Skye & her jacket

Skye (even since a 9 week old puppy) has never really enjoyed wearing her jacket and tends to run off when you first put it on. I can remember the day after she came home to us, and we were taking her out to her first trip to a garden centre. I had her on the lead and put the jacket on - she changed from a confident, happy, relaxed pup into a timid one and was trying to hide. As she is so sensitive to the jacket we are now working on this issue because although not overly major, it does affect Skye's enjoyment of her "working time".

When you first put the jacket on, she's not keen, but after 5-10mins will settle down and be happy to be working and out & about. However, she dislikes the Halti even more and with the jacket & halti on together doesn't fully relax.

To work on this problem, we have one of my brother Tiarnán's t-shirts (that he doesn't need anymore) and are putting it on Skye for a few hours a day to try and desensitise her. This helps her get used to the feel of the jacket and we put the t-shirt on when fun things happen, for example, when we go for a walk or at feed time. She doesn't seem to be bothered by the t-shirt which is great.

I've started putting the jacket over the top. I'm not using her normal "puppy in training" jacket though - we're trying the trained dog ones that the fully trained dogs wear. It is slightly different and Skye doesn't seem to mind it as much. She still doesn't like having it put on at first (if she was out in the garden and I called her over with the jacket in my hand she would know and dodge me!) however once it's on (over the t-shirt) she seems a lot more relaxed than normal.

I'm trying to make it positive and fun to wear the jacket with treats and praise. I haven't put the Halti on at the moment as that for now isn't really needed. In these photos you can see Skye wearing the t-shirt under the jacket, including when she's eating her dinner.