Exercising Reactive Dogs Thread

[Staffyluv]

Have to say thanks to Staffyluv for the squish against a wall tip. I was sitting on the side of the road, which sloped down quite a bit, taking a stone out my shoe when the maremma apoeared on our side of the road at the top of the bank we were sitting on. It's a monster and doesn't have patience for Jake. I abandoned my shoe and launched self and dog at the wall, really helped keeping him still. Thanks for that one!

Haha, that has saved my arm from being removed by an in flight Ziggy on more than a few occasions.

Another quick update from us as we just had our second obedience class.

I took him about half an hour early again and he had a bit ball chasing run with the trainers BCs and lovely Beagle.

Just that 15 minutes of running before class seems to wear him down enough to sit in class.

We had a couple of new dogs start this week and they were both all about saying hello and having a play - so Zig was a bit harder to handle (watching them play around a bit)..

I moved him down the other end of the line, next to the lovely little cocker girl and he settled back into nice heels, sits and stays.

Today we worked on right and left turns and come (on lead)..

He did really well - not as good as last week with ignoring the distraction but still 'outstanding' for him. We still have loads of room for improvement but it still feels like the right decision and I am really enjoying working with him at all the basics.

I am going to give the ToT another try next week each night at dinner time to see if it works this time (I tried it once and I think I was just not in the right frame of mind to see it through - it was a bit of a half hearted effort on my part)..

We can't use the squeaky ball in class - so I took the squeaker out but when you squeeze the ball it still makes a soft sound of air rushing out where the squeaker was - he is more than happy to respond to that sound..

I am very encouraged by this so far..

[Staffyluv]

I just had to share this mornings moment.

2 Staffords on our left and 3 pugs on our right.. A tennis ball in hand, leave it, lets go - he walked between them all and kept coming with me.

This would NEVER have happened once upon a time. It may not happen next time but it shows massive improvement in his ability to ignore other dogs and make me and the ball (still not sure I win out over the ball) his main focus..

[hankdog]

Oh well done, a moment to frame!!

ETA.....3 pugs not sure I would have been able to leave it.

Edited February 18, 2013 by hankdog

[chuckandsteve]

So we had an interesting training session yesterday. My dog is reactive to dogs on lead, fine off lead at his trainers but I never let him off lead.

My dog has regressed at training, he use to be able to sit in the middle of the group, occassional lunge/break but at class 2 other dogs did this too, first month in they considered passing him. I said dont bother as class 3 is off lead which he can't do, they said he'd be fine(no he wouldn't). Anyway since that month he has got all barky and carries on, more that he wants to play than attack so he is about 15m out from the group.

Anyway they moved our class this week to inbetween 2 off lead groups, class 3 was their first week off lead and dogs kept breaking and running to our group, and another class where they seem to let the dogs have a free for all and then try and call back in.

Hubby comes with me and usually has to maybe turn one dog around a week, this week was about 15 that rushed my dog. One got within 2 metres and hubby grabbed its collar and walked it halfway back to the owner before he let go. If he had missed the collar it would have been bad because at this stage there was an entire class of loose dogs so i had lost all control of mine. The instructor also told my husband he shouldnt have grabbed the dog, the owner didn't seem fussed.

We also saw this dog have a go at another dog later when on lead, nothing bad but wouldnt go down

SO basically I am wondering if we are now doing more harm than good taking him? he particually doesn't like being rushed by off lead dogs

I should also add my dog wears a yellow bandana to warn people he isnt to be approached and was giving very bad signals at the time my husband grabbed the other dog.

Edited February 24, 2013 by chuckandsteve

[Panzer Attack]

My dog was attacked twice by off-lead dogs at obedience club and he is so affected by it. Please don't put your dog in situations like this I would think twice about ever taking any dog I owned to ANY club thanks to the irresponsible people that ruin it for everyone else.

My class' instructor continually allowed her dog to approach mine despite the bandana - HELLO?! If the instructors can't even follow protocol why would anyone else?

[megan_]

I agree with Panzer chuckandsteve. Is this club in the eastern suburbs by any chance?

[chuckandsteve]

Yeah, they have been quite good. We are in the lowest class at that time and we use to be around behind a building from these 2 classes but cricket needs the oval so they moved us.

My instructor looked quite concerned, but was too far to do anything. But they do all seem quite relaxed about the chance of a fight. I just wonder if they have never seen a full blown fight, they seem quite relaxed about it.

[hankdog]

I had an insightful conversation with Vicki today that I thought would be worth sharing. Basically we discussed the difference between changing a dogs behavior versus changing its emotional state. It is preferable to change the emotional reaction, the way the dog "feels" about something, for us other dogs, as this will then of itself change behavior that flows from the emotional reaction. Methods that do this are generally positive, such as LAT and classical conditioning. Changing a dogs behavior, the symptoms of the emotional state may be less preferable and methods to do this can include positive and "negative", such as punishment. Since we were having this conversation you can imagine that we are moving on from trying to make J-dog like other dogs and going for trying to get him to adjust his behavior, just walk past without fussing. Steve Courtney spoke to me about getting him to think "I walk at heel no matter what." I would hope that eventually if we can get the nonsense under control he might actually start to think and that might affect his emotional state but that would just be a bonus.

Anyway I thought this was an interesting way of thinking about what you're doing in your training and organizing your approach to whatever your situation and if anyone has any clarifying things to add that would be good since we were having this conversation over a barking dog I may have not understood everything.

Edited February 25, 2013 by hankdog

[Panzer Attack]

I can't wait for Scooter's health to be under control so I can hire a trainer and post in here again! I miss you guys lol.

I did contact a behaviourist about him (again) who said he was a very complicated case but I think in all honesty fear and pain impact on his ability to think like a 'normal' dog in most of his life. We shall see I guess. He is getting worse despite my best efforts and I had another friend say she would have given up on him by now yesterday. Sigh.

(Sorry about the rant, no one replied to my thread in general so I'm a bit upset about that + everything else going on. Not even a dog lovers community wants to listen to my issues with Scootie LOL)

[hankdog]

But you won't give up PA because you can't, I don't think that's the person you are. I have a whiplash injury and when it's sore I am really cranky so I can imagine a lot of Scooties issues would be crankiness from pain and just making sure nothing touches him. A reactive dogs issues affect the owner too and that's what this thread is about so rant away, we all have days when it's overwhelming.

Justice is amazing, I can't imagine actually being able to go to an obedience class never mind that he can sit calmly whilst other dogs are barking. I guess the problem with Jake is that the training seems to go the other way, instead of him becoming more relaxed with Chili he has become so sensitized to everything associated with going to training. I kept biltong as a special treat for training with Vicki and all that did was make him uptight if I started preparing it at home. Mondays is the one day he won't try get in the car and l have to go carry him from his bed to the car. We had to switch dogs because his reaction to Chili was escalating and last week we tried just walking past Vicki's house without any dogs and he still reacted. All this because we were just asking him to look at a lovely calm dog. He's five years old and whatever happened in the past must have left very deep scars because in every other way he's a lovely dog. He sits and begs at the table with our cockatiel on the floor next to him and you can take food out of his mouth, he was lovely with my young niece and nephew and took instructions from them without hesitation. And yet if he sees a dog he goes nuts, slightly less nuts than he used to but really we should be able to walk past another dog without the whole suburb hearing about it.

Ok that's my rant over, one day I am going to post a eureka moment but that's all I got for now.

Edited February 25, 2013 by hankdog

[megan_]

I can't wait for Scooter's health to be under control so I can hire a trainer and post in here again! I miss you guys lol.

I did contact a behaviourist about him (again) who said he was a very complicated case but I think in all honesty fear and pain impact on his ability to think like a 'normal' dog in most of his life. We shall see I guess. He is getting worse despite my best efforts and I had another friend say she would have given up on him by now yesterday. Sigh.

(Sorry about the rant, no one replied to my thread in general so I'm a bit upset about that + everything else going on. Not even a dog lovers community wants to listen to my issues with Scootie LOL)

It can be one hell of an emotional ride . Maybe the best thing for him now is just to have a break while he gets his health back on track? Sometimes "trying things" just makes things work. A rest, finding out what is going on with his leg and back etc for the next few months and then dealing with the other issues once you know that he isn't in pain (because I'm sure that just magnifies his fear).

No more off leash, no more OB classes etc, just quiet walks at 5/6am when no one is around (read on facebook you have moved? There are a few parks in the area that are quiet - both him and you won't need to fret over approaching dogs. Sure, it will be boring for him but so be it.

Onto Bitch Face (said with love :-)) - she used to be great in storms but last year we had a huge, huge storm over the house and she hid quivering under the bed. She has done that ever since but fortunately she appears to feel safe there. Last night we had thunder with no rain for what seemed like ages and I found her under the bed (but fast asleep, sprawled out, so she obviously wasn't too scared). She then came to bed with me the minute the thunder was over. I wonder what goes through their little heads?

ChuckandSteve - agree with everything Snook said. No fight doesn't mean everything is safe - it just means your dog learns aggression = the thing that scares me/p*sses me off goes away. I'd try to find a school that understood behaviour rather than just "you can do XYZ therefore you pass class 1".

Had a great agility workshop with Fergus last week with Lynda Orton-Hill (works with Susan Garrett) so I have lots of new things to teach the pups. Now to find the time...

[chuckandsteve]

I should say the school has been great, they had a complaint against him, but said he hadn't done anything wrong and we maintained safe distance etc so they wouldn't act. And all this rushing has really only happened since they lost an oval this past week and have to have everyone in closer quarters plus it was one groups first week off lead. My trainer has been really good, not all are but I have been lead to believe that is the case at most obedience clubs. I have also asked not to move up which they have been fine with, im in an onlead class but past beginners so most of the other dogs are pretty good.

Unfortunately this is a failed foster, there was no plan to have a third high needs dog. With him needing to be boarded while we go away, occasional private lessons and building him 2 runs, we can't afford classes at 15-20 a week. OH might up and leave

eta: he goes to boarding with his trainer this week, so if she recommends not going anymore we may just do that and concentrate on walk training passing dogs on the other side of the road

Edited February 25, 2013 by chuckandsteve

[megan_]

I understand! I didn't need one high needs dog . Love her but she sends me to the poor house.

[Panzer Attack]

Thanks guys <3 Snook, unfortunately were are still looking for answers, he may have a slipped disc but I don't have the $ right now to have more tests done and it makes me sick every time he's under GA. Hes such a fragile little guy!

Thanks hankdog :) I wish I could improve his life, it's so hard! Rudy is like the most easy simple dog EVER in comparison - he's sooo happy to even exist and Scooter is just like the chalk to his cheese. He's cheered up a bit since Ru came over (partner and I split and I've just moved house, so Ru only joined us yesterday).

Yes I'm in your neck of the woods now Megan! It's so good, takes 20 mins to walk to work. He's not allowed to go on walks right now, the housemate is under strict instruction! Prednisolone has really stacked the weight on him so my next challenge is to get that off as it won't be doing his sore spots any favours... I don't know if I'd said this to you before, but I so admire what you've done with Lucy. If Noodle Brain and I click half as much as you guys have, I will consider everything I've done a success :) When puppy classes start at work I'm gonna pull my finger out and catch Cosmolo for a chat and a definite book in! I'm sure there are things I can still implement despite him being housebound.

[chuckandsteve]

I am still dreaming of moving out to a few acres, where my boy can have his walks on our property and not have to meet other dogs. He could also run loose which he loves.

My hubby is still hoping the 10 acre home with no other pets comes up for him. Though I think even if it did it would break my heart to send him away now

[hankdog]

Jake just doesn't seem to learn in the normal way so instead of positive things, treats and praise decreasing the negative things, dogs, it seems to work the other way and the positives become negative. I don't think he's stupid, he has learnt some awesome clicker tricks and if I set up a bunch of tricks with different treat value for effort he works it out quick smart.

He was kennelled next to a border collie in the pound and I've noticed he does seem to be a bit more over the top with BCs and seems to be easier with dogs that ignore him whereas Chili is making calming signals at him. Vicki believes he is an extreme case so I guess it's throw away the rule book, don't second guess what he's thinking and just try some different approaches.

Most of the time I don't get frustrated, very embarrassed when he chucks a wobbly and annoyed when he threw a tanty at my coffee shop and I couldn't go back for a week. I feel sad because he's such a loving, sweet dog and I think he misses his girlfriend and would enjoy doggie friends if he could just get over it.

[corvus]

That's rough, hankdog. Poor Jake. Is he on medication at the moment? I would seriously consider it if not. If he's sensitising to a passive dog in spite of treats and backchaining to signals predicting meeting that dog, that's got to be indicating a serious inability to adapt. That might be treatable with medication. Reconcile is supposed to help brains make new connections.

As far as emotions go, the current way of thinking is to think of them as the foundations of behaviour. So when Jake sees you preparing food for a training session with Vicki, he anticipates being anxious about dogs, and this sets his emotional state as pretty negative. He probably feels almost as bad as he does when he sees a dog, depending on how strong the signals relate to seeing dogs, because he is reliving it as he anticipates it. The surer he is it is coming the more intense his anxiety would be. So you're already off on a bad foot, because you have to combat a negative emotional state before you even get to the dog. This is pretty classic sensitisation, and I really feel for you both. It's not a good sign. Anyway, when he's in a negative emotional state he is more likely to see bad things. He is more likely to feel threatened, more likely to feel in danger, and he pays more attention to things that might signal danger. So he's all primed and ready to deal with danger. Little wonder he starts seeing it everywhere. People do the exact same thing. And this will bias all his behaviour towards protective purposes, because his behaviour here is geared towards helping him combat whatever threats his emotions are telling him are coming his way.

So it follows that the key to changing his behaviour is to change the emotions driving it. If he were in a positive or neutral emotional state, he would be looking opportunities for reward, he would be exploring, and for him the world would be full of possibilities instead of threats. This means he is more likely to ignore things he might while in a negative emotional state consider threatening, and more likely to think good things will happen to him rather than threatening things, and so his behaviour is geared towards approach and exploration and he might even take some chances. Things that looked threatening before now look non-threatening or even promising. When he is in this more exploratory state, he is in a perfect place to learn the traditional way - through rewards and punishments. He is looking for associations, he is calm, safe, balanced, and he is not so caught up in trying to find the danger that he can't see when something good might happen. On the simplest level, you want to change his emotional side from "Where's the danger??" to "Where's the reward?" These emotional states are built on experiences. The more they experience negative things the more trapped in the negative spiral they get. But the more they experience positive things, the more they are looking for more positive things. You could think of Jake getting sucked into the negative spiral whenever dogs are involved. He can't get out on his own because all he can see is danger and he has to protect himself.

Things like LAT are just so useful. Erik has lately become 'toaster happy'. I may have mentioned that I taught him to walk between my legs with me when he needs to feel protected from something. I call it the toaster. I may have reinforced it a little too much because he's currently nuzzling his way in there at the drop of a hat. It, like LAT, really shows how easily unsettled he is, though. His cue to toaster it up is when he feels threatened. On the weekend we were at the beach and two small dogs ran up to both the dogs and barked aggressively in their faces. One of them snapped at Erik and got his cheek. I doubt it hurt, but the confrontation upset both dogs. It was really inappropriate, like a stranger running up to you and screaming abuse in your face. Kivi fell into his 'safe spot' which is a formal heel. Don't ask. It was his idea. Turns out it's really hard to poison Kivi's heel. Erik nuzzled into the toaster. While Kivi got a treat and went on his way, Erik spent the next 20 minutes insisting he needed to be in the toaster. I'd let him in, then send him on his way and a minute later he'd be trying to get in again. I ended up having to walk with my legs super close together so he couldn't get his nose in because it's awkward walking down the beach with a Vallhund between your legs. We may need some toaster rules. Erik is kinda reliant. I don't think he needs me as much as he seems to think he does, but perhaps I'm a bit of a micromanager and give him too much feedback and direction and feed it a bit.

Sorry everyone, it's a novel tonight. I just got back from the RSPCA scientific seminar and have a head full of positive emotions and welfare.

[corvus]

I should probably have said that Erik's toaster story was supposed to dovetail with chuckandsteve's experiences at dog training. I never really appreciated how easily upset Erik was until I taught him things like LAT and the toaster. Suddenly he was able to tell me clearly when he was upset and it was pretty frequent. Knowing made a huge difference to us. With his new power to tell me when he was bothered, I was able to act on it early and give him coping strategies and mind our distance and help him manage his arousal so he had fewer outbursts. As a result, he grew less easily bothered because I was so much more responsive to him now. I concentrated on making it his job to tell me when he saw something that bothered him with a quiet look rather than a noisy rush. This made an even bigger difference. So it's still Erik's job to tell me when he's noticed something he doesn't really like the looks of. I reward it to maintain it and while he's a vocal dog and tends to talk about things loudly, he at least is under pretty good voice control and doesn't do much rushing. The trick is knowing the difference between what he can do and what he should do. He's very responsive, but that doesn't mean he is comfortable doing what I've asked of him.

[corvus]

Theoretically, counter-conditioning and desensitisation are the go-to for changing emotional state, and for good reason. They are usually very effective. But if Jake is sensitising instead of desensitising it's unlikely he will benefit from more attempts to CC and so forth without changing something in the protocol. Usually we consider sensitisation occurs when the stimulus is still too strong to be overcome by positive things like food. Emotion has two main components, which are valence (the negative -> positive continuum) and arousal (how excited they are). So you can have a dog that is in a negative state with high arousal or negative with low arousal and a dog that is positive with high arousal and positive with low arousal. Each condition is associated with different types of behaviour. If the dog is in a negative state and high arousal, they will have very active, negative responses like barking, lunging, running away. If a dog is in a negative state and low arousal they will be inactive and mopey and may seem depressed. Theory at the moment assumes that arousal and valence are independent, which in practical terms means that a dog can easily slide from positive to negative while arousal stays high, and they can slide from high to low arousal while, say, still being in a positive state. I bring this up because this is why I often use a Thundershirt with Erik when I'm counter-conditioning if I have the opportunity. He gets excited by the stimulus, then gets excited by the food, and being in high arousal all the time means that whenever his emotional state fluctuates he reacts in a big, active way. And that means it takes more time to get him back to a calm place where we can do positive work again, and it means trigger-stacking can easily tip him over threshold where making any headway is pretty much useless but going backwards is pretty likely. The Thundershirt is kind of a compensation for when it's hard to moderate the intensity of the stimulus I'm counter-conditioning to either through distance or with volume if it's sounds. The purist approach to counter-conditioning is to always keep them far enough away or the volume quiet enough that the dog is not getting excited in the first place. Although Erik still gets excited about treats, which makes handling him challenging at times.

So ideally if we want to change emotional state our best bet is to keep arousal low and get lots of positive input to overshadow the negative input. But it's important to realise that animals have a natural negativity bias (as do people). They pay more attention to bad things than good things because that's what saves them from trouble in the future, which is more important than finding good things in the future. So it can take a fair bit of positive to outweigh the negative.

Jake's problem is a real worry. I'm not sure how intense his interactions with Chili are, but it sounds like they are too intense for him. I can imagine this is very disheartening when it can't get much less intense or more controlled than it is with Chili. I do think Vicki is right and this is an extreme case. If an extreme case is not a good candidate for medication then I don't know what is. There is a study that trained safety signals with an e collar to treat aggressive dogs, but it's old and I think there are more humane ways to train safety signals. Grisha Stewart's BAT may be one example, where the dog learns behaviours that make the scary thing go away. I did this with my hare prior to counter-conditioning because you can't hand feed a hare treats if he won't let you near him. I know someone who did the same thing with a horse who was very afraid of humans and we both had success with it. I guess that to me the advantage of R- is it may help a dog (or other animal) find new behaviours to cope with stress and you can give them clear signals when it's safe, but my caveat would be it's delicate work and probably easy to mess up. If you can't keep a troublesome stimulus at low enough intensity to successfully counter-condition I would be very wary of trying anything more operant. It might work, but I would try medication combined with CC from a looooong way off and wearing a Thundershirt first.

[hankdog]

Thanks Corvus, again. I have taught Jake to "scoot in"I think you mentioned it before and he does it on command and did it a few times when we were working the other day. Jake is on Prozac which I do think has helped. When Steve saw him he did mention he thought he was possibly depressed. I have a thundershirt and have used it on cooler days and trued using it wet but until winter I cant really use it on a regular basis.

He generally doesn't explore, the first few months I had him he wouldn't wee on a walk and would wait till he was home, he does now and will sometimes have a sniff around which puts me in a pickle because whilst I like that he's relaxing I also need him to be perfectly at heel so he knows he's under command. At the moment I'm working on "close" as in heeling right in and "free" heeling but allowed to sniff and lurk along.

The confound with keeping him at a far distance is his eyesight, we don't think he uses both eyes at the same time and swaps which eye he pays attention to. If he's running to you it's easy to see him swivel his eyes so that one looks at you and you can imagine that this would make things he's not looking at come and go which probably adds to his confusion.

Vicki did say the stuff we are doing now is operant conditioning and yes it's fine tuned stuff. We did start to see him making some promising decisions last week and to be honest I was expecting him to be a lot worse than he was. He was quite anchored to me and did get in between my legs a fair bit which was interesting given he was double leashed and one leash was strapped to my waist. I was just blown away by the confidence of Vicki's dogs though, if I ever got a puppy I would be very sure to take them to her for socialization classes early on. I think the next bit of training will be tough, I'm more of a butterflies and roses person but I'm also fairly persistent so I guess we are just going to see if I can outlast a bulldog. Thanks again Snook and Corvus, I do rely quite heavily on your support.