Exercising Reactive Dogs Thread

[BC Crazy]

Don't worry hankdog the thought has crossed my mind re Stell's meds by yesterday arvo. 1 for her & 2 for me LOL. Then all day again today. errrrrr.

Jake's rearing to go now :)

[raineth]

BC Crazy I'm glad you escaped to the beach yesterday!

Hopefully no more jack-hammering today?

[BC Crazy]

No jack hammering today raineth thank goodness. Oh the serenity !!! My girl is sound asleep on the back deck in the sun :)

[raineth]

No jack hammering today raineth thank goodness. Oh the serenity !!! My girl is sound asleep on the back deck in the sun :)

Peace, quiet and sun - sounds great! And I bet you both really appreciate it after the last couple of days! :)

[teekay]

No jack hammering today raineth thank goodness. Oh the serenity !!! My girl is sound asleep on the back deck in the sun :)

Yay BC bet you are both glad of some peace. Wish I could say the same. Not as bad as jack hammering but they have a digger on the go all day next door today. Luka has been great but it so getting on my nerves. They're still at it now and they arrived at 6am

The muzzle training is going great Raineth, he is fine with it at home but it really is a last resort and I only want to use it if we really have to. I would rather try and build up his trust again. Mya is going to the vets Monday morning so I'm going to go with OH and take Luka along as well. Mya is pretty chilled so I am hoping her clamness rubs off on him.

I had thought about gong to another vets and if we don't get any forward progress over the next couple of weeks I will give that a try.

[hankdog]

Teekay Jake loves the vets and has declared a sort of amnesty on dogs at the vets. He gets absolute peanut butter access there, it's the only other time besides when seeing dogs that he gets open slather. I also get to wait in a cubicle and we pretend the bench and table is agility equipment and he's allowed to jump up and down. Does the vet have an operating morning when there are no other dogs and you could go in and play special games, hide treats around the waiting room maybe. Take some toys in and play whatever is his favorite game? Hopefully the vet would be understanding?

ETA Gosh I just realized I'm proud of Jake for something!

Edited August 15, 2013 by hankdog

[teekay]

Teekay Jake loves the vets and has declared a sort of amnesty on dogs at the vets. He gets absolute peanut butter access there, it's the only other time besides when seeing dogs that he gets open slather. I also get to wait in a cubicle and we pretend the bench and table is agility equipment and he's allowed to jump up and down. Does the vet have an operating morning when there are no other dogs and you could go in and play special games, hide treats around the waiting room maybe. Take some toys in and play whatever is his favorite game? Hopefully the vet would be understanding?

ETA Gosh I just realized I'm proud of Jake for something!

And so you should be, Hankdog :D

That is a great idea about the operating morning thing. I shall ask on Saturday.

[BC Crazy]

Hankdog, we should get Jake to show Stella how to behave at the Vets. That is really good he behaves so well

Stella is a nightmare. She wasn't like this as a puppy but now she is a real challange to even get her through the front door. She just shuts down. We can't even wait in the waiting room. She tries to go straight through

the window to get out. It is a 2 person job. She is just too strong for me to hold her. Now we just wait in the car till Vet is ready to see her, he will give us a call & OH carries Stella straight into the Vets room.

She is always muzzled as she has bitten him previously on the face Stella hates the slippery table so OH holds her quite firmly on the floor until the Vet is finished checking her.

Lucky she hasn't needed to have her mouth/teeth checked as yet as he would have to sedate her.

I have tried to get her used to it. Taken her there on quiet days etc. She wouldn't even get out of the car. So we have just sat in the car park, having treats & watched other but it hasn't helped her at all.

Edited August 17, 2013 by BC Crazy

[teekay]

So our visit to the vet this morning went really well (Unlike the walk after, but I will get to that )

It was a different receptionist but she was great with him and it was his usual vet on duty so she came out after Lya's consult, to say hello to him and Luka was a little nervous, but copious treats were lapped up. While the vet was talking to OH about booking Mya in for a dental I went into the consulting room with Luka and he had a sniff around and a few treats. All good. We spoke about his desexing and she says, with the nervous dogs, they let the owners stay with them while they sedate them so they are relaxed by the time you leave. :)

So I am going to bite the bullet and book him in. Another dog arrived and my vets is tiny so I didn't actually book him in there and then but I will definitely be popping back in next week. Another social visit can't hurt and I'll book him in then. Not looking forward to next months credit card bill

We took Mya and Luka for a walk after, but unfortunately there was an off lead dog (isn't there always ) but there was absolutely no sign of an owner, I think this dog may have escaped it's yard, and it was flying. Really running fast and Luka lost the plot. Screamed like a banshee. He hasn't done that in a while On a plus though, we did walk past lots of people and, although at this point I had run out of treats, Luka was fine :)

So a good but not great morning :D

Oh and I have booked a one on one consultation with Steve Courtney when he is up here next month. I ummed and ahhed about the cost but If I don't try I will never know if he could have made a difference.

[ness]

Hope Steve can help you teekay. I owe him for helping me so much with Kenz to the point where she can cope with strangers whereas before she wanted to disappear out the trial ring and would shut down. It certainly has made all the vet visits and poking and prodding a little easier on her. She even has special strangers now that she will approach happily and get excited by .

[corvus]

Have you thought about leaving Luka intact for a while? There is some evidence to suggest desexing may have a negative impact on his anxiety. Then again, it might not.

[BC Crazy]

TK, Luka did very well at the Vet. She could give Stella a lesson or 2 as well. As for the walk afterwards. A 'free' dog & no owner in sight is my worst nightmare. I'm ALWAYS on the lookout & never totally relax on a walk because of this very reason. Stella reacts the exact same way as your Luka & carries on a treat. Screaming like a banshee. Especially if they ambush her. She just looses it.

Good luck with your visit with Steve Courtney. Keep us posted :)

[hankdog]

I'm so impressed. We had our training session today and Jake did so well. Zoe wanted to work on getting some focus rather than working for bribes. We worked on stays and going up and down and cutting out rewards. I know I over reward but it was quite funny to watch myself go for the treat bag every time she told me to give Jake a command. He went through a small attempt at jelly bones but gave up and came back looking keen and vaguely like a normal, want to please dog.

My daughter was watching and she said at one point she was laughing thinking "not this dog" but turns out he's just like any other dog if you just get the timing right.

[BC Crazy]

Well done Jake. He is going so well. I too am very guilty of over rewarding Hankdog One lady I bumped into when I was out peeked into my bait bag & asked me if I was out with my dogs for the weekend because

of the amount of goodies I had on me :laugh: No wonder Stella is so food driven. I do notice her following my hands alot with her eye's when asked to do anything. I really need to address it actually.

[raineth]

I'm really glad to hear of everyone's successes!

I am also guilty of being like that with treats!

And it's actually really silly of me as Del is very fond of praise. Since starting BAT I have been taking her on walks sometimes without even taking treats with me I know! Crazy huh!?

Mostly I do still take some with me in case of emergencies but I've been using less and rewarding much more with praise. She is a good girl, I wish she had a less unco owner.

[Guest hankodie]

Hi all, I have lurked this thread off and on so I thought I should introduce myself I own an 18 month old Frenchie named Odie. She was diagnosed with a life threatening liver disease as a puppy and as a result my husband and I have spent much of her puppyhood (and adult life) fretting over her health, which has what I think resulted in her reactivity on the lead. Off the leash she gets along well with dogs and is quite playful and she is wonderful with our 3 month old Golden Retriever puppy. On the leash she is an absolute nightmare. I have just come back from our walk where she completely lost her mind at a couple of boys playing with one of those remote controlled cars. She loses it when she sees other dogs too sometimes depending on the situation (this usually happens if we are stopped/stationary on our walk and dogs walk by us).

All of this is made harder for me to manage by the fact that her diet is so strict I often cannot feed her any treats on our walks. It's incredibly frustrating trying to get her to focus on me as I don't have much to work with. On top of this we are always worrying about her health as there is no telling how long she will be around.

Hoping I can learn some more about managing a reactive dog, it's nice to know that I'm not the only owner out there struggling and it's been very reassuring reading all the advice/tips on here!

[hankdog]

Welcome Hankodie. It's bad enough having a reactive dog but health issues confusing the matter is tough. Hopefully someone here will have had a similar problem. Thank dog mine is food motivated otherwise I'd have nothing since he doesn't have any interest in toys.

Edited August 21, 2013 by hankdog

[Guest hankodie]

Thanks Hankdog. My girl is definitely food motivated, if I could feed her whatever I'm sure we would have made much more progress on her behaviour but sadly her diet plays a major role on her wellbeing and there are lots of delicious things she'd love to have but can't. It definitely is frustrating. She loves toys but when she's out and about she won't even look at one as she's too hung up on being alert. I see you might be the owner of a bulldog, they are stubborn little things aren't they! It's definitely been a learning experience that's for sure!

[corvus]

Food limitations are a major bummer, but there ARE other options. You will just need to work especially hard on desensitisation. You may get a long way with negative reinforcement regimes like BAT. BAT uses food as a crutch, which I support, but it's not dependent on it. The main goal with any reactive dog is to help them feel safe. That is not dependent on food. Food sure as hell helps, but we don't necessarily need it if we are careful. For years I had a wild hare. You generally can't counter-condition a wild hare because they won't eat unless they feel very safe. It took a long time, but I got my hare to the point where I could counter-condition and train operantly just through careful desensitisation. I used to feel very frustrated with dog people complaining that their dog wasn't food driven. I'd be like "I'll swap you your unmotivated-about-food dog for my stupidly flighty, won't-eat-unless-he's-totally-safe hare any day of the week! Dog people don't know how easy they have it!" Of course, you don't always have it easy. A hare is not dangerous and doesn't often need to be out in the scary world with you. A lot of things I could just manage through low stress handling and the likes because they were so rarely necessary. There's no way he could have been okay doing a lot of the stuff dogs do. Anyway, I digress. The point is, don't feel helpless about it because you have food limitations. Where abouts are you? I might know someone in your area who could help you.

Incidentally, I don't think people who can use food should worry too much about over-using it. Most people don't reward enough. At some point we should be aiming to wean the dogs off needing food to get through things, but wait until the dog is telling you they are well and truly ready for that. Yesterday Erik was trying to tell me he thought he needed food for not barking at the people hitting baseballs on the next field over. He didn't need it so he didn't get it. Deciding this kind of thing is a bit of an art, especially with dogs that have been conditioned to lean on you when they think they need help. There's a fine line between listening to and honouring your dog and letting them become overly dependent. Then again, does it matter if your dog is pretty dependent on food?

[teekay]

Hi, Hankodie . Sorry to hear about your Frenchie's health issues, it sure would complicate matters. Is there any way her normal food allowance could be used on walks, training etc? Not as good as some yummy stuff that would be bad for her, but may be better than nothing, especially as you say she loves her food.

Oh and would love to see some photos of your 2 babies. :)