Restraining issues

[Effexxor]

Hello! I'm actually a Dalmatian person by birth, was raised around them, till I ended up with my Diva. Diva's a mutt and a complete accident because my stupid friend let her dog in heat be around an intact male. Diva's now spayed and about 10 months old. She's mostly Lab and Rottie, but she does have enough Chow in her to have spots on her tongue and to behave like a chow. For instance, when she's outside by herself and hears something, she goes into the perfect 'guardian Chow' stance, tail super curled over her back and her body looks just like a chow that doesn't have the fuzz.

The reason I'm posting here is that I was just at the vet to get her blood drawn for her heartworm test and it took about 10 minutes for me, the vet tech and the vet to be able to restrain her long enough to be able to draw the blood. She absolutely freaks out when she's restrained. And I don't mean moves around a bit, she puts her all into getting out. No aggression involved with it, and I'd like to keep it that way. She also shuts down completely. Food doesn't matter, toys don't matter, sweet talk doesn't matter, she just wants to get out and NOW. I have the same issue with nail trimming (Petsmart refuses to clip her nails) and bathing.

The reason I'm here is that as we were struggling with her, the vet said "Well Diva, your Chow is definitely showing." I understand that Chows have a bad reputation and that's why the vet could have said it, but I figured that I may as well ask people who have much more experience with Chows and see if anyone else has had this problem and how they worked through it. My Dalmatian background is actually hindering me here because I'm so used to high strung dogs that may be overreactive, but when there's food involved, they'll do anything for it. The fact that she doesn't care about food has thrown me through a loop completely.

So far I've been taking obedience lessons which she's been doing really well in. She can sit and wait for 8 minutes with only a few times where she'll get up, and I've been working with getting her used to my dremel, aka turning it on and off around her while she's heeling. Restraining however is not something I've been working on, which I see now was a mistake. What the vet tech suggested was to restrain her constantly, only letting her up till she's calmed down. This is incredibly difficult because she's very strong and a very compact 60 pounds, but I'm going to try it. Any advice on how to keep her from shutting down and just accepting getting restrained?

[Merlin]

You know, restraining a chow doesn't necessarily work well if doing it by higher domination.

Chows are pre-occupied with domination and to assume that they will willingly prostrate themselves in front of a bunch of strangers, means you and your vet tech do not understand the breed.

It's quite easy to control almost any animal if you can control it's head.

When we take in rank c hows here, we simply control their heads with two hands holding under their chins.
IT works exceedingly well.
I'd almost have to send you a picture of how it's done, but this business of trying to lay a chow down on it's side is just asking for trouble, and no amount of conditioning will help if you ask a chow to become submissive around strangers. The correct method is to simply restrain them properly so they develop tolerance.

Cheers
MM

[katman]

Merlin,

I'd be interested in seeing pics of your method.