Izzy the 8 Year Old Jack Russell

Yesterday, our senior behaviourist traveled all the way to just outside of Beverley in East Riding to see the lovely Izzy the Jack Russell.

Izzy is 8 years old and can react to people, traffic and dogs so we were helping her and her owner with that.

Izzy’s owners had put a lot of work in already and created some predictability around traffic this had worked to allow Izzy to move away if she felt nervous, however, down the long, single-lane country road where they live, moving far enough away from farm traffic and lorries isn’t always an option, so we worked through this and paired traffic with both an alternative behaviour, and good stuff!

Izzy picked this up super quick and I doubt she will react to traffic anymore following the new system. This system will also work with people, however, we didn’t see any to work with, annoyingly.

We then looked at dogs. We taught Izzy a cue to look for a treat, then positioned the treat onto the floor to allow her to sniff.

We proofed the cue around several distractions first (video in FB comment / insta story) then once she understood this, used my dogs as the distraction.

By the end of the session, my 2 dogs would appear and Izzy would automatically look back up to her owner for a treat.

There’s a lot of management and practice that needs to be put in place, but I’m super confident that Izzy and her fab owners will have her happy and confident in no time

Well done Izzy and Co!

If this case sounds like your dog and you are having a similar issue, or a different issue entirely, book a FREE assessment call with us by clicking HERE.