Jasper’s Journey Part 4

Well here we are, about half-way through what I thought would be a six month journey of puppy improvement. A journey to transform our challenging staffy from liability to lovely and ensure he can remain a cherished member of our family. This month we’re going to do things a little differently, instead of updating you on a specific class, I’m going to give you a progress update, a bit of an overall idea of how it’s all going.

Probably the best place to start is, is it working? You may think this is an easy question to answer but, it’s really not! I think in essence, yes, the training works. When it’s just Jasper and me, when he’s starving and willing to respond to the yummy treat reward system I’ve seen glimpses of some of his best behaviour. When we’re crossing the road, just the two of us, he’ll sit next to me unprompted, pretty much just what you may consider to be basic good dog behaviour. Other times, I’d go so far as to say he’s been brilliant, learning new tricks and behaving well around other dogs – ones that he approves of, of course.

The only caveat to this, and also one of the biggest problems I’m facing, is that my ability to make it to each and every training session has been somewhat compromised for a whole lot of reasons. In short, we’ve only made it to 8 sessions in this time and I’m fully aware that it would be a big ask for ANY dog, let alone my Jasper, to show improvement. This leaves me still struggling on our morning walk if anyone or anything Jasper doesn’t like goes by. Every morning we find ourselves with the barking, the lead pulling, the struggle and the tangle. Don’t worry about the pram, the toddler on his scooter or my wife - thankfully no longer pregnant but increasingly more frustrated and less patient. Anyone in Jasper’s way is odds-on to be knocked over.

And then there’s the other problem behaviour which I really didn’t want to mention: Jasper marking his territory on our 6 month old son’s things. Yup, you heard it right. He knows exactly what belongs to our newest family member and makes that his target. I know. It’s foul and disgusting! My beloved four-legged friend is skating on extremely thin ice with my wife. She and her friends are slowly building a campaign for Jasper’s relocation. I’ll continue to fight.

Every Thursday I’m out playing sport at which time Jasper is an anxious mess. He shakes and pants for hours, inconsolable. Even when I’m home his recovery is slow, he needs to be cornered, picked up and carried to bed. He is the literal definition of high maintenance, but still I persist.

I will continue with the training because I’m clinging onto those glimmers of hope and there has been some progress. In addition to this, I’m on the hunt for a natural product to help with the separation anxiety and aggression on the lead. We tried clomicalm and, for while it seemed we’d found the answer but, all of a sudden it was like he’d developed a tolerance or an immunity to it. Jasper was back to being aggressive towards other dogs, or similarly scary plastic bags which happened to float past him. I know I shouldn’t be surprised after 4 years of dealing with this but one of the joys of having a young family is the sleepless nights it brings and this is considerably hindering my patience. Perhaps my biggest source of frustration is that Jasper himself can’t see that the family are beginning to conspire to vote him off the island!

I guess the summary of all of this is that Jasper is (almost) the perfect student at training and has by far exceeded my expectations. Now, if only I could keep him like that and somehow restrain the small angry man that takes over his little staffy body between sessions, we might be alright. Until next time, I’ll continue with the training and also keep trialling OTC (natural) products in hopes of finding that silver bullet. Have you had success with anything? Do you have any recommendations?

Shannon Wood, Managing Director S8 Expert Recruitment Solutions. He has over 10 years recruitment experience specialising in the animal health industry across the ANZ region. Areas of expertise include sales and marketing, technical roles (Quality Assurance, Quality Control & Regulatory Affairs) and operational & financial positions. He has worked extensively in the veterinary, ruminant, monogastric, aquaculture and the pet specialty industries and is looking forward to the next 10 years.