Meet Gryffin

Please meet young Gryffin. He is also with Terrier SOS and not had an easy start to life. Gryffin is a 13-month-old male wire fox terrier who finds life incredibly exciting!

Gryffin has missed out on positive socialisation and has no clue how he should behave! He has spent very little time in a home and has not had any boundaries. Boundaries do not need to be harsh but they do need to be consistent! Decisions about whether he is allowed on furniture, decisions about what is acceptable behaviour and what is not. Once we decide, we need to stick to it and reward wanted/acceptable behaviour, otherwise dogs have no idea how they should behave.  Gryffin does have a lovely temperament though and will make someone a fabulous companion.

Gryffin approaches life full on. Those of you who follow my blog will know what I have to say about excitement!  Dogs that become over excited or overly aroused are not having a good time! Very often this over arousal leaves their body feeling full of stress, particularly in young dogs. 

Excitement is a heightened emotional state that can easily tip over into problem behaviour, leaving the body full of stress. We also know that stress takes a while to leave the body which means it is constantly topped up.

Gryffin needs to learn to be calm.  Even a person standing up quietly is incredibly arousing for Gryffin, causing him to launch into zoomies around the furniture if given half a chance.

We manage this by preventing the problems in the first place. So much better to prevent problems than have to find a cure later on!  You will see in the photo above, Gryffin is wearing a harness and lead indoors. This allows us to manage him and prevent problems from occurring in the first place. 

When dogs begin to “misbehave” very often the word NO is used. Dogs have no clue what no means – but it is attention for the behaviour and before long, they have learned that if they are bored, they just need to “misbehave” and they will get attention and if they are really lucky, possibly a chase game!

Mental stimulation (nothing too exciting) is essential. There is a short video clip below of Gryffin investigating some of the things carefully planned and laid out prior to his arrival.

We then reinforce any calm behaviour and reward with a small food treat. You may find lots of information about teaching a “Calm” cue or “Settle”. 

We have found that it is far more beneficial (to owners and dogs) to teach life skills rather than putting various behaviours on cue.

We can use a clicker or a verbal marker such as Yes to mark wanted behaviour but for Gryffin, who finds anything new arousing, we opted for a silent thumbs up sign quickly followed by a small food treat. This works so well for Gryffin and he soon learned that being calm feels good (and we prevented any unwanted behaviour from taking place).

Gryffin is such a fast learner and is quickly learning how to be calm.