[Anxiety3dog!]

Hi There,

We have a three year old black Labrador that we got from Copperwheat Labrador breeder. She is a wonderful dog, very loving and we wouldn't be without her but she has always been nervy over random things but has suddenly developed severe anxieties which haven't been able to be cured from behaviourist help and now medication seems the only way forward to try next. We wondered if anyone else had a puppy from Copperwheat Lab that suffers from anxieties and phobias that the vet has inferred could be a genetic link? Any advice would be very appreciated.

 

[Contender]

Copperwheat lines would be working lines and some working lines have been bred to be sensitive dogs simply because they can be easier to train for an experienced handler. It is however always a fine balance between sensitive and 'nervy' plus how this is handled right from when the puppy comes home.

In my experience if you have a rather sensitive puppy, it's important not to force it into certain situations like lets say it's not keen on the hoover, then rather than be determinant that it need to stay put and not move or just completely ignore the hoover, then let the dog move away from it and go to somewhere where it's happy. Don't force the puppy/dog over to every single dog that you meet to say 'hello' as this type of dog would not always be happy or even interested in meeting every dog.

I'd suggest to go and see an experienced gundog trainer rather than a behaviourist as he/she would have much more experience with how to deal with this and how to improve on it - it's much easier to improve on this via doing some training exercises as this will also help the dog to cope with certain situations in a positive way.

 

[JohnW]

Hello Natasha, good to see you here again.

John