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Canine Behavior/Bathtime horrors
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Question
When I try to bathe my 1 yr old German Shepherd, she gets very frightened and fights until I give up. Her head, eyes, muzzle and snout turn red and it looks like a stroke in progress. I have tried three times with no success. I take a washcloth and wipe her down but that's not helping with the odor.
Does she need to be sedated to bathe her?
Hey, Stormy,
It's unfortunate that your dog panics when you try to give her a bath. You can't force a dog to go through something that feels so frightening to her, particularly when she's a big dog like a German shepherd.
One solution is to start slowly, and acclimate her bit by bit to all the little things that bring on the panic. Use food to change the focus away from each successive step. This may take a week or more, but it'll be worth it. Right now she's probably got a laundry list (sorry) of all the things leading up to the dreaded bath. So what I'd do is hand feed her all her meals in the bathroom or wherever you've been trying to bathe her.
Use the pushing exercise, where you hold her food in one hand and put your other hand against her chest. As she eats you slowly pull the food hand away ever-so slightly so that she has to put pressure on your chest in order to eat. Do this for at least three days, build up the pressure so that she's pushing really hard against you while eating, them move on to adding the things that might start to trigger her panic, very slowly, one-by-one. Don't use any force, make HER use force (pushing into you) in order to eat all her meals.
As you make her feel comfortable with each of the steps you can slowly wear down her resistance to the whole process. You should also talk to her sweetly, pet her, occasionally touch her paws and other parts of her body as she's eating from your hand. Here's a full description of the pushing exercise: http://tinyurl.com/3balu6
I hope this helps,
LCK
Related Articles
Answers by Expert:
Lee Charles Kelley
Expertise
I've been training dogs in New York City for nearly 20 years. My training approach and philosophy are based on the way police dogs, search-and-rescue dogs, and detection dogs are trained--through the prey drive, inherited from the wolf. It's true that there's been a shift away from using the "wolf model" in dog training recently, and to some extent, there's a good reason. That's because trainers have been using the wrong model, the one that says you have to be the "alpha" or the pack leader in order to control your dog's behavior. This simply isn't true. In wild wolves there is no dominance hierarchy, no "alpha" wolf, and no pack leader (not in the traditional sense). The pack instinct only exists to enable wolves to hunt large prey by working in harmony. (Wolves who live near garbage dumps, for example, and who don't hunt together, don't form packs.) So if wolves don't have an instinct to "follow the pack leader" or "obey the alpha wolf," how could dogs have inherited it from them?
Years ago, before I became a dog trainer, I noticed that the happiest, most obedient, and best-behaved dogs I met weren't the ones who'd been to a dog trainer or behaviorist; they were the dogs whose owners always had Frisbees and tennis balls on hand. And while it might seem that my approach would only be relevant to high-drive dogs who love fetch and tug-of-war, it isn't. Even something as seemingly unrelated as a housebreaking issue or greeting behavior are often the direct result of a dog's predatory energy not having an acceptable outlet.
All behavior is an expression of energy. So when a dog's energy isn't utilized in a way that feels satisfying to his or her instincts and emotions, that's when behavioral problems develop. Giving the dog an acceptable outlet for its energy will almost always bring the dog's behavior back into alignment with its instincts
Feel free to ask me questions about any training/behavioral issue.
LCK
Experience
20 years as a dog trainer. I'm also a bestselling author, writing a series of dog-related mystery novels for Avon.
Organizations
Dog Writers Association of America
Education/Credentials
Just a natural gift I have for understanding and training dogs
Past/Present Clients
Too numerous to mention.
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