koalathebear

She has learned sit, drop, shake hands and spin! :)

"131117 Juniper Sit Drop Spin shake" (Watch on YouTube)

She's the second super shy/timid dog we've had and they're quite tricky. Both of them used to urinate when a human came too close or collapse on the ground and flop around submissively.

For the two that I've had, the hand shyness came with general skittishness as well - running away and hiding whenever approached by a human so before I deal with the hand shy issue, I deal with that.

1. lots of leashing the doggy to me. She spent a lot of time wandering around the house with me.

2. Lots of crating or leashing the dog near my desk when I'm on the computer. That way the dog gets used to me getting up and sitting down and walking near her without running away from me.

3. I lock the dog in the kitchen with me when I'm cooking - that way the dog gets used to me walking towards/past/near her all the time but it has nothing to do with her. At first the dog runs away and hides but in time, she realises that I'm walking past her to get to the stove or the sink and then just calms down. I've put some footage on the video to show how she doesn't run away now when I walk towards her.

For the hand shyness, I hand feed kibble/food for a few meals until she gets used to eating out of my hand/fingers. At first she wouldn't even come near me, so I just threw the kibble near me and praised as she came close. Eventually she ate out of my hand.

Then I did targeting. Put a treat in my first and taught her to target my hand with her nose and praised her whenever she did a nose touch - and gave her the treat. I also then got her to target my hand with her paw for a shake hands. I put some footage in the video below as well so you can see.

Desensitisation training to make her less hand shy and skittish

"131117 Desensitisation" (Watch on YouTube)

Elbie, Hoover and Dodge - unimpressed about being crated while we film Juniper :)