Fear of certain sounds

[Sang]

Just be sure that you if you do tie him to a tree, that you tie him to a branch that has some give and flex to it. You can also use a bungee or something. You just want to make sure he won't shut down if he hits the end of the leash too hard.

Good luck!

[Chris]

Make sure it's a strong bungee, I did this but ended up with 35kg of GSD in my face when the bungee broke, not sure who got the biggest fright

[BrownieNJoyce]

Below is an anecdote about my dog that is relevant. Warning: it got a little long and wordy but I hope is worth the read.

I have been working with my dog Brownie using NDT for more than a year and a half. He is almost 8 and we got him a couple years ago.

One day, shortly after he had started really pushing and was coming up on his hind legs to do so, he suddenly had a weird reaction. We were in the yard, I called him for a push and he started towards me then shrank back to the ground as if I was about to hit him or something. I was mystified and thought I must have done something different or very wrong. He wouldn't come near my food hand and any movement of my other hand sent him shrinking back again. I was really upset that night until I realized that it was probably a result of pushing and just something to work through.

So I "started over" which wasn't really starting over, it just looked like it. Actually we had to go back even farther than to the beginning. I had to actually plant my food hand on the ground and put my pushing hand behind my back and just wait. Eventually he came for the food. I did this for each bite for a feeding session or two and gradually raised my food hand off the ground as he could tolerate it. Then I tried putting my pushing hand under the food hand but it was too much for him. So I held my elbow and gradually over a session or two slid the pushing hand toward my food hand until I was cupping the food hand. Then from there I was able to eventually resume gentle pushing, still with me down at Brownie's level.

This all took several days or maybe a week, I don't recall anymore. But all of a sudden he started pushing with even more drive than before. I have always imagined that what happened was that we had come to a clog in his "emotional pipe" from something that had happened earlier in his life. I was so grateful that NDT gave me the solution right there in the basics of method and that we could just work through it. I had to really trust in the process since the alternative was to freak out and I knew that wasn't a good option.

So now I assume that even when our daily pushing seems to be status quo, that we are rubbing away at whatever may still be stuck in the pipe even if it's not actually clogged. And indeed, there are moments when shifts happen that are subtle but unmistakably attributable to pushing and NDT.

Here's to pushing!