Scenario- What Would Your Advice Be As A Trainer?

[melzawelza]

Hi guys,

Am currently working as an obedience trainer but beginning to get into the behavioural side of things.

The following is an actual scenario which I attended with a senior staff member to learn and observe. I learnt a huge amount from him and was very appreciative of the techniques suggested, as were the clients.

I thought i'd post the scenario on here to see if there are different ways other people would handle a situation like this as I know there's always a huge amount of techniques to deal with any given problem, and every trainer's opinion will vary. I always want to learn as many different techniques as possible to have in my toolbox so that if I ever came across something like this myself in the future I can draw on all these influences.

Info:

A couple own 3 small foxy X type dogs. Oldest is 14 and male, middle is 5 and female, youngest is 4 and male. All desexed, and has had them all since puppies.

Have all lived together peacefully until this year. Youngest attacked the 14 year old and locked on requiring 12 stitches in January. This happened again around a month ago, prompting the clients to call.

Dogs all run happily together 99% of the time. Play, socialise and get on really well. Old boy has very recently been vet checked and is fit as a fiddle and doing great for his age. All the dogs live outside, however old boy is let in every now and then to relax in his old age.

Through asking a huge amount of questions it was established that the young dog is extremely bonded to one of the owners. He spends all his waking time trying to get to her and the entire time we were there he was sitting outside in a position where he could watch her constantly.

The only time when this attack is a risk is when she first gets home from work or a long time away. He is extremely excited to see her. When she approaches the back door to go out and see them, old boy springs half a metre in the air repeatedly in anticipation and the young boy hangs at the back and periodically circles in front of the jumping old man ( between him and the door). The girl is never really an issue or a worry when it comes to the attacks (she just runs and hides).

The attack occurs when they bump in to each other. Young boy locks on to his throat and really goes for the kill (has taken then over 5 minutes to get him off previously)

It seems that only when all the circumstances are in place does this happen - i.e the little one is just SO over excited and then they bump and WHAM it happens, however really twice in 6 months isn't a huge amount considering the amount of times they would have been in that scenario during that time.

After the first attack she employed a squeaky toy and always went outside squeaking it, and young'un would focus on that rather than old boy. However it was left outside and chewed up, and the second attack occurred without the squeaky to distract.

She has fair obedience with them individually but when all three are running around and excited to see her it pretty much goes out the window ( can get the young'un to sit eventually but he breaks repeatedly, especially if the other dogs come close).

The owner he fixates on is the main carer, feeds them walks them etc. However she is fairly soft on them and doesn't have a huge amount of 'presence' with the dogs.

Her partner is the tougher one and the dogs won't put a foot out of line when she's the one with them. I got the feeling that she was bonded to them and loves them but not to the same degree as youngin's fixation.

So - what sort of suggestions or techniques would you employ in this situation? Is it more of a 'management' type issue (seperation etc) or do you think it is something that can be overcome with training and behaiviour modification? It seems that old boy still has a while to go the sprightly little fella so they do want to put in the work so that they can live happily 100% of the time rather than just 99%

ETA: other things that were mentioned that I thought MAY be significant - The youngin USED to be fed at that back door however hasn't been for quite a while, and doesn't seem to show food possessiveness in day to day life. There are also 2 other ways to enter the dogs area that the clients don't tend to use. Could changing the entrance be enough to change the behaviour? i lean towards not unless he is guarding the door a little due to being fed there. All signs point to the owner being the trigger 100% though.

Edited June 8, 2010 by melzawelza

[SkySoaringMagpie]

I think we can spend a lot of time on mapping and hypothesising in a way that misses the point.

If you know that certain situations are risky, and you know that certain parts of the house are hot spots, then you put in place strategies to manage that.

You reward the behaviour you want to see, you prevent the behaviour you don't want to see, you ensure that if behaviour you don't want to see slips through the cracks then it is unsuccessful.

It sounds like the problem here is not insurmountable in a theoretical sense, but may be when you put the human variable into the equation. If people are not able to reflect on their role in enabling a dog's bad behaviour then all the solutions in the world won't stick. Does the soft carer recognise that her behaviour needs to change?

[melzawelza]

It is hard for her because she finds it very hard to read the signs that things are about to kick off.

She commented that after the last incident she realised that the girl was hiding under the table cowering just before it happened. She couldn't understand it at the time or read the situation herself, however she realised after the fact that the little girl knew what was going on.

I guess my questions are what strategies would you suggest in this particular situation to nip it in the bud and prevent it happening again. There is no guarantee that the next time the young'un wouldnt manage to kill or very severely injure the old boy, that is the level of these attacks when they happen.

[Staranais]

I am not a trainer, so have nothing to add, except that it makes me sad that the old dog has to put up with being attacked in his own home, when he should be able to rely on his pack leaders/owners to protect him. I hope they get it sorted out, for the old dog's sake.

[SkySoaringMagpie]

She commented that after the last incident she realised that the girl was hiding under the table cowering just before it happened. She couldn't understand it at the time or read the situation herself, however she realised after the fact that the little girl knew what was going on.

I guess my questions are what strategies would you suggest in this particular situation to nip it in the bud and prevent it happening again. There is no guarantee that the next time the young'un wouldnt manage to kill or very severely injure the old boy, that is the level of these attacks when they happen.

OK, we have two bitches in season in the house at the moment. One of them will have a go given the right set of circumstances. This morning when I let a bitch who is not in season back in the house after her morning run a bitch who is in season is gave me a stack of signs that she was going to have a go at bitch who is not in season.

I immediately put bitch who is in season in a sit stay and put bitch who is not in season in a safe place in the house. Bitch who is in season was then released and sent into the yard to toilet. Problem averted. They were fine for the rest of the day.

Nipping it in the bud is about recognising the signs and being prepared to set very clear boundaries and standards. Probably the owner needs to be coached on what those signs are, the signs are very similar to the signs you'd pick in aggro humans in a pub - ie, eyeballing, shouldering, the "slow walk" etc. If you know what to look for, you can see it. Someone needs to help her see, and she needs to recognise that getting in early and breaking it up is not "unfair", it's what you do when you run a household.

[Nekhbet]

normal pack dynamics, the up and coming younger male is taking his anxiety and excitement out on the older male. Dog fights will break out when excitement peaks, the bitch is not a factor in this situation, two rather evenly matched males are. Also the dogs sounds understimulated, underattended and over excited. Why not let them in the house? I would also be separating the older from the younger and gain control on walks while they are ON LEAD and not able to fight.

[corvus]

I've only got thoughts as I'm not a trainer.

* Chill out games to teach self control with arousal, but it's kinda hard work and maybe beyond what these folks can do. Maybe they can do some good with massaging, though.

* Perhaps the underlying problem is the youngest dog has this one person as a big part of their maintenance stimuli set, so that there's all this excitement when she comes home. There are a bunch of things you can do to reduce the salience of someone's presence in a dog's maintenance stimuli set and expand the MS set to incoporate other things.

* Derailing the anticipation of the favourite person's arrival. She doesn't go out to them until all the dogs are calm. If just standing up sets the young one off, sit back down again.

[melzawelza]

Thanks for the comments guys! Very interesting and useful to file into my brain for future scenarios!! haha. It doesn't have to just be trainers though, if anyone has experience in similar type situations i'd love to hear what you would do to address it!

SkySoaringMagpie, we coached her and discussed the signs to watch for, it was almost unfortunate that the dogs are fine at all other times, because we had no opportunity to actually SHOW her what it looked like! Hopefully she will be better equipped to recognise it now!

[melzawelza]

I've only got thoughts as I'm not a trainer.

* Perhaps the underlying problem is the youngest dog has this one person as a big part of their maintenance stimuli set, so that there's all this excitement when she comes home. There are a bunch of things you can do to reduce the salience of someone's presence in a dog's maintenance stimuli set and expand the MS set to incoporate other things.

This sounds really interesting, Corvus. Could you expand a little?

[m-j]

All the dogs live outside, however old boy is let in every now and then to relax in his old age.

This possibly isn't helping either, what are they like when the old boy rejoins the pack outside?

cheers

M-J

[corvus]

I've only got thoughts as I'm not a trainer.

* Perhaps the underlying problem is the youngest dog has this one person as a big part of their maintenance stimuli set, so that there's all this excitement when she comes home. There are a bunch of things you can do to reduce the salience of someone's presence in a dog's maintenance stimuli set and expand the MS set to incoporate other things.

This sounds really interesting, Corvus. Could you expand a little?

I could try.

I'm doing a literature review on anxiety in dogs at the moment, and Maintenance Stimuli came up in one paper related to separation anxiety.

The general gist of it is a dog comes to associate a set of stimuli with comfort and security. This is how they know that everything is normal and they are safe. In some cases of hyperattachment, the dog comes to depend on one person as the big thing in their MS set. So when the person leaves them alone they become anxious and can't feel safe and secure. Obviously, there are degrees to which this would be expressed, thought to be dependent on how broad the MS set is. A very broad MS set makes for a balanced dog that doesn't get upset if one thing from the set is removed.

In the paper I was reading about this, several approaches to reducing the potency of one person's presence were suggested, such as ignoring attention-seeking behaviour, dividing tasks so that other people are doing some of the feeding and walking and so forth, encouraging independent activities (like tackling Kongs) and increasing tolerance of separation by practising moving around without the dog following. That's the basics, but this kind of thing is quite complicated with a lot of different factors. It's also necessary to identify and remove other things the dog associates with not having their person around, and setting up things they can learn to associate with their person that they can have when the person leaves them. That's an attempt to broaden the MS set.

You mentioned that in this scenario the special person might have been away for a long time. My previous dog grew to become very needy and snappy when I returned from long absences. I was at uni and would only visit in the holidays. She became very clued in to cues that told her I was leaving and would start getting anxious. She was fine a day or two after I left, but when I came back again she'd go through another period of being clingy and snapping at any animal that came too close. I think it was hard on her to have me leave often and for long periods. I think it's important to consider the effect anticipation is having on the behaviour and arousal. It's potent stuff, but not terribly hard to derail IME if you muddle the cues the dog is using. I have a dog that is very alert and can get totally out of control if he comes to anticipate big rewards. It helps to give him a routine of calm behaviour in NILIF. I lean heavily on downs, which he can do when he's highly aroused, but often have a calming effect on him.

[Aidan]

After years of staying on top of a similar problem I decided to separate my dogs in the yard when my daughter became old enough to unlock doors and wander outside amongst them (very exciting for my dogs, and being new, not something they had any real rules to follow for). Although separating dogs leads to it's own problems I was surprised at how good it felt not having anything to watch out for if the dogs hadn't had enough exercise, or if I'd been away or whatever. I've noticed my boy hasn't had any hot-spots or ear infections since, there could be other reasons for this but it's worth noting.

Not that I would necessarily suggest separating these dogs permanently, but it might be helpful at least early on while you can teach the younger dog exactly what to do in this situation (maybe go to a bed and wait?)

[JulesP]

Hard to answer without seeing it but this is what I would say to a friend that had this issue. I am feeling it is more of an age thing. I noticed at around 14yo my younger, super gentle border would try and pinch my old girls food. Younger border was around 3yo then. I just used to watch and make sure all was ok. I considered it to be normal dog behavior.

The lady needs to be not patting either dog whilst they are bouncing around, so she needs to get them both to sit, at a decent distance apart. I would then be telling her to pat the younger dog first. If she feeds them all together, I would get her to feed the younger male first, give him treats first etc.

Some lessons in body language would also be good so that she can learn to read the first signs.

If she feeds them bones, she might need to separate the dogs when they eat them.

[lanabanana]

When I was growing up we had a "similar" issue.

We had a border collie and a staffy. Both speyed females.

The border would have been around 8 or so when we got the staffy. The staffy adored the border until she became mature, and then it was like she decided she had to be "higher" than the border. The border would not back down so we had many fights with various members of the family being bitten when trying to separate the dogs or when the fight occured in an incovenient place such as in the car or on a bed (what's funny though is, the minute a human was bitten, the fight would stop).

My mum eventually ended up separating the dogs (the border lived until she was 16 or 17) and when they absolutely had to be in the same area of the yard, the staffy was chained. Funnily enough they would cuddle together etc, but having the staff on a chain allowed the border to move away if the staff started getting ready.

This basically continued (the separation and fights etc) until the old dog died - who still refused to back down even when she was a walking wreck.

I don't know if I would separate the dogs but it was what worked at the time for a single mum with 5 young children and two dogs who couldn't sort their order.

I don't have any personal experience. All the dogs I have owned have never ever had a scrap....the odd snap at each other but never an actual fight. The biggest we have had was Barney (36kgs) had a go at Pippi (5kgs) a few months ago when she got too near his food bowl. I always supervise feeding though so just said "Stop" in my angry voice and it immediately stopped. Needless to say, Pippi now stays away from his food bowl until he has finished (then she has to clean it for him).

Good luck to those people with their foxies though - I hope it all works out for them

EDIT to add: The staffy then went on to have issues with my mums next dog (who was actually my sisters but ended up at mums). So, it was always the staff...one minute she could be fine, then suddenly she would be having a go at the other dog and it often revolved around excitement with the second dog (who was younger), e.g. kicking a ball round the yard and the staff would get excited and end up attacking the other boy.

Edited June 9, 2010 by lanabanana

[Staranais]

Perhaps one of the issues is that the woman concerned likes being the very favourite person of the young dog, and is unwilling to do anything to make the dog "love" her less?

I don't know at all if this is the case here, but I've seen it happen. Person doesn't really like the consequences of the dog's possessive, clingy behaviour (separation anxiety, jealousy towards other people & animals) - but deep down actually likes that the dog is clingy with them, since it makes them feel they are well bonded with the dog.

[Aidan]

I don't know at all if this is the case here, but I've seen it happen. Person doesn't really like the consequences of the dog's possessive, clingy behaviour (separation anxiety, jealousy towards other people & animals) - but deep down actually likes that the dog is clingy with them, since it makes them feel they are well bonded with the dog.

I have very good reason to believe that something similar happens with some types of problem barking and also aggression. In some cases the solutions to these problem behaviours are very simple but not acted upon.

[corvus]

But equally, sometimes you can very much want to change the dog's possessive behaviour and it's just not that easy. I spent 13 years with my old girl trying everything I could think of to stop the possessiveness. I did not like that I couldn't talk to the other dogs or my cat without her getting snarky at them. I'd get up and leave as soon as she did it and she'd go and sulk. We would simmer at each other and it never did a scrap of good. I tried teaching her she could indeed get a pat at the same time as one of the other animals, but she'd forget about that the next time she was feeling possessive. I often heard the "you secretly like it" line and I did some soul searching and really, no, I didn't like it. Not anywhere deep in the darkness of my soul. There was no grain of truth to it. I never sanctioned it or did anything to encourage it. I spent years rousing on her or sending her away the moment she so much as stiffened when another animal was approaching. It wasn't until my last year with her that I finally tried giving her some alone time with me before she got snarky that I started to make some headway. I found it stressful to be so important to a dog, and it was probably a big factor in driving me towards independent breeds.

I have no doubt that some people do like it. I remember this dog the neighbours had when we were kids. She wandered the streets and was taught by the kids to "sick" other dogs. It being about the only thing they ever tried to teach her, it became the default behaviour around other dogs to just fly at them. It was so sad, because she was the sweetest-natured thing and she certainly didn't start out that way. When the kids moved away she got worse, until you would have to chase her away if she came near you when you had your dogs with you. Eventually someone else in the neighbourhood took her in, but she never did stop picking fights with other dogs. But I feel bad for people that genuinely don't like it when their dog behaves jealously or possessive of them and end up with folk that suggest they secretly like it deep down. It doesn't especially bother me, but I think it would if someone had ever said it to my face. It's a bit rough to struggle with a problem and then have it suggested that you secretly like it and that's why you can't fix it.

[Aidan]

But I feel bad for people that genuinely don't like it when their dog behaves jealously or possessive of them and end up with folk that suggest they secretly like it deep down.

I guess that depends on whether it is really true or not. I certainly wouldn't say it unless there was clear evidence to suggest that it was true. I haven't said it about this case, for e.g.

[Staranais]

It doesn't especially bother me, but I think it would if someone had ever said it to my face. It's a bit rough to struggle with a problem and then have it suggested that you secretly like it and that's why you can't fix it.

Yes, I hear you and can sympathise. My old boy was similar. And it made my blood boil to hear other dog owners smugly remark that problem dogs always have problem owners - without hearing the story of how I inherited my boy already "broken", or how much more controllable & calm he'd become since I'd acquired him, and without watching us work together, and usually without even having experienced working with real dog aggression themselves.

That's why I threw it out there as a suggestion only. I've seen it happen, and I think it's definitely a factor in some dog behaviour problems. But blaming aggression on the owner secretly liking it is just as silly as blaming it every incidence of aggression on anything else. Every dog, and every situation, is different.

[corvus]

What would be evidence that someone did secretly like it? For a while I wondered if I did and I wasn't sure. But then, I was a teenager at the time and wasn't very sure of anything emotionally.