our miko's training update (a little long, sorry)

[sympa]

hello everyone. our li'l one is very difficult to travel with as she panics and barks and whines and her heartrate is really high. it's very hard to take her in the car and even when we arrive she's just not the same pup that we have at home. to get background info on our little one, please visit this thread:
traveling with our lil one

just wanted to give an update. there's good and bad to report.
first the bad, just to get it out of the way. in miko's second class she accidentally dropped a reward treat (she and her classmate were off their leashes) and her classmate came over to investigate and they got into a really bad fight, or at least i thought it was bad. the trainer thought it was mostly vocalizing but my husband and i aren't so sure. i know that when she's sounded and looked like that with us (mostly in the car when she's panicking) she has actually bitten us in the past.
the good news is that she's responding to the clicker training a little bit. she's always been pretty good about listening to commands when we're at home but she's even better now. in fact, the trainer was so impressed with her basic skills that in a couple of weeks we'll be advancing to intermediate! we're still having issues with her when we're visiting family or in the car though.
next week we're supposedly going to be working with the car issue a little more at class. perhaps we'll even be able to get the trainer to get in the car with us! we'll have to see. she's supposed to be in a group class but no one else signed up so we'll be getting one on one training for the most part (unless someone else comes in for a make-up class) until we switch to intermediate.
i'm still at a bit of a loss for what to do in the car since she won't take treats (too stressed) so the clicker training isn't totally helpful in the car.
we'll see what the coming weeks bring!

thanks for reading this far. as i've requested in the past, if anyone has had any success in treating car panic, please post how you've dealt with it. i can't guarantee we haven't tried it already, but we'll always appreciate the feedback.

[ldw]

Hi there,

Wow sounds like you're putting in the work and enjoying the rewards! My little one hasn't finished all her shots yet so we can't go to puppy class. She is also quite afraid of her crate and any enclosed space. I explained this to the vet and he gave me a spray called dog appeasing pheromone. Apparently its the pheromone released by lactating dogs so that the puppies know where to suckle. In a weaned dog this scent makes them feel secure... you know the Mummy is here feeling! I figured it would be worth a try as I don't want my little Lilly to grow up fearing the car and crate. So I tested it out and boy it works wonders! I have a dog carrier which is quite enclosed and she used to howl if I even got it out. Anyway, I sprayed the stuff inside her bag and now she quite happily sits in there. Before, she wouldn't even go in for treats!!!