so I just talked to the behaviorist again. I think I misunderstood because apparently she's not using treats when she comes over tonight. I'm supposed to have him on a leash on the opposite side of the living room and have my SO open the door when she comes in, and his reward for showing calm behavior is that she goes away and gives him space. AHA! that totally makes sense to me now. she says by the end of the evening she'll hopefully be able to come right up to him without him getting stressed.
fingers crossed! i'm a lot more optimistic now that I understand her approach a lot better
so far this dog has cost $120 in training fees... OUCH!!
tonight we tried her method of approaching and retreating with calm behavior and omg I thought we were going to be doing it forever. He was so uptight that even having her on the other end of the yard was too much. He was shaking, hair up, growling, and would not calm down. We ended up going to the school and she started almost a whole soccer field away. It was agonizingly slow at first. She would stand there until he showed calm behavior like sniffing the ground or laying down and then move back to the starting point, and it took about 10 minutes each time. Then she'd come a little closer, and I mean like 4 inches closer the next time she came back.
My poor SO is sitting there going "you know this is costing 65 cents a minute?" etc lol...
Well it took 2 hours but eventually she was able to come stand right beside him without him growling or acting fearful, just laying down relaxing. There were TONS of distractions so for the amount of time it took she said he did really well. You could see the wheels turning.
So I think we'll probably have her out to do this in the house again maybe, and then practice with people I don't have to pay $40 an hour to hehe... Then we can start working with her again on other stuff.
