Desensitization advice?

[Ooky]

Odin loves everyone, except now, in a terribly embarrassing turn of events, has come to really fear my boss. At first I thought it would just go away and that he was having a little bit of a dramatic “fit”. But today when my boss pretended to bark and growl at Odin (something he’s done to Odin since he was a puppy), Odin barked back and I could tell he was genuinely terrified, and realized this is getting worse, not better.

 

For history, I have brought Odin to work multiple times a week since he was about 5-6 months old. He used to love my boss. He would run into his office and this guy would give him baseballs and stuff. He used to walk by and bark or make meowing noises at Odin’s crate and Odin would look up and wag his tail.

 

But then, “the incident” occurred. Another dog who comes to our office (a terrierist, of course) is like, not at all house trained. He kept marking the walls in the office and especially started marking around my cubicle because of Odin’s smell. Digby (the terrier) is a sweet dog, but would sneak out of his owners’ office and come up to pee on Odin’s crate. He’s hardly ever in the office (and now is banned from being off-leash), but when he was, I would have to keep a close eye on Odin’s crate and my cubicle. One morning, Digby had apparently crept up behind me and was starting to pee on Odin’s crate, and I didn’t know because it was silent. My boss saw from across the room and ran at the terrier (who was essentially trying to pee right through the front door of the crate onto Odin’s questioning face). He made the scariest noise like he was going to kill something, basically telling Digby he was not long for this world, and pounced at Digby to scare him off. It was truly startling – I didn’t know what was going on, and I almost had a heart attack. Digby has never come back to do that (although now he’s leashed all the time anyway), so as a correction I guess it worked. But I think this is what made Odin scared – my boss was not correcting him but I don’t think Odin knew that.

 

While I would like to *tell* my boss not to do certain things (like barking at him), that is simply not going to happen. The best and most politic way to handle this is to suggest he not do certain things for a while, but that advice may not be heeded. I also don’t want to make anyone think Odin requires special behavior from others in the office. As a rule, he is totally bombproof – I mean it. One guy in my office once did something much worse - picked Odin up and swung him over his shoulder so Odin was upside down, 6 ft in the air (for what reason I have no idea…guys! ), but Odin took it in stride as confusingly rough play and still likes that guy just fine. But in the meantime, I have to figure out a way to desensitize Odin to my boss so that I can be absolutely sure he will remain safe and won’t try to snap or something else out of fear.

 

Does anyone have advice on desensitizing your dog to not just a type of person (tall people, men, people with hats, etc), but to a specific person? He’s never ever been scared of any person before, except a crazy homeless lady who literally attacked both of us once with an umbrella. I’m envisioning bringing Odin near my boss’ office but not really too near, and saying “look at that” and then treat, and then work up closer and closer. I can try to minimize the amount of time he sees my boss at work, but I can’t eliminate it. Suggestions?

[SoloRiver]

I have the opposite problem -- I can desensitize Solo to pretty much anybody but it doesn't generalize. By this I mean desensitize so that Solo is actually relaxed, friendly, and accepts direct attention, not so that he will tolerate people. He will tolerate huge crowds of people as long as no one tries to interact with him directly. Desensitizing him to a specific person does nothing to improve his interpersonal relationships with other new people.

 

The problem for you is that what has worked for me would require that your boss was complicit in the desensitization and very good at following directions. Since this sounds like it isn't the case, I would be really straightforward and tell him that Odin has been scared of him ever since the pee incident and ask him to totally ignore Odin, I mean for him to pretend that Odin is not there, until further notice while you work on the issue. Then you can work with standard desensitization techniques (like tossing treats into the crate every time the boss walks by) without worrying that your boss is going to do something bizarre (like barking at your dog) that will totally derail whatever progress you have made to that point.

 

Failing that, I'd just keep the door to your office closed if you can so that the boss cannot sneak up on you. If you can't do that, I am not really sure how you would keep this from getting worse other than leaving Odin at home. It might not be a bad idea to leave him at home for a while (to "put him up," essentially) and hope that he kind of forgets his fear of your boss before trying bringing him back in again. I'd give it about two weeks. I've had good results with the "put him up" approach to certain things that scare Solo, so it might work.

[mbc1963]

I think Melanie's advice is spot-on.

 

Early on, my trainer taught me that dogs don't generalize: they can meet 1,000 friendly people, but that doesn't mean that they learn people in general are nice. After four years, my dog seems to accept that our species is potentially OK, and will approach strangers in some situations. But that's just a dent in his worldview that was formed during his first two years of who-knows-what. Your boss might have to be calm and normal and treat-dispensing for months and months and months before your dog begins to recognize that he's not scary.

 

I used to have this big, goofy neighbor guy who wanted soooo badly to be friends with Buddy. Except, he simply wouldn't accept that the best way to be friends with him was to give him space, go slowly, and let Buddy approach if he wanted to. When the guy had a drink or two in him, he would stand outside, yelling, "SPIKE!" at Buddy, over and over. And if, heaven forbid, he tried to be friendly with Buddy when he had a drink in him, he'd come right up in Buddy's face, calling, "SPIKE!" (??)

 

::SIGH::

 

What I had to do was basically ensure that this guy just didn't interact with my dog. After enough time, as his fear of people decreased, Buddy began to not mind this guy, and accept patting sometimes. It's was more or less just gradual forgetting, I think.

 

I have no idea what I'd do if I had to deal with a boss who acted this way - I think I'd just have to stop bringing the dog to work. Why people think they're at all helpful when they BARK at dogs is beyond me.

 

Mary

[Ooky]

The problem for you is that what has worked for me would require that your boss was complicit in the desensitization and very good at following directions. Since this sounds like it isn't the case, I would be really straightforward and tell him that Odin has been scared of him ever since the pee incident and ask him to totally ignore Odin, I mean for him to pretend that Odin is not there, until further notice while you work on the issue. Then you can work with standard desensitization techniques (like tossing treats into the crate every time the boss walks by) without worrying that your boss is going to do something bizarre (like barking at your dog) that will totally derail whatever progress you have made to that point.

 

Failing that, I'd just keep the door to your office closed if you can so that the boss cannot sneak up on you. If you can't do that, I am not really sure how you would keep this from getting worse other than leaving Odin at home. It might not be a bad idea to leave him at home for a while (to "put him up," essentially) and hope that he kind of forgets his fear of your boss before trying bringing him back in again. I'd give it about two weeks. I've had good results with the "put him up" approach to certain things that scare Solo, so it might work.

 

Thanks, Melanie. I have thought about your advice all day and think you're absolutely right. I will politely ask him to completely ignore Odin while we work on it. My boss is not a bad person but he the type who will tease people mercilessly and is kind of a wise-a$$. I think he'll comply although he might think Odin's sort of a wuss (although, who cares?) I'll have to enlist other coworkers' help but it shouldn't be hard - Odin is quite well-liked and people always want him to come

 

But I feel bad that I didn't recognize sooner how much the barking was terrifying him now, since the guy's always done it. Good on Odin for clearly telling me in a very safe way, as he did not lunge and instead very clearly backed off. Even though barking is NOT allowed at work I don't care because it really got my attention.

 

When the guy had a drink or two in him, he would stand outside, yelling, "SPIKE!" at Buddy, over and over. And if, heaven forbid, he tried to be friendly with Buddy when he had a drink in him, he'd come right up in Buddy's face, calling, "SPIKE!" (??)

 

Oh, groan. I feel your pain. Who are these people? Like the other guy I described before who put Odin in an upside down fireman's carry did so after telling me he was super allergic to dogs for about 10 months. I said, "oh, sorry, we'll not come on your side of the building," and did not do so, right? And then he started saying that Odin is really hypoallergenic. Then one day, he started going off about just wanted so bad to hug him (??). I was like, "he's not hypoallergenic, I had hives for 2 months after I got him, and he doesn't like being hugged, not even by me. But he'd love it if you threw his ba--"

 

And then, yep, Odin was (predictably???) in the air. Double sigh. I hope I get better at predicting these types of bizarre behavior people sometimes seem to show towards dogs and do a better job of protecting him (and future dogs) from it. I don't really blame anyone for not understanding how to act around animals, but it's just surprising the number of completely clueless people. Dogs in general are pretty amazing when you think about it, what they'll usually put up with.

 

I have no idea what I'd do if I had to deal with a boss who acted this way

 

It's strange you mention it, but this is the second boss I've had who "barks" so I didn't really think too much of it. My current boss only started barking when I brought my dog in. When I used to work in medical research, I had this crazy brilliant british boss who spoke in cockney rhyming slang and yelled and barked at people too. There are a lot of socially, um, off people in the sciences, so in a way it just sort of added to a cliche and he was able to get away with it. Plus he was british and sort of a 80's punk who played a lot of loud sex pistols and his specialty was lasers so people expected him to be weird. I'd have to translate for other people (Wotcher, collies!) and explain the barking meant "go away, come back later when we are done tuning our lasers," or whatever.