Exercising Reactive Dogs Thread

[raineth]

Why do people find treat training your dog so offensive. I get a lot of comments about giving Jake peanut butter when he's near another dog, I understand that to many people he's behaving badly and I'm rewarding him. They haven't seen where he's come from so they don't know it's actually an improvement so I just smile and nod.

This evening I was on the side of the road doing our dinner training. Just a bit of basic obedience and giving him his kibble as reward. He was in a sit stay with me about 5m away (on a long line). This man crosses the road and asks me how I will control my dog when I run out of treats. Nope I never will, I have a huge bag at home. Well he says your dog isn't "really" obedient. His dogs do what they're told all the time because their reward is not to get a wallop if they don't do it.

Yep, that's those imaginary dogs you're walking right now. I just wonder why people feel so negatively about using treats in training. Good thing was Jake didn't budge the whole time I was entertaining the opinionated windbag.

Ugh... This makes me groan so much! Oh wow what a hero he is hitting his dog.... In reality he was just trying to make himself feel better by making you feel worse.

Good on Jake though

[BarbedWire]

Deleted

Edited September 13, 2014 by sarsaparilla

[Jemmy]

I just saw a giveaway ad on a certain website that included phrases

"I am a very protective dog and will bark and run at strangers I don't know, and this is why I need a new home as unfortunately my new home in [redacted] does not have good fences and I kept getting out and barking and showing aggressive behaviour when people came near my house, but if you got to know me in my home I'd just want bum scratches all day and for you to play fetch with me."

A very striking dog in the photos as well, I hope someone unsuspecting does not get sucked in and that he goes to a home where he'll get the support/training he's going to need.

[hankdog]

Poor dog, rather than fix fences they'll give it away. I hope she finds a good home that will help her become the best dog she can be.

[Mrs Rusty Bucket]

This weekends efforts...

Cos otherwise I sort of edit them from my brain...

A long legged staffy - dragging on its lead at the beach yesterday - despite that seemed friendly. And Frosty did the crawly greeting thing which looked ok for a bit and then I thought - three seconds have expired we should all be moving on now... and that's when Frosty decided to go from grovel dog - to fierce growly dog. No idea - but we moved apart and I made her stay on lead at the beach until I was quite sure that dog and any other potential trigger dogs were well away...

And then I let her off and she was polite to all the other dogs at the beach. WTF.

Even the ones that looked like curly coat oodle x.

And today - at beach all good. But then we went to friends place near beach for breakfast. And Frosty decides the lawn including the walk way at the top of it belonged to her and no other dogs or people were allowed unchallenged...

First dog to arrive - was another long legged staffy (possible amstaff x something)... and she and another dog at brekky blast up to it in an extremely rude fashion... given it isn't her place no matter what she thinks. But she does keep her distance so I go up and grab her and apologise. The other dog was quite excited but didn't react aggressively so phew what a good boy he was.

I tied Frosty to the table leg - erm mistake. Cos second dog to arrive - small black poodle off lead (hmm)... So Frosty takes off and comes up very short (I think her neck might actually be a bit sore now)... and spills everyone's coffee. At least that one was self inflicted. She can't blame me for that. And I go catch the other dog who has decided that all dogs need scolding...

And I move Frosty's tie to the chair. Which she could probably move quite a bit if I'm not sitting on it. But at least the coffees won't be disturbed.

And yes, another dog arrives but Frosty does her display without lunging (what a fast learner). So pretty exciting breakfast. It's not a very obvious walk way - there's no defined path it's between the houses and the beach dunes... so I wasn't expecting other dogs...when they could be on the beach. go figure.

Frosty was otherwise perfectly behaved on the beach - even tho I can't talk to her at the moment because my voice doesn't work because of a green lurgy.

[Simply Grand]

Mrs RB, it seems to me like Frosty isn't getting anywhere near enough consistency from you. Reactive dogs (well all dogs really) need YOU to set the boundaries and should not be interacting with other dogs unless you are controlling the situation.

For a reactive dog, sometimes being able to decide for themselves whether to approach other dogs and other times not, sometimes being given opportunity to react and other times not, and sometimes receiving consequences after reacting and sometimes before is highly confusing and counter productive to changing behaviour.

Reactive dogs need a consistent, practiced pattern of behaviour at every controlled opportunity you have so that in those unpredictable situations they have that rehearsed behaviour with you to fall back on.

[raineth]

Ok I'm not an expert, and I know SG is very against this idea, but I have a feeling that Frosty might really benefit from the 'leave it" command.

It just might work as a really clear signal to her that she doesn't need to make the decisions about whether a particular dog should be sent off or not. I think it would be really important for you to get in with the leave it before she's had any sort of negative display. But it could be a really useful tool to tell her not to worry.

[BC Crazy]

I use the 'leave it' command quite often with Stella & it seems to be very effective in breaking her focus on the on coming dog or whatever it may be that she is about to react to. She is given a simple obedience command such as sit/down facing me & is rewarded. When I feel she calm then we continue on.

Simply Grand may I ask why you don't like using the 'leave it' command out of curiosity?

Just sitting down quietly when we are out & about is a work in progress for us. I'm gradually lengthening the time each time we do this. She has really improved though. This is a very difficult task for Stel just to be well, still for any length of time. We can sit together now & just people watch in a quieter area now & she relaxes on a good day. She is not the type of dog you could take to an outdoor cafe or anything. She'd be like a bull in a china shop Stella just wouldn't be comfortable. Lots of noise & people just stress her out a lot. She would just unravel emotionally very quickly.

[raineth]

I use the 'leave it' command quite often with Stella & it seems to be very effective in breaking her focus on the on coming dog or whatever it may be that she is about to react to. She is given a simple obedience command such as sit/down facing me & is rewarded. When I feel she calm then we continue on.

Simply Grand may I ask why you don't like using the 'leave it' command out of curiosity?

Just sitting down quietly when we are out & about is a work in progress for us. I'm gradually lengthening the time each time we do this. She has really improved though. This is a very difficult task for Stel just to be well, still for any length of time. We can sit together now & just people watch in a quieter area now & she relaxes on a good day. She is not the type of dog you could take to an outdoor cafe or anything. She'd be like a bull in a china shop Stella just wouldn't be comfortable. Lots of noise & people just stress her out a lot. She would just unravel emotionally very quickly.

:laugh: sorry I just realised what I did! When I said SG, I was referring to Susan Garrett (MRB has been doing recallers)! But that was a bit silly of me considering Simply Grand had just posted :laugh:

Sorry for the confusions BC Crazy!

In case you re interested, Susan Garrett doesn't like saying 'leave it' because commands in themselves are often reinforcing (we have paired them with reinforcement so often) so in effect you may be rewarding the dog getting distracted by saying 'leave it'. Some dogs learn these behaviour chain very. very quickly. It was why I asked you whether you might be recalling Stella when she is rushing towards another dog, as if you do this Stella might be deliberately running towards a dog so that you can recall her and she gets a treat.

[BC Crazy]

Oh OK, no worries Raineth :laugh:

Thanks for explaining about the 'leave it' scenario. I never thought of that aspect actually. I'm going to watch out for that now though cause the last thing I want is to be rewarding her running off. Gosh & she is smarted enough to figure that too. I battle to stay one step in front of her at times. She is such a thinker.

[grumpette]

I originally used "leave it" for Dee but after the third attack she associated "leave it" with an attack and would just escalate her behaviour. I now use "watch" to gain her attention and prevent bad behaviour escalation. There are two reasons for this. One is when we are trialling I want her to constantly watch me so that she does not have a chance to engage with any other dogs, regardless of what is happening. The other reason is that when we are out and about if she is watching me she can get calming signals from me, so that she is relaxed in crowds and around other dogs. It also makes it easier for me to control her prey drive. As far as Dee is concerned ALL good things come from me, treats and protection.

With Zeph it is a lot harder as he was over socialised as a puppy and dogs have an extremely high value for him (yep lesson learnt). I am using "watch" with him as well, because balls, especially squeaky isqueaks and retrieving, are higher value than dogs, so these only come from me, and they only come out when training and when walking or out and about. Not in the yard at home. It appears to be working slowly. We were at water training on Saturday at Lilydale Lake, with other girl dogs, and he concentrated on retrieving the bunt, with the occasional glance at the other dogs. No squeaking or whining. No straining to get to the other dogs.

I was extremely proud of Dee on Saturday at water training as well. There was no hyper-vigilance from her, no defensive attacks, but even better when we had a whole lot of Koorie kids come down to pat the dogs, she was calm, confident and engaging. Even though some of the kids were wary. She would look to me, get a calming sign and continue to engage. Trick training and food also helps. Everybody had a brilliant day.

[JulesP]

I was extremely proud of Dee on Saturday at water training as well. There was no hyper-vigilance from her, no defensive attacks, but even better when we had a whole lot of Koorie kids come down to pat the dogs, she was calm, confident and engaging. Even though some of the kids were wary. She would look to me, get a calming sign and continue to engage. Trick training and food also helps. Everybody had a brilliant day.

I'll be hearing about this! My friend is a manager of the school. She was telling me about another dog that the kids had met and I knew him too. Nice that the kids wanted to do more dog patting not sure they really get dogs as pets.

Edited September 15, 2014 by JulesP

[grumpette]

I was extremely proud of Dee on Saturday at water training as well. There was no hyper-vigilance from her, no defensive attacks, but even better when we had a whole lot of Koorie kids come down to pat the dogs, she was calm, confident and engaging. Even though some of the kids were wary. She would look to me, get a calming sign and continue to engage. Trick training and food also helps. Everybody had a brilliant day.

I'll be hearing about this! My friend is a manager of the school. She was telling me about another dog that the kids had met and I knew him too. Nice that the kids wanted to do more dog patting, not sure they really get dogs as pets.

The kids were amazing. So engaging and easy going. They had a brilliant time telling us where they came from and the dogs that they had, patting Flint (the third Rotty there), getting their photos taken with the Newfies on the boats, and saying hello to the Leonberger. I am rapt that they had a great time.

Edited September 15, 2014 by grumpette

[JulesP]

Nice! I sent the photo to my friend and she wants to put it on their FB page is that ok with you?

[grumpette]

Absolutely. :D

If she would also like to organise a visit from the dogs we can do that as they are certified therapy dogs with Dogs Vic and do all the expos.

[JulesP]

Cool :) I'll let her know.

[BC Crazy]

Mrs RB, it seems to me like Frosty isn't getting anywhere near enough consistency from you. Reactive dogs (well all dogs really) need YOU to set the boundaries and should not be interacting with other dogs unless you are controlling the situation.

For a reactive dog, sometimes being able to decide for themselves whether to approach other dogs and other times not, sometimes being given opportunity to react and other times not, and sometimes receiving consequences after reacting and sometimes before is highly confusing and counter productive to changing behaviour.

Reactive dogs need a consistent, practiced pattern of behaviour at every controlled opportunity you have so that in those unpredictable situations they have that rehearsed behaviour with you to fall back on.

I agree with this completely. It sounds like Frosty is getting to control who she meets, doesn't have strategies in place for staying under threshold and is getting to practice reactive behaviours repeatedly. MrsRB, I'm not sure if you're aware but every time Frosty uses her reactive behaviours they're being reinforced and make it more and more likely that she will behave reactively next time. The more she practices them the harder it becomes to change that behaviour. I think, based on what you described yesterday, that there is a risk of stress stacking happening as well, as each episode builds on the previous one. It sounds like the situation at your friends was too much for her and she might be better off in their backyard or staying home next time?

What tools or techniques are you using to keep Frosty under threshold? Have you been doing any counter-conditioning work and trying things like the Look at That (LAT) game or Behaviour Adjustment Training (BAT)? Another great tool is teaching your dog "let's go" for getting out of situations quickly, including turning and running in the opposite direction. We use "leave it" as well and Emily Larlham teaches that in her Reactivity DVD as a tool.

I'm a bit concerned that Frosty hurt her neck and I personally don't recommend tethering reactive dogs in situations where they may encounter other dogs. I think being tied up adds to them feeling trapped and can make behaviours worse, as well as meaning we don't have the control that we would have if we were holding the leash (I take Justice to cafés but keep the leash looped over my wrist even when I'm eating and stay alert for people walking by with dogs so I can manage Justice before he has a chance to get worked up), but we also risk our dogs hurting themselves by doing exactly what Frosty did. Maybe it would be worth looking in to a front attach harness if she flies forward so hard that she jars her neck when she gets to the end of the leash? At least that way she's less likely to come away with an injury.

Excellent post Snook

RB, I always try & keep Stella under her thresh hold of reactivity. So she always 'wins' & is calm. Well as calm as she can be. I am raising the bar with her each day I take her out BUT very, very slowly. She would of just flipped out & then completely shut down in the situation you discribe. I wouldn't tether her anywhere either. Just too risky IMHO. She would of upended the whole table, chairs, everything in a split second.

[dididog]

I felt so bad the other day I had some friends over on Friday night for a birthday dinner and while we normally have strangers over a fair bit with no issue it's usually only 1 or 2 at a time and anyway I heard my friends at the front gate and went to open the door and Didi ran into the hallway barking her 'hey somebody's outside bark'. I'd put her lead on just in case so I asked her to back up and opened the door and my friends yelled happy birthday (really should have briefed them before hand) and instead of turning into happy tail wag sniffy sniff puppy like she normally would when I let people in the front door she started up her 'I'm a big bad puppy' bark.

I told all my friends to completely ignore her and asked them to go into the kitchen while I took Didi into my bedroom and got her to sit and decided to take her lead of incase that was making her feel weird and that way she could just move away from us if she was scared. I let her off and she followed me into the kitchen and started sniffing my friends but had her tail right between her legs and even though I said for everyone to ignore her until she calmed down one of my friends started patting her and she wet herself!

Normally if she is scared of somebody she moves as far away as possible and she could've easily moved away but she kept slinking around my friends sniffing them with her tail tucked so I think she was just nervous and excited rather than straight up scared. There was also none of the growling or barking that usually accompanies people breaching her comfort zone apart from the initial entrance and once when one of my friends screamed about something which is fair enough, our household is generally quiet and I told everyone to keep their voices down after that. Once she calmed down a bit my friend who Didi is most familiar with kneeled down and had a chat to her and after that Didi followed her around and lay down at her feet while we made dinner. For the rest of the night she was pretty much fine, everyone could pat her and she lay down calmly at my feet while we ate dinner. I think she was just initially very overwhelmed and stressed out but it kind of caught me off guard and everything kind of fell out of my mind management wise so I just stressed that everyone be calm and ignore her.

I am having a party with around 40+ people next week though (was meant to be the weekend that just past but had to change it) and while I wasn't intending on having Didi roaming around I am a lot more worried about it now. The plan was to tire her out completely and set her up in the garage with my brother and a big bone and a kong and she can just hang out in the back part of our house which is separate from the party area. I would leave her with someone that night but the only person I would leave her with is coming to the party. Dad might take her for a night walk if she's getting too stressed. I kind of want to cancel the whole thing because I'm worried about her.

I love the puppy but I am so worried about making her reactivity worse or her hurting someone and that's the opposite of what I need to be doing at the moment.

On the plus side we went to a DOL meet up this weekend and she got lots of cuddles from some people she's only met once or twice and took it all in her stride and she played so nicely with another horse puppy which kind of cheered me up, seeing how great she is with other dogs made me forget about our other problems for a bit.

[hankdog]

Do you have a crate. Jake loves his crate, I took it out the car the other day to wash it and he was so happy he hopped in it for a nap. If you can pop her in for the beginning of the night at least and see how she goes. Jake is Strangely a huge party animal. I normally teach people how to make him bark and then I can track him around the party! Fatso knows how to work a crowd.

Loving the two Rotties trying to be lapdogs.

Edited September 15, 2014 by hankdog

[dididog]

Do you have a crate. Jake loves his crate, I took it out the car the other day to wash it and he was so happy he hopped in it for a nap. If you can pop her in for the beginning of the night at least and see how she goes. Jake is Strangely a huge party animal. I normally teach people how to make him bark and then I can track him around the party! Fatso knows how to work a crowd.

Loving the two Rotties trying to be lapdogs.

We crate trained her as a puppy but huge dog = huge crate and we don't really have the room for one so never bought her a new one after she outgrew the first.

I think she'll be fine in the back part of our house (garage/laundry/office) especially if my brother/dad/mum are hanging out with her but I think the noise and knowing lots of strange people are in our house might make her upset.