hankdog

Jake just doesn't seem to learn in the normal way so instead of positive things, treats and praise decreasing the negative things, dogs, it seems to work the other way and the positives become negative. I don't think he's stupid, he has learnt some awesome clicker tricks and if I set up a bunch of tricks with different treat value for effort he works it out quick smart. He was kennelled next to a border collie in the pound and I've noticed he does seem to be a bit more over the top with BCs and seems to be easier with dogs that ignore him whereas Chili is making calming signals at him. Vicki believes he is an extreme case so I guess it's throw away the rule book, don't second guess what he's thinking and just try some different approaches. Most of the time I don't get frustrated, very embarrassed when he chucks a wobbly and annoyed when he threw a tanty at my coffee shop and I couldn't go back for a week. I feel sad because he's such a loving, sweet dog and I think he misses his girlfriend and would enjoy doggie friends if he could just get over it.

If you can find a vet who does it acupuncture worked wonders for my old man with his back issues.

When you fish in the bottom of your handbag for change to buy a coffee and come up with a bunch if dog treats.... and this doesn't gross you out!

But you won't give up PA because you can't, I don't think that's the person you are. I have a whiplash injury and when it's sore I am really cranky so I can imagine a lot of Scooties issues would be crankiness from pain and just making sure nothing touches him. A reactive dogs issues affect the owner too and that's what this thread is about so rant away, we all have days when it's overwhelming. Justice is amazing, I can't imagine actually being able to go to an obedience class never mind that he can sit calmly whilst other dogs are barking. I guess the problem with Jake is that the training seems to go the other way, instead of him becoming more relaxed with Chili he has become so sensitized to everything associated with going to training. I kept biltong as a special treat for training with Vicki and all that did was make him uptight if I started preparing it at home. Mondays is the one day he won't try get in the car and l have to go carry him from his bed to the car. We had to switch dogs because his reaction to Chili was escalating and last week we tried just walking past Vicki's house without any dogs and he still reacted. All this because we were just asking him to look at a lovely calm dog. He's five years old and whatever happened in the past must have left very deep scars because in every other way he's a lovely dog. He sits and begs at the table with our cockatiel on the floor next to him and you can take food out of his mouth, he was lovely with my young niece and nephew and took instructions from them without hesitation. And yet if he sees a dog he goes nuts, slightly less nuts than he used to but really we should be able to walk past another dog without the whole suburb hearing about it. Ok that's my rant over, one day I am going to post a eureka moment but that's all I got for now.

The grace of the third photo is breathtaking!

I had an insightful conversation with Vicki today that I thought would be worth sharing. Basically we discussed the difference between changing a dogs behavior versus changing its emotional state. It is preferable to change the emotional reaction, the way the dog "feels" about something, for us other dogs, as this will then of itself change behavior that flows from the emotional reaction. Methods that do this are generally positive, such as LAT and classical conditioning. Changing a dogs behavior, the symptoms of the emotional state may be less preferable and methods to do this can include positive and "negative", such as punishment. Since we were having this conversation you can imagine that we are moving on from trying to make J-dog like other dogs and going for trying to get him to adjust his behavior, just walk past without fussing. Steve Courtney spoke to me about getting him to think "I walk at heel no matter what." I would hope that eventually if we can get the nonsense under control he might actually start to think and that might affect his emotional state but that would just be a bonus. Anyway I thought this was an interesting way of thinking about what you're doing in your training and organizing your approach to whatever your situation and if anyone has any clarifying things to add that would be good since we were having this conversation over a barking dog I may have not understood everything.

Love the series of photos.....didn't think he was going to break!! And the windswept eats in the first pic are lovely. Very clever multiple exposure , I'm so lazy about learning to use all the functions of the camera its truly wated on me. Tilly has an ear to ear grin, beautiful.

Very comfortable looking for a foster....definitely thinking failure. Very cute!

Haha ktig, Jake cruises in my sons car in the same way. I don't think little clay is going to be little much longer! Jake believes sleeping upside down helps prevent wrinkles- I don't have the heart to disillusion him. 7/52

I cried all over a briard I saw in England that reminded me of the old man. It was so lovely though to see a little bit of him in the way it ran. I'm sure the man went home happy. Also these photos are gorgeous but not quite enough.

Jake always tries to delete these posts incase I realise he's a pig... the grunting gave that away ages ago. Fish and kibble in bowl in the morning, bag of whatever is for treats on the walk, something to chew on to settle, shank bone or stuffed kong, treats for afternoon training session and kibble veg and meat for dinner. Then a bit if yoghurt or whatever he can beg off OH for dessert. He's not actually that fat.

Oh well done, a moment to frame!! ETA.....3 pugs not sure I would have been able to leave it.

Not the leg thing but yea my friends are pretty over Jake. I can just offer a big hug and hold thumbs for you.

Have to say thanks to Staffyluv for the squish against a wall tip. I was sitting on the side of the road, which sloped down quite a bit, taking a stone out my shoe when the maremma apoeared on our side of the road at the top of the bank we were sitting on. It's a monster and doesn't have patience for Jake. I abandoned my shoe and launched self and dog at the wall, really helped keeping him still. Thanks for that one!

Roo is beautiful, but then I'm a confirmed bull breed lover. I do love her colouring looks like she had eyeliner. My experience is similar Nekhbet, both trainers who told me PTS were positive only. I'm ok with someone saying my method will not fix your dog so I won't waste your money, however presenting that there is no other way to help a dog isn't really fair.

Just a thought if she's going to scrabble how about a pile of cardboard boxes to scrabble in or on. One giant pile a week would maybe keep her busy for a while?

Oh panzer don't feel bad. You take good care of your doggies and sometimes stuff just happens. Scootie will get through this.

You have the most appealing bed, so snugly!

So much common sense in this thread, (and I see so much of my mistakes) love it! Next time someone berates you Jelly hand them the leash and walk away, until they've walked in your shoes they should just shush.

Thats great Snook, I love hearing positive updates especially if we are battling because it gives me hope. We think part of Jakes problem is that because his eyes are so divergent he can't actually see a dog until its too close. He appears to swap eyes to look with so he probably doesn't have stereo vision and not much depth perception. I use this to my advantage when I don't want him to react so if I just put him behind a small bush or bin and keep his head turned to me I can often let a dog go by unnoticed. However the problem comes with getting him to see a dog when it's far enough away to be under threshold, at the moment I'm experimenting him with telling him the dog is there when he can't see it, getting his head pointed in the dogs direction and then cueing LAT so his reaction goes up to 5 before he can see the dog but then not much more once he can see it. We are trying to parallel walk at the moment, Vicki believes that he throws a fit because that's just what he does, he has had all the positive stuff and can turn it on when he wants to but just doesn't . He goes nuts for a bit and eventually quietens out if exhaustion. Watching him when he's going off though he will stop when he turns his head away or if we walk behind a car but when he sees the dog again it's like "a dog, where'd that come from, freak out." Anyway we will try this a few times and see if it makes a dent in his paintwork, we did end up standing chatting ignoring the dogs and he eventually lay down so we will see. I don't expect he will ever be dog friendly but I would like him to be able to walk past a dog without a tantrum.

Jake came at LAT backwards. Forever with just classical conditioning and then just getting him to take the treat with his head turned away from the dog. Vicki managed to get him to do it on cue and then just with practicing on everything that caught his attention he got it. Unfortunately it's a little bit of a double edged sword, he easily does LAT on a fenced dog but it's no help trying to get him past a moving dog. I'm also not entirely sure I haven't trained him to make a fuss to get treats. Somedays I think the more I train him I just get a smarter reactive dog rather than a less reactive one. Oh well he walks nicely on leash so at least I got that.

Any news Panzer? Hope it's all well?

haha if I had to pay for every bit of good advice I got on this forum I'd be more broke than I am now! Sorry Jelly taking this thread off topic.

Interesting approach Nekhbet, we have taken Jake out with another dog, parallel walking...much freaking out and hissy fitting that eventually faded probably out of exhaustion. Once quiet I told him "good boy" and hey presto immeadiately started up again. I think the most profound thing I have read is "Dogs do what works." You just have to try figure out what it is they're getting out of it.

Aw please dad... Thanks Week 6/52