Resulst from Getting rid of Anxiety/ Reactive dog behavior

This is a story of how Greian the Irish Wolfhound, who was 5 years old, learned how to not be afraid of new people and learned to not pull her owners over trying to meet new dogs.  (This is how I did it)

So I stopped by the local hardware store to get my dog teeter totter made for my agility class.  I happened to run into a nice lady who helped me figure out what I needed and how to do it.  In the meantime we were talking dogs, of course.  Turns out she had an Irish Wolfhound who was having some social anxiety issues that seemed to be getting worse since their other "Wolfy" had died.  After explaining that the clicker training works really well at reducing anxiety I handed her my card and set up a time to get started.

 These are pictures I took during the first class, notice the grimace on her face in the picture on the left.  She was very nervous, and not sure how to handle where she was.  I had let my girls out to see her (they had never seen such a big dog before) and Greian didn't want to have anything to do with them.

Fast forward 6 weeks and you would think we had a completely different dog!  After a couple of weeks of having her clicked while I had Roxy run around, and simply walking on the leash around the yard, I brought the girls back out to provide more distractions.  The last day of class we had Roxy chasing a Frisbee, the girls were racing each other, playing tag, screaming, and throwing balls and she still walked up to them on her own to check them out and see if they had any goodies for her.

They have now taken her to the store they work at and one of the local pet stores and she has done very well!  I can hardly believe it my self that this is the same dog that 6 weeks ago looked like she wanted to find a hole in the wall and melt away!  She is now much more confident and I told her owners that they can even start phasing the clicker out for her on walks and other places where she feels right at home! 

What a good dog! Notice the relaxed smile on her face now!

Here's a little post script note on how she is doing months later....

"Just dropping you a line to let you know how well Grian is doing.  We took her to the Willamette Valley Irish Wolfhound Club's gathering on 9-28-13 and what a difference.  Though still a little timid, Grian did not rush any dog or cause a disturbance at all.  Two warning growls to a large black IWH male and the owner gave Grian a  "good girl", because her dog has no manners.  Many members could not believe this was the same dog they remembered.  Tail was down the whole time and she even went up to strangers on her own.  We also took Grian the next weekend to her breeder, Judy Brawn, who was holding a lure coursing event, and though we showed up as they were packing up, Grian got along famously with the other dogs even off lead. Judy is much impressed with Grian's progress and we bragged about you. We just want to you up to date and to thank you again.  Greetings to your two little trainer helpers, Dan."