Meeting the Boys, Part 1

We have a housemate named Lici, who has two wonderful boys. They stay with us the last weekend of every month, but this time they came over for Christmas. Cody growled and barked at the boys, but the boys wanted to be friends with Cody and so we set out to show Cody how great these kids are!

We started out with Brennan, who is older and so less different looking than the younger David. The first task we had to accomplish was getting Brennan settled by the baby gate and working on some classical counter conditioning. We started on either side of the gate to eliminate any risk of bites and to give Cody a large space to move back into if he started feeling uncomfortable.

In the video below you can see that I have Cody away from the gate, feeding him treats, while Brennan sits down. I've instructed him to not look at, talk to, or try to touch Cody. At the end Cody lets Brennan know that he isn't sure about him yet!

Next, I continue counter-conditioning Cody with Brennan. Several times Cody starts ramping up and growling at Brennan. A couple times I redirect with treats. The last time I touch him with a finger to break his attention and tell him to stop. Either is fine, but I try to focus more heavily on the redirection and less on correction. I used correction only after the redirection started to lose its effectiveness. My correction is me touching him with a single finger - not a poke or a jab, but a soft touch to interrupt him along with saying his name to direct his attention back to me.

Soon Cody decides that Brennan has some good treats and he wants in on that action. Cody starts trying to access the treats through the gate by pawing at it. Brennan is nervous about Cody but he does a fantastic job of bravely letting Cody take a treat from him.

Cody is very food motivated and can sometimes have a hard mouth. This is improving as he learns that chomping down doesn't get him the food, but when excited he sometimes slips back into the hard mouth. He had chomped on Brennan a couple times so I suggested Brennan drop the treat down for him. Watch the video for Cody's happy face and wagging tail as Brennan feeds him.

After this we took a few minute break to let Cody relax while prepared treats to get David ready to do the same process with Cody.