Exercising Reactive Dogs Thread

[Wobbly]

O wow Zig congratulations! What a good boy. :D :D And a very handsome boy too!

It sounds like Jake has come a long long way since you first started posting hankdog. I remember you seemed about at the end of your tether back when you first started posting, as though there was no solution. Now it seems like you're really make huge progress. I'd just say to other people "He got attacked, and lashes out in self defense now, he's getting better.". So long as they can understand his reaction is fear based, and you're having some success in helping him, people are more likely to be sympathetic to both of you about it I think.

I'm lucky it's cats, it's relatively acceptable for dogs to look like they want to eat cats, and the general populace don't realise Jarrah's OTT reaction is at root, dysfunctional. I'm pretty grateful for their ignorance. Dog-dog aggression is much harder to deal with, being subjected to other people's disapproval and usually unfair judgements on top of trying to help a scared dog cope just adds to the whole stress. If you can manage to get it across that Jake is scared, hopefully that may evoke sympathy rather than dissapproval and make it easier on you, so you can stop worrying about them and their reaction and just concentrate on Jake?

BC Crazy - I hope you're feeling OK now and Stella is still loving her treadmill. It's so awesome that you have that.

Erik hates cats, because my parents' cats have frightened him a few times. But he still looks for them and if he finds them he will bark and if he gets the chance he'll chase them. It's a drive chase rather than a fun chase, though. He's trying to make them go away. It can be tricky interpreting the behaviour of proactive dogs. In my mind, Erik looks for the cats because he thinks they are there and better the devil you know. He doesn't like them, he wants them gone, so he will find them and when he does he'll drive them off and he'll probably feel quite pleased with himself over it because in his mind he saw off trouble before it could find him.

It's really tricky, and the urge to anthropomorphise to try to understand is overwhelming. I think of it as a massive grudge, but Jarrah is probably pretty much in the same mindset as Erik on this one.

I'm not really making much distinction between drive and arousal these days - and I gather you're pretty much of the same mind. I do tend to use drive to describe more useful and controlled behaviours that are perhaps conditioned, and arousal as the undirected version that can tend toward to being counterproductive and out of control. Still the same thing though. I guess a human analogy would be say - anger - controlled and directed it can be a useful motivator for example self assertion. But equally it can be uncontrolled and result in people saying things they regret in the heat of the moment. Same root emotion, at the same level of intensity, but different outcomes depending on self control, confidence and focus. If that makes any sense? It's semantics though, and it's a shame these words have come to mean such different things to different people, because so much time and energy is wasted on debating semantics rather than causes and effects. But yeah, for DOL, the word is drive. Would you pretty much concur with that?

In other news, I finally managed to convince my friend who has a big Bulldog type dog and a small Pug to see Steve Courtney. The Bulldog was given to her as a rescue, and my friend is a big softy so she kept him when she probably shouldn't have. He's ostensibly an Australian Bulldog, but who knows what that is exactly, it's about as exact description as Pit Bull, no pedigrees, mostly BYB efforts, so no homogeneity in type or temperament. She's been describing the Bulldog and the Pug having scraps for a while now, and I have been trying to get her to see a proper behaviourist about it for months. She has some young trainer who has styled himself a behaviourist, but it doesn't sound like he's helping much, in fact he sounds moronic. At this point there has been a fair few rehearsals of the behaviour, and this idiot "behaviourist" has had the dogs face off on leash after a scrap, which it sounds like it ended with the Bulldog getting even more worked up - great behavioural advice - allow the behaviour to happen in the first place then restrain the Bulldog in the face of his trigger to build some frustration over it - IDK WTF is that, who is that daft? Not good by the sound of it. Seriously, this term "behaviourist" needs to be more delineated. I've never seen the dogs scrap, and wouldn't presume to give her behavioural advice on it anyway, so I've just spent all my time trying to explain that all "behaviourists" are not equal. It sounds a bit like the Bulldog is predatory (so the restraint face off is really dumb IMO) and is triggered mainly in playing, and I know Steve is really good at teaching people to manage predatory behaviours, (the only reason Jarrah has never hurt another dog in a play gone to predatory state is conditioning in a calm default response to leashed dogs and common sense management in respect off leash dogs program I got from him) so hopefully she follows through and actually sees him before the Pug ends up getting hurt. She emailed him while I was on the phone to her, so it's gone that far at least. She is concerned enough that she will follow through now I think, fingers crossed.

[corvus]

I'm not really making much distinction between drive and arousal these days - and I gather you're pretty much of the same mind. I do tend to use drive to describe more useful and controlled behaviours that are perhaps conditioned, and arousal as the undirected version that can tend toward to being counterproductive and out of control. Still the same thing though. I guess a human analogy would be say - anger - controlled and directed it can be a useful motivator for example self assertion. But equally it can be uncontrolled and result in people saying things they regret in the heat of the moment. Same root emotion, at the same level of intensity, but different outcomes depending on self control, confidence and focus. If that makes any sense? It's semantics though, and it's a shame these words have come to mean such different things to different people, because so much time and energy is wasted on debating semantics rather than causes and effects. But yeah, for DOL, the word is drive. Would you pretty much concur with that?

I should have been a bit more explicit. When I said "drive chase", I meant a cattle driving behaviour as opposed to a fun chasing the moving thing behaviour, which you may or may not have figured out from my vagueness.

In the literature there is a small distinction between motivation and arousal. Motivation is usually considered goal-directed behaviour. It gets hazy with humans, who can be motivated by all sorts of complex things, but with animals it's usually towards goals that satisfy basic and important needs. So yes, in that sense, I tend to think of arousal as the general up and down of alertness and motivation as the effort an animal is willing to put in to attain a particular goal. DOL is honestly the only group I know of that uses the term 'drive' as it's used here. It's like their own little language. The rest of the dog world generally uses 'drive' to refer to how much effort a dog will put in to attain a particular goal, and that may or may not encompass arousal, but is certainly not dependent on a high level of arousal. I don't really like labelling drives, particularly when they probably all run through the same emotional system. I kinda translate to Panksepp and consider most useful working drives as SEEKING and leave it at that. It shouldn't matter much to dogs very motivated to seek reinforcements what kind of reinforcements they are seeking. Literature suggests they will have favourites, but if they can't access those they will easily switch to something else and keep at it with much the same intensity. There are exceptions.

It annoys the hell out of me when people say drive when they mean arousal. :) Because I get misinformation rage. About 90% of my purpose in life is to investigate the truth and communicate it. It really offends me when people insist on spreading stuff that is not true and on top of that, doing it with really poor communication so that it muddies the waters for anyone who might want to go looking for the truth. It's like they are directly opposing me and everything I stand for! :laugh: I have learnt to not take it so personally and keep my mouth shut, mostly, but self-control is difficult when you're very passionate. People are sensitive about their beliefs. I should be more compassionate and patient.

[Weasels]

It annoys the hell out of me when people say drive when they mean arousal. :) Because I get misinformation rage. About 90% of my purpose in life is to investigate the truth and communicate it. It really offends me when people insist on spreading stuff that is not true and on top of that, doing it with really poor communication so that it muddies the waters for anyone who might want to go looking for the truth. It's like they are directly opposing me and everything I stand for! :laugh: I have learnt to not take it so personally and keep my mouth shut, mostly, but self-control is difficult when you're very passionate. People are sensitive about their beliefs. I should be more compassionate and patient.

I get this when people talk about 'what dogs do in the wild'

I suspect 'drive' is becoming a marketing term, especially OS where dog training is a more lucrative business.

[hankdog]

So Dr Corvus or Wobbly, when we got Jake he wanted to kill our indoor cockatiels and outdoor chickens. But he got over that in a couple of weeks just with harsh vocal reprimands if he looked sideways at them. Strangely he has never had an issue with the ducks to the extent that one was sitting in the lounge with him and he didn't even get off the couch.

I've rationalized how easy it was to get him to leave the birds versus how difficult it is to leave dogs because they are exciting his pretty low "prey drive" whereas dogs excite his "self defense, preservation drive."

To my limited understanding he is a low prey drive dog, although initially he was highly aroused by the birds because he is not high prey drive he was able to inhibit that arousal fairly easily.

The difference between that and his inability to learn to inhibit his dog reaction is one I've never been able to articulate. I intuitively understand that harsh reprimands that worked on the bird situation are fuel on the fire with the dog situation but since they look similar, bark, lunge and attempt to attack, its hard to justify my different approaches. I do cop criticism for "rewarding" his dog reactions.

Type slow Doctor Corvus or Wobbly, old dog new tricks!!

Edited June 30, 2013 by hankdog

[Wobbly]

Right no, i totally read drive as meaning DOL drive. I was confused and thought you had capitulated. Pleased to hear you haven't.

I love the fact we are unravelling the physiological and chemical basis for emotional response. It's not essential knowledge by any means for the average person, but I do think it helps clarify ambiguities for myself. I had a bit of a fascination for the human neurobiological basis for emotion some years ago. At the time (1997ish) only Le Doux's work on fear with rats was widely known enough to be translated into popular science for the layman (which tends to be my preferred reading material, working with limited cognition capacity as I am). I am delighted to find that this has been so massively extended upon, I have a lot of reading to do.

The labelling of drives gets kind of ridiculous, how many drives can there be? But I think has merit in that it describes the expected reward. If a dog thinks he's going to get food, then only gets a pat, he's going to be disappointed. I don't find the whole prey drive/food drive/social drive compartmentalisation as upsetting as you do, probably because I just accepted it as gospel for so long, I'm desensitised.

Don't take misinformation personally. Take a breath, and try to inform. Throw enough information out and eventually some, inevitably ends up getting caught up in people's hippocampal regions, and hopefully at some point it starts to coalesce into some semblence of awareness. Information does filter through. I remember not so long ago (2008) that any and all behavioural problems in this forum were pretty much attributed to dominance theory. Dog weeing in the house? Must be dominance. Dog leaning on your leg? Dominance. Dog sniffing the ground rather than complying with a command? he doesn't respect your leadership, and if you let him get away with it pretty soon he's going to launch a hostile takeover of your entire house. Pity the poor displacement sniffer in 2008. There has been a 180 degree change on that at least, dominance theory has been put in it's place - relevant, since social species sort themselves into hierarchies, but fluid and the conception now has very different behavioural implications than it did when it was the accepted explanation for every unwanted behaviour a dog might conceivably display.

You can't keep repeating yourself though, you will go crazy, just have a few good links that explain the basics, and chuck them out whenever appropriate, so you don't burn out on educating the masses too fast. The information will filter through, and you'd probably be surprised at how keen people are to do their own follow up research once they understand it's good information.

And LBD I agree, training is big business, and neat buzzwords are good marketing. But here again, giant strides have been made in the past few years, people within the industry are always keen to get an edge, which makes many financially motivated trainers pretty open to learning, and the really good ones are keen to keep learning for their dogs, and their clients dogs sake, but may just be lacking enough information to put them on track. Who ever used clickers in 2008? I'd vaguely heard of them, I think. Now basic local obedience outfits are using them as a matter of course.

Dogs in the wild? The primeval sabretooth poodle? BSL is the scab i keep picking at, can't help it, I do take the issue personally.

Information does get through, and you can assist in disseminating it. Don't argue on the internet though, I have learnt that with the BSL forum, it does nothing except get you bogged down in irrelevancies. Just present the neccessary information, preferably in quotes and links from authoritative but easily comprehensible sources, if you can (just to save your sanity from endlessly repeating yourself). Always in small digestible bites. It gets through, to some at least. And once a critical mass is attained it'll gain it's own momentum as others start to cite it.

Hankdog, don't confuse me with someone who has a clue, I know some big words so on the surface it can sometimes appear that way, but it's misleading. I know as much as you do - slightly different stuff, because our dogs have different needs, but probably about the same total volume, we are both going on a case study of exactly 1 dog, and both only recently discovered that there is an enormous amount of information out that can help us understand. And now we're bothe desparately trying to cram it into our heads Don't let the polysyllables fool you, i am quite clueless.

In respect to Jake, his prey response and self preservation instincts aren't correlated emotionally I think. They only look the same because dogs have a very limited range of expression available to them so there's a lot of overlap - eg panting - Hot? Tired? Stressed? It can mean all manner of things depending on the context and the individual. But for people who look in askance when you're giving him treats when he's freaking, maybe try saying something like "i am trying to get him to associate other dogs with good things he loves, like food, it's helping him". Maybe they'll even think about it and consider the validity of the idea (don't hold your breath).

Don't get hung up on drives because everyone has different views - there's no real consensus in meaning or usage, and what applies for some dogs doesn't apply for others. Its a common language, and it can be helpful, but often i think it's just as confusing as it is edifying. Just be aware that corrections will destroy motivation for some dogs, as with your corrections with the chooks damping his motivation to chase them. I am not sure if it does destroy motivation or just supresses it, probably varies on an individual basis, for Jarrah I think it would just supress motivation, but she'd get over it, corrections would have to escalate in order to have the same suppressing effect over a period of time, for Jake I can't say. IMO getting to know your dog on that gut level is the most important bit, if the words help, use them (they help me, we all have different preferences for coming to grips with new information, I need to be able to categorise, even if those categories may later become redundant), but your gut can be just as good, better, since the dog is going on gut feeling too.

Edited June 30, 2013 by Wobbly

[hankdog]

And there's the gem for today- "corrections destroy motivation." That's an excellent thought.

You guys have manged to motivate me to get the brain-slug working so hence the twenty questions. My background is human psych and I disliked shoebox approaches for people and I dislike it for dogs. I don't think it makes sense to try to "fix" anything by just whipping out the same tools regardless of the individual you're working on. Gut feel is ok if that's all you got but can often say more about you than the broken individual. Personally I think this bias may have contributed to the repeated PTS recommendations for Jake.

I would love to see some sort of "personality" or "drive" measures done with a dog before anyone starts to prescribe a course of treatment. Even some completely ridiculous system of neasurement would be open to improvement rather than nothing.

Prey drive, pack/ social drive, food drive are the ones spring to mind for me. Between my two dogs Hank had huge prey drive, low social drive and medium food drive, he was a calm well- behaved slightly aloof dog, at the park he would interact with other dogs by chasing them when they ran after the ball but other than that didn't care for them. Wanted to be in the same room with me, enjoyed pats from me, tolerated them from strangers and would take food where he got it but not actively seek it out.

Jake has little prey drive, high pack drive and high food drive. He doesn't fetch and was easily dissuaded from chasing birds, he has to be with people and despite his inter dog skills I think he desperately wants dog company, and he actively seeks food, all food must be kept safe.

This is a simple but useful framework for me and I feel with more drives/ traits elucidated I could better understand how to manage my dog.

I don't mind Internet discussions because they improve my understanding, when they deteriorate into slanging then they're a waste of time and probably hurtful. Although again says a lot about the protagonists?

Edited June 30, 2013 by hankdog

[corvus]

So Dr Corvus or Wobbly, when we got Jake he wanted to kill our indoor cockatiels and outdoor chickens. But he got over that in a couple of weeks just with harsh vocal reprimands if he looked sideways at them. Strangely he has never had an issue with the ducks to the extent that one was sitting in the lounge with him and he didn't even get off the couch.

I've rationalized how easy it was to get him to leave the birds versus how difficult it is to leave dogs because they are exciting his pretty low "prey drive" whereas dogs excite his "self defense, preservation drive."

To my limited understanding he is a low prey drive dog, although initially he was highly aroused by the birds because he is not high prey drive he was able to inhibit that arousal fairly easily.

The difference between that and his inability to learn to inhibit his dog reaction is one I've never been able to articulate. I intuitively understand that harsh reprimands that worked on the bird situation are fuel on the fire with the dog situation but since they look similar, bark, lunge and attempt to attack, its hard to justify my different approaches. I do cop criticism for "rewarding" his dog reactions.

Type slow Doctor Corvus or Wobbly, old dog new tricks!!

Heavy! Okay, I've tried to keep it short, but largely unsuccessfully.

IMO this is kind of complicated but you're probably not far off. The first thing to consider is the balance between an emotionally driven behaviour and an operantly driven behaviour. I like to think of this as a continuum with a little slider. Bob Bailey describes it as Pavlov on one shoulder and Skinner on the other. They change size depending on how emotional the animal is. So when they are very emotional, Pavlov is big and Skinner is small, but as they calm and become less emotional, Pavlov shrinks and Skinner grows, but there is no point where one shrinks to nothing. At any moment when you have a dog in front of you behaving, that behaviour will be driven in parts by both emotion and operant conditioning, and your job is to figure out the balance and aim to make Skinner bigger (with classical conditioning and/or arousal management if Pavlov is big).

The second consideration is one of the strength of the response to the stimuli in question. Predatory responses in domestic dogs are kind of messed up and hard to generalise about. Some dogs naturally respond very strongly and some moderately strongly and some barely at all. Layered on that is learning history. Dogs can absolutely learn stronger predatory responses. In the case of threatening stimuli, the strength of their response at the most basic level is directly related to how threatened they feel, but it is also layered with learning history and emotional state and their natural emotional reactivity. So Erik is naturally quite emotionally reactive in that when stuff happens, he notices and reacts to it, and when he does react he tends to react moderately strongly to very strongly. He often overreacts. If he is stressed he is more likely to interpret stimuli as threatening, whether they are or not, and if he is already aroused, his reaction will be to become more aroused again.

Most animals have a negativity bias. They are geared to err on the side of caution and assume they are under threat because if they are not they have taken protective action for no reason and that is not such a big deal, but if they are and they didn't take action they could be hurt or worse. Protection and safety always is of paramount importance, and it's often pretty emotional because if you waste time thinking about how to get yourself safe you may not end up safe. So, Pavlov is big. I'm guessing that Hank's response to the birds was more moderate in the scheme of things (maybe Pavlov slightly bigger than Skinner?). The more aroused (in a positive way) dogs are about critters the harder it is to suppress their behaviour with punishment because their focus is narrow on the critter. They don't notice much else. That's why people use harsh corrections on aroused dogs. Because otherwise they won't notice it. But everyone in this thread knows there are more humane ways to lower arousal, and this is super important with an anxious dog because adding an aversive to a dog who already feels threatened is a bit rough and whatever else it does, it won't help them feel safe, which is what they are trying to achieve. One thing that isn't reflected in the Pavlov-Skinner continuum is the idea that operant conditioning can be very effective even when the behaviour is very emotional as long as the consequence is relevant to the animal's goals. If your dog wants to feel safer, they will learn through negative reinforcement as long as the reinforcement is a reduction in threat. This is what BAT and functional rewards is all about.

[Wobbly]

I really like the Skinner Pavlov continuum idea, that's a great way of looking at it, I didn't actually really have a mental schema for relating those, though I tried a few. But they were all unwieldy, and didn't lend themselves to a visual idea, the slider image is a nice clear one to work with.

[corie]

Off topic (just quickly cos I'm on phone) - Corvus I remember reading about your toaster move, and the other day I was walking Butch and couldn't get enough distance between us in time. I randomly thought of what you did with Erik and it worked! His heart rate was still rapid but he stopped pulling so hard and he just watched the other dog walk past.

[hankdog]

Staffyluv invented the squish up against fence move, I've used it in an emergency and it works well. I've also found if I keep my focus on Jake and deliberately ignore the other dog it's better, but I don't pull him away from looking at the other dog. I will obscure his line of sight, behind cars, wheelie bins whatever's handy but once the dogs out there he seems better off if he looks at it.

[Staffyluv]

Staffyluv invented the squish up against fence move, I've used it in an emergency and it works well. I've also found if I keep my focus on Jake and deliberately ignore the other dog it's better, but I don't pull him away from looking at the other dog. I will obscure his line of sight, behind cars, wheelie bins whatever's handy but once the dogs out there he seems better off if he looks at it.

Hehe, I can't take credit for that move - our behaviourist showed me how to do it.

I still use it sometimes when he is very excited to see another dog and starts pulling towards them.

I realise he is a decent sized bull breed and some people are afraid because they don't know he just wants to say hi and is non reactive if growled or barked at.

I am really looking forward to going up to advanced obedience with him - the working off lead (because he does like to go say hi to every dog around) is going to be a great challenge for us.

Isn't if funny, once upon a time I was so frustrated and blaming myself for everything that was going wrong with him and all I needed was the tools to make it right.. It doesn't work for everyone but our obedience lessons have been the godsend that we needed.

[Wobbly]

That' great news Corie! Staffyluv, Ziggy's prgress has been amazing. Your descriptions of him remind me so much of Jarrah, except you are a way more experienced trainer than me, so you have got these great results so fast. Congratulations again!

I found a really great interview with Panksepp that outlines some of his research into understanding emotional response on the basis of neurological evidence. There is no philosophy here, so it's really much simpler by comparison to some to the other more popular explanations for behaviour. The really interesting stuff for us, pertaining to motivation and reward systems is more toward the end of the interview.

http://ec.libsyn.com/p/2/1/c/21c401f2f9b95978/65-brainscience-Panksepp.pdf?d13a76d516d9dec20c3d276ce028ed5089ab1ce3dae902ea1d01cf8531d9cf5fde03&c_id=1521543

Edited July 2, 2013 by Wobbly

[raineth]

Staffyluv a belated congrats on Ziggy's obedience wins. What a good boy. :D :D

Corie I have spoken to my vet about this, as Jarrah's teeth were awful when i got her too, and we have had a few extractions over the years. The vet said yes there is a risk, but you need to balance that with the benefits of tooth and gum cleaning bones provide. IMO you're doing it right, I give marrow bones, but same as you, let her chew the all the cartilage off, and take it away when it gets down to bone so she doesn't chew that.

Hank, Jarrah is the same, there's no "right" or "wrong" just reward opportunities or lack of them. XD If you find yourself feeling happy with an outcome, that is probably a good sign, gut level feeling, i find, often turns out to be insightful in my experience. Rational explanation is always better if you can find it, but it is often very elusive.

Raineth, the pretend cat freakouts were right after the cat trauma (occurred in kennels while I was away, steer clear of "Sydney Dog Training Centre", Jarrah actually came out of the ordeal a lot better than other people's dogs. It might sort of sound funny, but it really wasn't, it was heart breaking to see the result of what they'd done to my dog. It appears I got off lightly compared to others though:

http://www.specialistcanines.com/bitework/2226-damn-irresponsible-trainers-5.html

The training methods were claimed to be non-harsh and reward-based - which is far from the truth. The dog was handed back to us cowering, fearful of human contact, with bleeding sores on its legs and a stress induced growth on its paw - all which remained untreated whilst in their care. Having contacted the centre regarding our complaint and not received any response at all, I would be keen to hear more on this centre.

I too got my dog back with an untreated injury, an open wound to her leg, and she was a very different dog coming out than she was going in. Although cowering is not in her nature, she seemed - the best way I can put this is to say she seemed completely detached from humans, and it was some time (days) before she resumed her previous friendly outgoing attitude toward people. I didn't get a greeting from her when i picked her up - in stark contrast to the greetings I get when i pick her up from the (wonderful) kennels I use now. Fortunately I didn't get any obedience "training" done. I had only asked for her to be desensitised to cats, since they had a nice cat (in retrospect it may have been so chilled because it was drugged, or perhaps it was just a really chilled cat). Mainly I wanted her to have a bit of extra human contact and rewarding while I was away, so just picked cats as something I couldn't desensitise her to myself, for lack of a cat. Given the advertising is "non-harsh, reward based" I had expected proper desensitisation, as in dog moved gradually closer (under threshold) and heavily rewarded. That's the obvious assumption, you would think. Incredibly bad assumption on my part, my single most regrettable mistake ever in regards to my ownership of Jarrah. I failed her very, very badly in assuming the training was as advertised. It's difficult to forgive myself despite the fact that I realise self recrimination is not at all helpful.

I'm just really lucky that Jarrah's innate temperament has allowed her to return to a balanced psychological state and the long term effects (3 years or so later I think) are only still evident in regard to her response to cats. Dogs don't dwell on the past, fortunately and luckily I don't come across too many cats, so we're OK really.

I get the sense that although Jarrah's issues with cats do stem from that horrific trauma (table training?, whats with the leg injuries?) over the years cat confrontation seems to have developed into something of a rewarding activity for her (although it is a neurotic, compulsive sort of pleasure, like an unhealthy addiction, if that makes sense). She will seek cats out, there is definitely reward in there as well as great anxiety and stress. Jarrah is by nature confident, and so it's not unexpected to me that the fear has evaporated to a large degree, leaving this aftermath behind, especially given that cats are small, and she is smart enough to be fully cognizant of her size advantage. I don't understand it to be honest, I am just observing that her fear response (we still have hackles, this is not the pure cat-dog predatory response it should be for her) is all mixed up with a definite dose of pleasure in cat confrontation.

Bear in mind when I write the above, I don't understand what's going on for Jarrah emotionally, and so what I have written here is pure speculation, there may or may not be elements of actual truth to my speculations. I am struggling for comprehension still. Despite my lack of understanding, I am very certain that my best possible outcomes do lie within McDevitt & Grisha's methodologies, these are both sensible methods that are helpful for a huge range of issues.

Far out Wobbly that's really awful

It's such a shame too as having done a vast array of desensitisation and counterconditioning on Digby (our other dog) it really is quite simple as long as you can control the environment, as they would have been able to. Such a shame that they couldn't honour what they said they would do

He is a little outhouse. Weighs in at 23 kg but I keep him lean and we walk/ run for 90 minutes a day. I'm not a fan of the roly poly look which I know is strange for a bulldog owner. He's at the upper limit of my handling capabilities as he has quite a jump. When I said to Vicki that I thought a taller dog would be harder to manage she pointed out her BC was a bit lighter than Jake which was a surprise. BC's must be little whippets under all that fluff. I'm not sure if its easier or harder to have a shorter dog when they lunge? He does get a bit underfoot when he's doing his thing which can be tricky with two leashes, luckily he doesn't do the complete bananas thing anymore.

Today we even got past a BC which is his worst dog to see. The owner was so oblivious to the frantic peanut butter licking that the dog stopped exactly opposite us for a sniff of the weemail. I've perfected the "nothing strange going on with this jar of peanut butter stuck on my dogs nose" look. I do try to only let him see dogs that look calm and under control but he is still quite freaked out and most dogs are still quite unhappy with him. I'm never quite sure how to greet the dogs owners. I'm trying a mixture of smile, wave and thank you, he's in training. Some owners still give me quite a big scowl. I really need my neighbourhood to be Jake friendly or at least tolerant. Some of course are very encouraging which gives me a big smile.

Zig, go you good thing. He looks very proud of himself.

If they scowl at you offer them a lick of the peanut butter jar :D

I know what you mean though, it would be nice if everyone was understanding and supportive. Its one of those things, you don't know what its like until you've been in that situation yourself.

Thanks guys, he is over the moon tonight..

Our new foster dog arrived today and she is adorable.

They said she is a staffy cross and just looking at her and watching her play, I think she is crossed with a boxer.

She is about 7 months old now..

She starts obedience with Zig on 21st July - she starts in beginners and he goes up to advanced.. Oh my gosh, how did we get there in just 6 months...

I am so incredibly proud of him - I was about to burst into tears at the presentation today when he got third..

Wow that is really impressive SL :) Congrats :)

[raineth]

I'm just not anywhere near knowledgeable enough to get into the more technical discussion that's been going on.

But I'd like to give you all an update.

Improvements:

Delta is way more relaxed out on our walks.

She is turning away really nicely in situations where she previously would have planted her bottom and turned into concrete dog. We were surprised by (yet another) offlead dog the other day, we both only became aware when it began barking at us from about 5 metres. Because it was so close and unexpected she did her sit and turn to concrete routine but then I called her and we ran away BAT style. She definitely now thinks that turning away is better than sitting and staring :cool:

Other stuff:

I looked up BAT set ups on youtube and now I'm uncertain as to whether I have been letting her get to her choice point too late. She hasn't actually had a reaction, but she does seem more aroused than the dogs doing BAT with Grisha. I know Grisha talks about dogs who like to gather information and I always thought that's what was going on. She sees the trigger and becomes alert to it, watches it quite intently for about 5 seconds then she turns away. But all the dogs doing BAT on youtube seem to watch for less than a second. So I spent our walk around the neighbourhood today trying to work out whether I'm doing it correctly or not :S

I tried doing the BAT with treats on our walk the other day and we ended up getting further away from all the dogs :laugh: So I'm careful about that now!

[Wobbly]

If they scowl at you offer them a lick of the peanut butter jar

I lol'd XD

I'm no where near knowledgeable enough to discuss the technicalities either, I'm just hoping constant exposure eventually results in at least some of it sinking in to my poor overloaded brain. I can just see Corvus cringing every time I use a phrase like "reward system". :laugh: I promise I will get better, I might take longer about it than the average though.

Raineth, It's great you're seeing improvements. I'm not sure if there is a "correct" way. Every dog is different. We aren't looking for a strictly defined behavioural end point. All we really want is to acheive is to ease any emotional distress for our dogs as much as possible. To improve our dogs, and our own quality of life as much as we can, and results will really vary depending on the dog. I tend to think that so long as you are seeing an improvement, the dog appears more at ease and able to cope with triggers, you feel your dog's stress levels, and your own are reducing, then you're doing it right.

It's so individual, I think the only real comparison that's truly valid is comparing your dog's stress levels now, with those in the past.

Edited July 2, 2013 by Wobbly

[hankdog]

Haha maybe I should carry lollies and give them a treat shower too. I have had passing temperament test threats so I tend to try be very polite.

Raineth I think each dog has their own style and I agree any improvement is good. Jakes really rubbish at reading all the books I've read so I just let him make it up. He can really stare before deciding to move on, I think it's Aloff that recommends just letting them stare as long as it takes and then have a treat ready as soon as they move on.

MacTub has a very obvious wheels turning thought process so I just let him think, really my style is to let him make his own decisions and reward the good ones. I think this is a slower way to change behaviour but he's not really a dog to pay attention to negative input.

[BC Crazy]

Wobbley, thanks for your kindness to inquire about how I am. Am doing loads better now thank goodness. Just nice to be home, in your own bed &

eat your own food & stuff. Not have somebody wake you up with a flash light every hour during the night.

And yes Stella still loves her Treadmill :laugh: She is a funny one. She loves everything as long as there is a treat involved.

The TM is worth its weight in gold when I was unable to walk them & with all the rain of late. I put them on 1/2 hour in the morning & the same at night.

15 mins alternate dog. At a steady walking pace with the incline activated slightly. IMHO it is a lot safer as I wouldn't trust anyone to walk them.

Especially Stella as she is pretty reactive. Not an easy dog by any means.

[Wobbly]

It's great to hear you're feeling better BC! I'm looking at a radical nephrectomy (or however you spell it - it's all been happening to fast for me to keep up) on the 15th so totally sympathising with you right now, surgery sucks. I am going to look into a tread mill, thank you so much for the idea, although my husband assures me he will walk Jarrah while I can't. My husband loves Jarrah, but letting her walk him (and she does walk him) is so counterproductive to everything I am working toward. There goes my all my focus work... Anyway, at least he bush walks so he won't set me back on cat reactivity at all, which is a big mercy.

Corvus, chicken camp tomorrow, how will I recognise you? I will probably be in jeans and a black hoody, black converse (usual uniform) with lots of long brownishy hair. I am so looking forward to this!

[raineth]

Raineth, It's great you're seeing improvements. I'm not sure if there is a "correct" way. Every dog is different. We aren't looking for a strictly defined behavioural end point. All we really want is to acheive is to ease any emotional distress for our dogs as much as possible. To improve our dogs, and our own quality of life as much as we can, and results will really vary depending on the dog. I tend to think that so long as you are seeing an improvement, the dog appears more at ease and able to cope with triggers, you feel your dog's stress levels, and your own are reducing, then you're doing it right.

It's so individual, I think the only real comparison that's truly valid is comparing your dog's stress levels now, with those in the past.

That's a good point Wobbly, I guess I get the impression that you have to do it very much in the exact way. But it makes a lot of sense to focus mainly on whether we are seeing progress or not and change things if we aren't.

On another note good luck with your surgery Wobbly.

Hopefully the OH won't set things back too far :) its nice she wont just be stuck at home, that's something :)

Haha maybe I should carry lollies and give them a treat shower too. I have had passing temperament test threats so I tend to try be very polite.

Raineth I think each dog has their own style and I agree any improvement is good. Jakes really rubbish at reading all the books I've read so I just let him make it up. He can really stare before deciding to move on, I think it's Aloff that recommends just letting them stare as long as it takes and then have a treat ready as soon as they move on.

MacTub has a very obvious wheels turning thought process so I just let him think, really my style is to let him make his own decisions and reward the good ones. I think this is a slower way to change behaviour but he's not really a dog to pay attention to negative input.

Yes Del is rubbish at that too :laugh:

I know what you mean, sometimes it really looks as though she's thinking "there's a thing I'm meant to do in this situation...what is it again..."

I know that's anthropomorphising, but its just what it looks like to me!

Since Corvus really put me on to this notion of arousal I'm seeing everything in relation to it. It's weird, its not as though I wasn't aware of her being like that, I mean how could I not be, you really notice when your 50kg dog is an excitable doofus. But I just hadn't quite thought of it that way before. I kept thinking of it more in terms of impulsivity I think.

[hankdog]

50kg???????????????? you must have strong arm muscles that's a big dog....bet she photographs well??