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Case Study:
Poppy and the bins
I first met Kim and her beautiful Cockerpoo Poppy in January ’25. Kim contacted me because Poppy’s anxiety was leaving her in a state of high alert.
She was highly vocal and reactive in and near the house and had developed an absolute hatred for wheelie bins! This meant that even though Poppy was a lovely, sweet dog, walks were ultra stressful. Even leaving the house was a huge ordeal for anyone involved.
She also had to be muzzled due to growling and snapping at the vet when she went for her vaccinations.
I am so thankful to Kim for sharing her experience:
Background
I’ve had Poppy since she was 8 weeks old. She was adorable, cute, energetic, wild and fun.
At a young age she has always shown an attitude towards anything with wheels…bikes, scooters, prams, suitcases and wheelie bins. With treats and time, she was able to manage her reactions to most things with wheels – except bins. Her loathing of the wheelie bin was now so engrained, bin day became unmanageable, and daily walks with unexpected bin movements became something I feared.
How the behaviour developed
That, coupled with a house break in some months ago, Poppy became the ultra-protector of the household. These videos capture only mild behaviours, at times she was too unmanageable to video as she would dramatically react to anything.
The video above is an example of her “high alert” behaviour when leaving the house…and her attack of my neighbour’s bin. This video is another mild example of yet another nasty bin near to our house.
Sadly, it doesn’t stop there – we couldn’t let her watch us put anything in our outside bins, move them around or even allow her to get close to them, for either her over-anxious reaction or fear of her doing damage to herself. Even leaving the house (bin day or not), Poppy was not able to control her emotions or protective nature and would often immediately react to anything in her imminent focus.
After a recommendation from our vet to see a behaviourist to help with Poppy’s anxiety, we contacted Naomi. After our initial consultation it became clear that we had a lot of things to work on – it wasn’t just about Poppy’s anxiety, but it was also mine.
Step One – Calmness
With Naomi’s guidance we created the front door as the “calm space” for Poppy to leave the house and left the back door and gate as the “crazy space”. In her “calm space”, we introduced a lick mat and a snuffle mat inside the house and let her explore it after putting her harness on.
The aim was to desensitise her frenzied association with the harness. It took Poppy a few days but we could really start to see it working.
After she got the hang of that, and was able to manage her emotions inside, we moved the snuffle mat outside. Not as easy as it sounds! There are so many things outside our front door that trigger Poppy’s reactions so it took some perseverance, but I became so proud of her progress.
We got to the stage where Poppy stopped reacting to people, cars and even buses fleeting past our house.
Step Two – Leaving the house
This was a battle. Not only did Poppy bark reactively, but she would try to bite the door handle in desperation to get out of the house and protect us all from her view of danger.
Trying to manage that, and stop her from disturbing the neighbours, and stop her from catching my hand when she went for the door handle, and lock the door on my way out…I realised that my own anxiety made her worse.
But now we had progress! With her calm training and a few treats of cheese sprinkled on the grass outside she became a dream, my anxiety of the whole “leaving the house” thing subsided and we were on to winner.
Poppy is an excellent example of how perseverance of something you know is working can make such a difference. For perspective, Video 2 was taken in December, Video 5 in April.
Step Three – The wheelie bin
Given the success of calm training, I had such high hopes for the mighty snuffle mat. We tried it in a variety of settings, allowing her to sniff out and enjoy the tastiest of treats while we moved a bin just enough for her to hear the noise.
My hopes were short lived. This video (video 6) shows that the emotional pull of the bin movement and noise can override even the tastiest of treats.
Even today, I can’t work out why Poppy hates a bin so much…it has never done her any harm and from our perspective “it’s just a bin”. But for her, it’s the enemy. It’s the thing that moves from one place to another seemingly on its own, it’s that thing that makes a tormenting noise and it’s the thing Poppy sees us put things into. Including the things she’s proud to pick up in her mouth that she shouldn’t have….stones, paper…etc etc. So if Poppy sees the bin as her competitor who steals her treats…maybe her competitor could give back the treats.
So we started the effort of moving the bins incognito in the garden, and surrounding them with treats. Poppy has not only one competitor here but three, and I had found a technique that showed promise.
So we continued….randomly moving bins when she couldn’t hear them being moved and placing treats of high and low value around them.
Now check out this video (video 8). Not only is she near the bin, but she’s also allowing me to be near the bin…and she’s allowing me to close the lid.
For perspective, Video 6 was taken in February, Video 8 in April. This shows just how strong Poppy’s bin emotions are.
We also noticed, that the effects of this training at home were starting to filter into her walks:
Step Four – The moving wheelie bin
Although Poppy is starting to show progress in being able to manage herself around a bin that has already moved, a moving bin is a something else entirely. We’ve adopted a new technique of throwing treats away from the bin and making “bin-noises” when she’s occupied by sniffing.
Day 2 and we’re already making some progress! I already know it will be small steps for Poppy but she is already showing some signs of being able to manage herself when both me and her are near a bin that has the potential to move.
The wheelie bin chapter comes to an end! (for now)
While moving wheelie bins may forever be a challenge for Poppy, our hard work has now got us to the point where stressful walks on bin day are a thing of the past! It wasn’t just about her reaction to the bins, but also about my ability to be able to manage her reactions. I have confidence now and we are able to manage a walk without Poppy lunging at her nemesis and pulling me with her! Swing back to video 2…I never thought we would get to where we are today.
I have come to the realisation that I may never desensitise Poppy completely to bins, but this is like gold dust for us –
Her biggest enemy of all time (my bin), is slowly becoming her friend.
Behaviour change at Poppy’s pace
I’m so pleased that Kim has shared hers and Poppy’s journey so far.
Behaviour change doesn’t always happen overnight. It’s not like the specially selected cases on the television, the ones where you don’t see the “behind the scenes”.
Every dog is different, their experiences and background are different.
We created a plan specific to Poppy and Kim, and Kim has been absolutely wonderful at understanding that its about how to help Poppy to change her emotional state. And with deeply ingrained anxiety that isn’t always a quick fix. Although the most intense behaviour was around the bins, for the best chance of long term success (and Poppy’s welfare) it was important for us to also look at Poppy’s life and responses holistically. It was also important for Kim to feel calm and confident too! So often when our dogs are feeling stressed it makes us humans stressed too.
By approaching it in this way we resolved her reactivity to other triggers around the house, ensured she was manageable when leaving the house and starting her walks in a calm state of mind. She became less reactive to noises and passersby outside when she was inside, and to people coming to the door.
Because she felt safer overall.
At this point, with Poppy’s vaccinations looming ever closer and her heightened state of anxiety at the vets a pressing concern, we took a pivot.
We look forward to seeing you again as we report back on this next chapter!
Would you like some support with your dog’s behaviour?
It can be tough to go it alone when you have a dog who struggles with something. If you’d like someone to go on the journey with you, provide feedback and help you to tweak your plan and keep you on track then I’d love to hear from you!
©️Posted by Naomi Andrews