The Two Week Shutdown

We were first alerted to the effectiveness of the "Two Week Shutdown" by a fellow rescuer on http://www.pitbullforum.com Her name is Stacy.

http://www.nhpbr.org/two_weeks.html Read this otherwise the following may make little sense!

Let me tell a little story to help move this along a little bit and help it make sense to some

I adopted Cyrus in March of 2007 right before I became heavily involved in rescue. I was actually looking to foster a dog and after a couple of attempts fell through, I decided to just outright adopt. So, in came Cyrus.

Cyrus is VERY mellow and laid back and he fooled me! He was an adult and had such a good temperament, I allowed him to have run of the house a couple of times. I actually just pretty much let him do what he wanted. After snapping at Deja over a toy, I started browsing the web for ideas and a little extra guidance. I already had a trainer come to the house because it was offered with Cyrus's adoption but it was late at night and I wanted some ideas right then and there. I can be impatient in that respect. I made a post describing what was going on on this forum and Stacy, as well as another member replied and brashly told me that I was moving too fast with him. Honestly, I didn't know what the h3ll they thought I was describing because I didn't feel we were moving anywhere at all! lol They told me to limit interactions with Deja and no toys, etc. After a couple of weeks, start to introduce them slowly and move forward from there. I didn't have anything else to lose so I started it. For at least one whole week, Deja and Cyrus had NO interaction whatsoever. They saw each other in passing and that was it. After that first week, I started giving the dogs about 10 minutes at a time to interact. Over the course of the next couple of weeks, I began increasing their time together more and more.

Today, over a year and a half later, they play with toys together famously and if their happens to be kibble left out, they don't fight over it.

The point to the "Two Week Shutdown" is to give the dog a chance to trust you and bond with YOU!

With Cyrus, he's SO sensitive and he was acting out because I gave him too many decisions to make on his own. I wasn't directing or supervising his actions so he was behaving in an "inappropriate" fashion. The dogs know they toys are MINE and when I say that's enough, that's enough. Both dogs respect me and expect me to make the decisions for them. They TRUST me to make the decisions for them.

If you are bringing home a typical outgoing puppy, you may not have to follow through with a full two weeks. Puppies are usually VERY resilient and go through changes gracefully.

Adult dogs are where most people find their trouble at because, well...they're adults! They are passed the puppy stage right? They can have more freedoms, no problem! WRONG. The dogs need you to build structure for them and direct them on the correct actions and they also need you to be there for them so they can look to YOU to handle situations that they might otherwise make a "bad" choice about without that guidance.

Questions?