Obnoxious 'barking At' Behaviour

[Skruffy n Flea]

hello

byron, my rescue boy, has progressed further in the past 3 to 4 weeks, but i'm a little bit concerned as to where that is now leading...

of course we know nothing of his background as we've had him only 10 months of his 3 or so-ish years so there are no clues as to what may develop and so here is my concern:

at the dog park for small dogs and with the number of ppl with dogs that enter the park, he will randomly single out one person, approach them and bark at them, incessantly!

i am somewhat embarrassed by this behaviour because, in this instance, this poor man just stood there with a fixed smile on his face, not looking at byron, not saying anything, not moving, nada but with this pesky little dog simply barking at him for no apparent reason and i can't fathom it!

there is one clue i suppose: a rather large and tall person who generally wears all black comes in with her small dog and byron has on the first occasion simply barked at her/him [sorry, i can't determine the person's gender ] and on this last occasion, the man who was not overly large wore a rather large dense black jacket [but i have black jackets too that i wear regularly]...

byron also barks at random ppl outside the park, those walking by or those that just want to stand and look at the dogs!

he also will bark at a random dog in the adjoining big dog section of the park...

when i say random, he doesn't stand there and bark at every person that comes into the park, he doesn't stand and bark at every person that walks by or just stands there outside the park, and he doesn't bark at every dog there is in the adjoining park for big dogs...

when we got bella and after i'd done a whole helluva lot of research, i became aware that dogs would bark at an unknown ooooh, scarey thing i've never seen before object and so putting that research into practice, we would approach the thing and she would become comfortable with the thing and so since then she's had no concerns with that same thing [i'm talking about roadwork witches hats but the same is said for upside down wheelbarrows]...

atm i feel a bit odd saying to a stranger that i'm just going to reach for your arm so i can teach my dog that you are not a scarey thing!

i am warming to that idea tho if that is what it will take to settle my dog's behaviour...

this is the 2nd time that byron has displayed what is clearly escalating behaviour at the park because this last time it happened more --- i apologised profusely to the man and those outside the park and the dogs in the other park and attempted to correct byron's behaviour [at least i distracted him] on each occasion, but i just can't seem to fathom what i'm dealing with here so i can approach his rehab more effectively and proactively...

while he's at the park he seems to become very anxious and he starts to dribble [i carry a towel with me to wipe his face], which has not lessened over the past 10 months, but he doesn't shake and rather he struts about the park, tail arched taut and head forward, peeing on every blade of grass and then scratching back --- he greets other dogs respectfully and makes no confronting gestures to any of the dogs inside the park and nor do any dogs confront him but quite in contrast he is much happier to explore on his own...

i'm really sorry for such a long post but it's best you have all the info rather than bits and pieces cuz i really really really would appreciate your valuable insights...

tia, most gratefully

[corvus]

Okay, this is totally weird for me to say because I'm normally obsessive about finding the root of a problem, but in this case if it were me I wouldn't worry about what it was that was setting him off. I would just concentrate on changing the behaviour. Considering we don't know what Byron's aim is when he starts this weird barking, we can't really make sure he is not rewarded for it unless we get him doing something else that can be rewarded instead. I think my aim would be to teach Byron that when he sees a person that upsets him he should sit next to me and play a game such as the "Look, a strange person!" game or the "Let's practise some tricks!" game. Leslie McDevitt does a fun game called the Look At That game. When the dog sees something that triggers them, she clicks with a clicker and then rewards when the dog automatically looks back at her. Then when the dog looks at the trigger she clicks again and rewards when the dog looks at her. So pretty soon you have a dog that is training rather than getting upset about something in the environment, and they are only looking at the trigger because you have told them to look and won't reward them until they do.

These games only work if your dog will pay attention when he hears the clicker. If he's not clicker trained, you can use some other sound that might get his attention, but it should be associated with good things. He should hear it and think "Oh boy, I'm gettin' something good!" You want to jolt him off staring at strange people and get him training instead.

I think it pays to remember that you are not helpless and only able to react to whatever your dog does. You can be proactive and think "what would I like him to be doing?" and set about getting him to do that so you can throw a party for him and tell him how wonderful and clever he is when he does. If you sit back and let him do whatever he likes and then react to it you end up spending a lot of time trying to stop them from doing things. I find it much easier to decide what I want them to do first and look for it so I can reward it. If I want them to pay attention to me when I say their name, I have to practise that a lot in places that are distracting and reward a lot when they do it. Sometimes I reward them just for randomly attending to me. My older dog goes "I feel like a treat. I'm going to go and heel next to someone and gaze hopefully at them until they give me one." I like it that he wants to do that. It's useful when I need him to do that. So I reward it when he offers it quite often and I ask for it quite often. If I don't really know what I want of my dog then how will he know what he should do? Sometimes all I can think is "I don't want him to do that", so my knee jerk reaction is just to stop him however I can. The thinking reaction should be "What do I want him to do?" and then just ask for it. If he can't do it, I teach him.

[Skruffy n Flea]

wow, corvus, thank you! i'll up the classic conditioning exercises so i can be certain to get his attention when i ask for it despite any distractions...

i'll shadow him at the park --- we presently give them distance at the park but keep our eyes on both of them but i'll up that by moving closer to him so i can be there right on strike!

he's not clicker trained but he is treat motivated so classic conditioning might be at least a starting point and i can move forward from there

thanks again

[noisymina]

We got Kaisie at 4 years of age.

She feared anything I picked up - from the hose to the vacuum, the mop..........anything would send her way back down to the back corner of the yard.

After spending all morning getting her back to the house the first time, I realised I did not have THAT much time on my hands to do that every time she freaked out. ;) So it was ignored. And she got over it. She will even choose to stay in the house with the vacuum actually ON now. I will admit to a little de-sensitising re the vacuum. It was fun watching her fight fear over treats placed next to the vauum hose down the hallway. Actually stepping over it was another major achievement. These days she will even walk over the vacuum hose while it's ON to be with me.

She also had a distinct dislike of any young men. Mid teens to early 20s. She would REALLY go off at them. Some she would eventually warm up to and it did get better as she realised none of the ones here actually did her any harm. Including our two sons in that category. She lived with them, but the others were still a threat. BUT there were a couple that she NEVER would go near. Clearly some young male has been mean to her in her past life. I assume it also had something to do with her being hit with something.

Byron may well associate the black jacket with something. The fact he is ok with YOU in one doesn't mean he's ok with a stranger in one.

If the experience with Kaisie is anything to go by, the ignore and distract idea is probably the way to go.

[Skruffy n Flea]

thansk noisy for your insight and also for telling me about your girl i'm glad things are progressing well for her too --- it can be a tuff battle can't it, but more so for our fluffies that must be suffering unsettling chaos of their own

about the black jacket tho, my OH reminded me last night of the first time byron barked at someone; the lady was standing with a male person and neither of them were wearing black and in fact the lady was in subtle earthy tones --- so i'm not sure that is the thing he's reacting to...

all the same, i don't think i can ignore his behaviour as such, but instead of correcting his behaviour [which i could view as behaviour ignored ] i can distract him and get his attention focussed on me and that would be a major step in the right direction --- being treat motivated i can see some success could easily be had with that approach...

i think corvus's approach is the right way too in that trying to analyse byron's motivation would be less time effective but perhaps in time there may be some obvious signs as to why he behaves in this way, just like it did with you over time for your girl

i really need to address his behaviour but it's nice to have the answers too; one day perhaps

again, thanks so much for your input