Reacting To Other Dogs

[Reddii]

Hi All,

This is a bit of a strange one, not a major one, but something I'd like to knock on the head. We are working hard with CK to get him to become a little less reactive to other dogs - he's not aggressive, but is either overly friendly or is fearful and needs to keep an eye one them and reacts when rushed from behind a fence while out on a walk. (I know, I don't like being rushed, but our other dog is concerned until I tell her it's OK and she takes my word for it so we are trying to get CK to that point as well.)

We are working with the distraction method for the most part - look, reward etc and it is working slowly. The problem is with one particular dog where it is getting worse. It is a little dog that is high above (about 4m) the road on a deck, but barks it's head off at anything canine it can see while ever it can see it. CK totally freaks and tries to run at a million miles an hour - not good on lead. This provokes Xena to tell him to stop it as she will just ignore anything other than a direct attack most times and can't understand why he needs to behave this way. (Quite cute to watch if it wasn't so frustrating.)

This situation is the one time CK refuses treats and will not listen at all. There is not an easy way to avoid this house on any of our walks as it is only a few houses up and we walk in a loop, to do otherwise adds about 15 mins to the our walks unless we go out and back - BORING where we live. I'd rather work with CK to overcome his issue than give in on this one as I think it will become part of a bigger problem if we can't work it out.

Any thoughts or should I just perservere as I have with other fearful behaviours? This one seems to be going the other way to what I expected.

Cheers.

Tony

ETA - CK is a 10 month desexed BC boy with a beautiful temperament. I think some of his problems stem from a 1 month period when he was about 4 months old when we had to keep him confined and he didn't see any other dogs except Xena (15 month BC) and didn't get outside his enclosure except for some gentle training on our deck.

AND.......he comes to obedience once a week and is going quite well, loves the other dogs and is not that reactive (guess he feels safe in the environment). He will mostly hold his stays in class and mostly is coming back to me when he breaks, but will occasionally cross to meet the dog next to him. He also comes to flyball once a week (only to watch and have a wander around before and after at this stage) where we have not problems with other dogs.

Edited September 9, 2007 by Reddii

[PAX]

If you're walking both dogs together when this happens I would suggest you take KC on his own until you overcome this problem.

If he is fearful of the little dog on the deck, then he gets told off by his kennel mate this could be adding to his anxiety.

It is quite common for dogs to refuse treats when they are stressed. I would approach walking past in a very confident, matter of fact way. If he is crazy about balls you could try playing with him as a big distraction until you get past the problem dog.

Good Luck.

[Reddii]

If you're walking both dogs together when this happens I would suggest you take KC on his own until you overcome this problem.

If he is fearful of the little dog on the deck, then he gets told off by his kennel mate this could be adding to his anxiety.

It is quite common for dogs to refuse treats when they are stressed. I would approach walking past in a very confident, matter of fact way. If he is crazy about balls you could try playing with him as a big distraction until you get past the problem dog.

Good Luck.

Thanks. I walked past with the two dogs and no OH this morning. Made sure Xena and I were in between CK and the little monster and while he was still stressed he was a LOT better. Normally he is closer than Xena because of how we tend to walk.

I think I might try walking him up and down the street a few times on his own as well.

Cheers.

Tony

[patch]

I've just started walking my two separately and OMG I LOVE it! They are completely different - my boy in particular. He was becoming very reactive and 'looking for trouble' and I was starting to hate walking them and I know he was picking up on my stress. Walking him on his own, he is completely relaxed and an absolute delight - my girl is quite an anxious dog and while she didn't appear that anxious (to my non-dog eyes ;) ) while walking, she obviously made a huge difference to his state of mind.

Maybe in a few months I will go back to walking them together but in the mean time I'm loving it and will also benefit from the extra exercise!

I also think that part of my issue is that subconsciously I am much more confident in my ability to handle an 'incident' (not that there has been any) with just one dog at a time and I'm sure that's making me more relaxed with one dog at a time and in turn relaxing them. I'm not suggesting this last point relates to you at all Tony - I think you are much more confident with your two than I am.

(sorry - I don't know that my ramble will help you at all - I think I just wanted to share!)

ETA: Tony do you know the people in the house with the deck at all? Can you ask them to move the dog? I would imagine it's not just you that it's barking at and they may not be aware how bad it is? Speaking from experience here - I used to leave my dogs on my deck in my backyard during the day but that gave them an excellent view of the park behind my house and they bark much less now that they are confined to the grass and have lost a lot of their view.

Edited September 11, 2007 by patch

[Reddii]

I've just started walking my two separately and OMG I LOVE it! They are completely different - my boy in particular. He was becoming very reactive and 'looking for trouble' and I was starting to hate walking them and I know he was picking up on my stress. Walking him on his own, he is completely relaxed and an absolute delight - my girl is quite an anxious dog and while she didn't appear that anxious (to my non-dog eyes ;) ) while walking, she obviously made a huge difference to his state of mind.

Maybe in a few months I will go back to walking them together but in the mean time I'm loving it and will also benefit from the extra exercise!

I also think that part of my issue is that subconsciously I am much more confident in my ability to handle an 'incident' (not that there has been any) with just one dog at a time and I'm sure that's making me more relaxed with one dog at a time and in turn relaxing them. I'm not suggesting this last point relates to you at all Tony - I think you are much more confident with your two than I am.

(sorry - I don't know that my ramble will help you at all - I think I just wanted to share!)

ETA: Tony do you know the people in the house with the deck at all? Can you ask them to move the dog? I would imagine it's not just you that it's barking at and they may not be aware how bad it is? Speaking from experience here - I used to leave my dogs on my deck in my backyard during the day but that gave them an excellent view of the park behind my house and they bark much less now that they are confined to the grass and have lost a lot of their view.

Hi there,

Thanks Patch,

I'm going to begin taking CK out on his own in place of a training session each a couple of times each week and see how that goes. Unfortunately time just doesn't permit me to walk them on their own without compromising the amount of exercise they are getting.

WRT knowing the people - no we don't but there is no way they cannot know the dog is barking. it barks at everything that moves morning and night and don't ever correct it or try to distract it so that it stops.

On a positive note the strategy seems to be working as he has improved considerably over the last 3 days with the 'look at me' thing. The next step to move away from treating is that I've taught him 'take' and now just have to teach 'carry' so that he has another thing to focus on.

It's good to know I'm not alone in this sort of thing.

Cheers.

Tony

[Reddii]

OH doesn't work on Thursday or Friday so the doggies get a walk before I get home. This means that I can take CK out for a walk instead of his training (have a bit more time on my hands). We went out alone for the first time in a while last night - he is the perfect little man! Still was a little nervous at the normal 'hot spots', but all in all about 80% better than normal.

Then this morning we took him out with Xena and he had improved again, seems that he was much more relaxed because of last night (my interpretation any way).

Hopefully it continues to improve!