second week of our pack structure training program on solving dog to dog aggression issues. It was a pretty tough journey with plenty of challenges along the way. Both mentally and physically exhausting, but worth it's every moment. The long hours spent on our daily walks have brought us together. We slowly starting to co-exist as a pack, where each member becoming to understand and respect his position within the hierarchy. I'm starting to see more respect from them towards me. Seems like they have been asking permissions for almost everything now. What a good boys!!! It has also made them more focused on me during obedience and protection work. So with that said, none of the needed working drive has been taking away from them, as many people are worried about when it comes down to rehabilitation of aggressive working or competition dogs.

Before we started our mission, the relationship between my two males was very tense. They couldn't be or do anything together. They would fight through crates in the house as well as in the car. Getting the slightest chance to get closer to each others, they would launched attacks and fought to blood. Tyson, my male Labrador would refuse to eat and at times refuse to come out of his crate. At that point I have decided to sent Tyson to K9 rehab centre, where his fears and stress could be cured by spending time with the balanced pack of dogs and become to be himslef again. He stayed for almost 3 weeks. In the meantime, I have undergone pack structure training program alone with my Malinois and made few visits to the centre, where he would be introduced to the pack as well as to Tyson. Once I started to see changes in both dogs, I brought Tyson back home and from day one I trained them according to my pack structure program.

Two weeks later, I'm proud to say, that many issues of the past are slowly becoming to change.They are walking together, eating together, travel in the car together, waiting at the doors together before being called in or out, are relaxed in their crates and both are able to interact with me during play. From this point on, we still have a long journey ahead of us, but we have set off to a good start.