# 8 month Jack Russell Terrier neglected



## geoffrey (Oct 9, 2012)

Dear dog experts,

My girlfriend and I are working with a foster dog (possibly adopting her) and wanted to see any tips/tricks or advice on how to work with her. We wanted to ask for any tips/tricks or advice on how to work with her.

Meet Shakti, our 8 month old jack russell terrier foster. She has had 2 or more previous owners and she was bought from a pet store in the Bronx for a whopping $700.00. Her previous owner did not give her enough exercise or discipline; therefore she has a lot to learn. Probably a puppy mill dog.

This video is of the two of them having "supervised" play.
https://vimeo.com/51030499

Astro (our current dog who was rescued from a shelter) and her have been on plenty of walks together and long runs. They both get an early 5 AM 30-45 min run/walk each day followed by three more walks during the rest of the day. She is very possessive and big at guarding her resources (she's gotten into a few scuffles with Astro because he will take her food or her toys) and she will growl (maybe bite) if you take a toy that she is holding. She is also very alert while on walks or in the apartment - sometimes reactive to cars, dog barking that she hears, and barks/lunges at bicycles. Shakti is also obsessed with showing affection to humans (she'll jump on your lap before you have a chance to sit down) almost so that she's "demanding" to be petted.

Her prey drive and instincts are strong; its difficult to distract her with "yes" and store bought treats. She has been more responsive to a clicker and homemade treats. She's learning patience in how to not bolt out of her crate, to sit at the door, and to sit before receiving water or food. We feed her water from a bottle that we hold in our hands and feed her meals also from our hands to help earn her trust. At the moment we are also working on housebreaking her - she's a lighting fast at pee at pooping.

Thank you for any advice.


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## Mack Maya Iowa (Oct 2, 2012)

What cute dogs! I am also working on the sitting before getting out of crate and sitting at the door with my new rescue. I also make her "down" before going outside and getting her food. Is she aggressive towards you if you take her food dish away while she is eating? If not, I would suggest picking up her food dish every time she starts growling or snapping at your other dog, and putting it back down once she is calm and sitting (or in your case, removing the food from your hand). This worked with our previous dogs, but only works as long as she won't get aggressive towards you. This issue may also fix itself once she realizes that she will be getting fed on a regular basis (this may have not been the case previously). I would also recommend training your other dog to leave her alone when she is eating. If you are having issues with her out on walks (hard to tell from your post), you may want to walk her separately maybe once a day so that you can focus entirely on her and correcting her bad behavior. I am not an expert, but hopefully this helps some! Good Luck!


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## geoffrey (Oct 9, 2012)

Mack Maya Iowa said:


> What cute dogs! I am also working on the sitting before getting out of crate and sitting at the door with my new rescue. I also make her "down" before going outside and getting her food. Is she aggressive towards you if you take her food dish away while she is eating? If not, I would suggest picking up her food dish every time she starts growling or snapping at your other dog, and putting it back down once she is calm and sitting (or in your case, removing the food from your hand). This worked with our previous dogs, but only works as long as she won't get aggressive towards you. This issue may also fix itself once she realizes that she will be getting fed on a regular basis (this may have not been the case previously). I would also recommend training your other dog to leave her alone when she is eating. If you are having issues with her out on walks (hard to tell from your post), you may want to walk her separately maybe once a day so that you can focus entirely on her and correcting her bad behavior. I am not an expert, but hopefully this helps some! Good Luck!


Thank you! We will try feeding her (with a dog nearby) only if she is not resource guarding.

Another problem that I've noticed is that her prey drive is extremely high, especially at night. Once she's committed to barking at a car or bicycle, she's on high alert mode for quiet some time and its nearly impossible to get her out of it. I've tried ignoring the barks, walking away, saying NO and walking away, high level treats and keeping her walking/moving. The only one that works everytime is keeping her walking/moving. 

Anyone have ideas on counter-conditioning sounds/visuals to snap her out of "alert" and barking before its out of her threshold?


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## Mack Maya Iowa (Oct 2, 2012)

My new rescue is obsessed with squirrels and birds. She barks no stop if there is a squirrel within her sight distance, it could be a squirrel five houses down across the street... The only way that I could break her from barking excessively at them is by squirting her with a squirt bottle and issuing the "Quiet" command. The spritz of water on her is usually enough to make her stop and focus on me for a second. I am still working on her with this (I have only had her for three weeks and I only started doing this after week one). She is now smart enough to know that she can outrun me in my fenced backyard and still continue to bark, but if she starts barking excessively when we are outside, I issue the quiet command, go inside and she will follow behind me. This shows her that when she barks she cannot be outside, so hopefully I can curb her barking in another couple of weeks. The spray bottle definitely helped us make progress! Note: This only works if he is not a water dog, my Golden thinks the spray bottle is the coolest toy ever and loves to get sprayed


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## aurora999 (Jan 2, 2022)

How did things go with your terrier? 

Ours only barks at the mailperson or if a deer walks through the yard late at night. What is uncanny, is that she senses them through the walls. She will be in a room without windows & bark. When we look outside, we see the deer passing through. She is very amazing.

(But the day the buck sat in the yard for 3 hours...she never barked or anything, and didn't seem to notice.) I wonder if it's the walking that caused her to sense them? Any ideas?


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