When things went as they should, it just looked like a dog hanging out or strolling around, seeing people from various distances, and getting a lot of food. Not to mention that even with all that effort going into it, video of the actual socialization would generally have been completely undramatic. Wielding a camera would have been out of the question. It took an immense amount of concentration, and I was often exhausted afterwards. The careful work demanded that we protect her from sudden environmental changes and overly interested humans. Both my trainer and I had to be very vigilant to always keep Clara in the zone where she was happy and comfortable, but getting graduated exposure to humans and our world. This is a tall order with a a dog with a lot of the habits of a wild animal. Because Clara’s socialization window had closed, we used the technique of desensitization and counterconditioning to address her fears and change her emotional response to humans to a positive one. Our sessions took all of my awareness to do the job well. I have been working with a wonderful trainer and friend, Lisa, since those early days, playing catch-up on Clara’s socialization.Ĭontrary to my assumption about the blog, though, I have actually written very little about what we have done, and I have taken almost no videos of that work. In general, she related to them as a wild animal would, with huge wariness of any movement on their part and no tolerance for their proximity. But she growled at all other humans, even at that young age.
I slipped in that window before it shut and was fully accepted and trusted. Clara burst into my life as a 10 week old feral puppy, and her socialization window was in the process of closing by the time she came to me.
When I started this blog, I assumed that I would write a lot about Clara’s training.
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