Exercising Reactive Dogs Thread

[Amax-1]

Justice was on high alert over the dog and I couldn't get him to budge by calling him

We tend to get overly consumed in a reactive dog alerting on another dog and rightfully so because dog reactivity is what we are primarily trying address and rehabilitate. But what the dog is actually doing here is ignoring an obedience command in a distractive environment, so what needs to be worked at is strengthening obedience for the dog to obey handler command through all distractions. The actual distraction is irrelevant and the thing of relevance is the fact the dog was called and he/she disobeyed the command to come to or follow the handler.

Ideally you want handler focus from the dog and the dog to ignore distractions and training of that must be uniform across the board and very regimented that when the leash goes on the dog MUST comply with the handler at all times. Often the general handling of a reactive dog allows the dog to do his/her own thing and blow off commands like darting off on leash to sniff. If the handler allows the dog to sniff because the dog digs it's heels in on a good scent and won't budge, the dog learns that disobeying command is ok if the distraction is worthy of disobedience. When the dog alerts on another dog, the same rule applies to the dog that disobedience is permitted in face of a good distraction and that happens because the handler has trained the dog in general to be excused from maintaining obedience in high distraction.

What has to happen is working on handler focus when the leash is on, so no sniffing, no leash pulling and rewarding the dog for handler focus and good obedience when complying with command and offing the right behaviour. The dog is conditioned to behave in a way that when the leash goes it's all about dog and handler working as a team, like it's you and me buddy, were are going for a nice walk together and nothing else matters. When the dog learns that mindset and complies with commands at all times, the reactivity towards other dogs ends

Too much emphasis is often placed on the fact that dog is reactive to other dogs and the only reason it's an issue is that the dog is disobedient to command in face of that distraction. When the dog complies with obedience commands, that is when the dog alerts on another dog and the handler calls the dog off the alert and the dog obeys, the reactivity problem is solved :)

[sheena]

Some dogs when on high alert or over the thresh-hold switch over to another part of their brain & literally do not hear you. It's called "sticky-dog syndrome" & happens a lot with herding breeds & it is difficult if not impossible to train out. I know, because my BC girl is a "sticky dog" & unless I read the warning signs, usually sniffing, circling quickly with nose to the ground etc. she will be off chasing some scent trial & it's true, she has switched to a different part of her brain & cannot hear me when I call. I would imagine the same thing could be true of dogs that are reactive to other dogs in their space. :)

[hankdog]

Somewhere in the vast amount of stuff out there on training reactive dogs there's a notion that instead of calling them off once they're looking at a dog, so long as they're not acting out you allow them to "gather information". It's all part of the conflicting stuff you can find. Jake has vision problems and I've found the best thing to do is to warn him and face him in the direction of the dog. And 1 and 2 and 3 and we see the dog, sucked in and completely deaf and rigid. If I try do anything he will crack and throw a tantrum.

Basically at that point I just leave him and hold his peanut butter jar next to his head. If he relaxes and turns away then he gets his treats and pats. If it goes badly and he lunges out he gets his own punishment from lunging on leash, a stern word and let's go.

All reactive dogs are different, obedience straight up can helped but some reactive dogs treat other dogs more as a phobic object than a distraction which they wish to interact with. It's not rational and they can't control their reaction. It's the same as if a snake dropped in your lap, I could tell you to be still but it's unlikely you would.

Jake took ages to actually want to sniff or do dog stuff on a walk. For him I actually need to encourage him to do that kind of thing. We counteract by doing a few minutes of "work" on a walk, but walks are about learning to interact with the world. I don't think of Jake as a normal dog who is misbehaving. He is a dysfunctional individual who suffers from a deep phobia and high anxiety.

End of sermon. Sorry I had to just say that. Reactivity is not a lack of obedience.

[BC Crazy]

100% agree Hankdog. I don't think reactivity is a lack of obedience at all. It is more of a compulsive act. They react anxiously because that is there way of coping with what they see as a threatening situation.

Stella is extremely reactive as most folks know & yet she is so obedient & will turn herself inside out if need be to 'please' me. She hates to be wrong or in trouble & becomes very sad if she is, which is very rare.However once she has reacted to something & I don't distract her train of thought. She becomes oblivious to everything/everyone apart from what she is reacting to.

She too I wouldn't consider a 'normal dog who is misbehaving. I consider her too to be very dysfunctional, extremely

high anxiety at times & also extremely noise/sound phobic. Has she improved??? Yes she has. Will she ever be a quote 'normal, mellow girl??? No.

I have also had to help Stel enjoy her walks. She was like a little robot as a youngster. She wouldn't sniff/toilet/explore at all on lead. Gradually I have over time got her to do all of the above which is a pleasure to witness. I wanted her to 'breathe', enjoy the walk as much as Sonny & I do cause that is what it's all about for us :) Apart from when Stella is reactive be it on lead or off she is so well behaved you wouldn't think it was the same girl to be honest.

Edited July 14, 2014 by BC Crazy

[Amax-1]

This was Justice's first challenging encounter with another dog after being attacked two weeks earlier and his fear and reactivity resurfacing. I was stressed and flustered and was trying to get him to respond by calling his name, rather than the commands he's been conditioned to respond to when I want him to turn away from another dog, such as "leave it" and "let's go". If you read the rest of the post you quoted you would have seen that as soon as I did something he has been conditioned to respond to when on alert (using the clicker), he responded immediately. This situation was my error and not his and I agree that reactive dogs should have their training proofed to a level where they can respond when on high alert. He has responded to the commands he has been trained with on every high alert encounter since this occasion.

I have no interest in setting up a relationship where Justice isn't allowed to sniff or show me he's interested in something when he has a leash on. I do not expect him to be completely focused on me, provided he's not pulling me and responds when I ask him to do something. I have done training with him in the past when I was following advice I had been given about keeping him focused on me and not sniffing etc.. and these walks were not enjoyable for either of us.

I do think a dog's ability to respond when on alert is very different to a dog's ability to respond when over threshold. I know you didn't mention being over threshold but I wanted to bring it up in case anyone is reading this and thinks that they have a disobedient or untrained dog just because they can't get a response to verbal commands when their dog is over threshold, as this is not the case.

A dog over threshold really means the dog is too over stimulated in the moment to respond to known commands and what we see from a reactive dog is that he/she has lost the plot and reverted back to the default behaviour, barking, lunging etc for which we have no verbal control over the dog to interrupt the behaviour and re-gain the dog's composure.

Yes I did read all of your post and the dog did compose when using the clicker which means the clicker is being used as a lure and the message the dog is learning in the training process is that he shall respond to the click sound and not handler command. The dog ideally should associate the click with displaying the right behaviour as commanded by the handler as in "handler commands, dog obeys, click for obeying followed by a reward". In the circumstances, the dog was actually rewarded for blowing over threshold and reacting by luring with the clicker.

I know these moments are difficult and you have to make a call and the bottom line was you did re-compose the dog and diffuse the reactivity, so well done as any ability to defuse a reactive dog is good and moving in the right direction. From what you explained of the situation, the clicker is working more as a lure in the way the dog sees it, like he is relating the click as meaning he gets a reward but he's not understanding what the reward is for, what he did right to hear the click. Sometimes it's hard to tell if a dog sees the clicker as a reward lure or a marker for the right behaviour. I think Justice may be seeing the clicker as a reward lure more so than realising the click was actually for displaying the right behaviour you are seeking from him?

What you can also do, is train him for "work mode" where he MUST obey everything then a relaxed mode when the work is done, so you can train little sections of a walk where he must focus, no sniffing etc, then release him to relaxed mode where he can do what he likes. You can train a working mode commanding "ready" meaning for the next few minutes he must focus and obey then command "done" meaning he can relax.

As painful as it is to manage a reactive dog, they are worth their weight in gold to own one just once as they make you become a great dog trainer by the time you have mastered them. They teach you in 5 years what would normally take 20+ years of knowledge gained in dog behaviour :) :)

Some dogs when on high alert or over the thresh-hold switch over to another part of their brain & literally do not hear you. It's called "sticky-dog syndrome" & happens a lot with herding breeds & it is difficult if not impossible to train out. I know, because my BC girl is a "sticky dog" & unless I read the warning signs, usually sniffing, circling quickly with nose to the ground etc. she will be off chasing some scent trial & it's true, she has switched to a different part of her brain & cannot hear me when I call. I would imagine the same thing could be true of dogs that are reactive to other dogs in their space. :)

Unless you use aversion not as a punisher but used to change the behaviour, it is difficult to train around a dog in "sticky" mode. The greatest "un-sticker" of all times is the dreaded electric collar and in working dog situations and especially with herding breeds is why they use electric collars in the training process otherwise without it, the dog washes out and doesn't certify in that working role :)

Commonly called "clear headed" dogs is a term given to dogs more genetically resistant to reaching "sticky mode" which serious and professional working dog trainers will seek in the parentage of a prospective working litter.

Edited July 14, 2014 by Amax-1

[Amax-1]

Somewhere in the vast amount of stuff out there on training reactive dogs there's a notion that instead of calling them off once they're looking at a dog, so long as they're not acting out you allow them to "gather information". It's all part of the conflicting stuff you can find. Jake has vision problems and I've found the best thing to do is to warn him and face him in the direction of the dog. And 1 and 2 and 3 and we see the dog, sucked in and completely deaf and rigid. If I try do anything he will crack and throw a tantrum.

Basically at that point I just leave him and hold his peanut butter jar next to his head. If he relaxes and turns away then he gets his treats and pats. If it goes badly and he lunges out he gets his own punishment from lunging on leash, a stern word and let's go.

All reactive dogs are different, obedience straight up can helped but some reactive dogs treat other dogs more as a phobic object than a distraction which they wish to interact with. It's not rational and they can't control their reaction. It's the same as if a snake dropped in your lap, I could tell you to be still but it's unlikely you would.

Jake took ages to actually want to sniff or do dog stuff on a walk. For him I actually need to encourage him to do that kind of thing. We counteract by doing a few minutes of "work" on a walk, but walks are about learning to interact with the world. I don't think of Jake as a normal dog who is misbehaving. He is a dysfunctional individual who suffers from a deep phobia and high anxiety.

End of sermon. Sorry I had to just say that. Reactivity is not a lack of obedience.

Anxious and phobic dogs will run away is their first option, they don't react unless there is no escape path and they most certainly don't react in forward motion in active aggression. Anxious dogs will react to other dogs in close proximity so they tend to bite another dog when face to face or when a another dogs overwhelms them physically with no escape path. Dogs who react at another dog on the other side of the road at a distance giving the impression that if you dropped the leash, your dog would chase the other dog and attack it, is not an anxious phobic dog and both conditions require different training approaches, so one condition is a phobic type anxious fear aggression state, and the other is an active aggression state. Active aggression is a state where a dog perceives threat usually from weak nerves if the dog reacts to non threats, but the dog has courage and commitment to fight is a different mindset to a cornered fearful dog lashing out, so training of reactive behaviours depends a lot on the type of reactivity the dog is displaying but you certainly can in most cases dramatically improve reactive behaviour with good obedience training as the foundation to the rehabilitation process.

[raineth]

To my mind, the fearful dog may very well act aggressively (exhibit reactivity). This is because often this sort of behaviour often results in the feared object retreating. Thus it is a case of negative reinforcement, which we know is a very powerful behavioural influence.

[Amax-1]

To my mind, the fearful dog may very well act aggressively (exhibit reactivity). This is because often this sort of behaviour often results in the feared object retreating. Thus it is a case of negative reinforcement, which we know is a very powerful behavioural influence.

Yes, that's how it begins in many fearful dogs, the target they are insecure about retreats from an act of aggression then by learned behaviour, the once fearful dog transitions into a confident aggressor/attacker, but when rehabilitating a dog in training, it's the state of reactivity the dog displays is what's best addressed I have found more so than the dog's state when the behaviour first commenced.

Sometimes if this makes sense: A behaviourist will piece together from the owners account of how their dog became chronically reactive towards other dogs and determine that the reactivity is fear based and they are correct, it's exactly where it all began, but it's transitioned into confident active aggression over time, so the treatment or training process needs to be compiled around a confident aggressor which is what the dog is now on the leash before them, not compile a training plan around what the dog was initially when the reactivity began. As we know, dog aggression elevates, gets worse as the aggressor gains confidence and before long they would attempt to take down a grizzly bear so to speak. A fear biter can transition into a dog that he/she thinks of themselves as being pretty tough to the point they can look for fights and enjoy the challenge

Justice wasn't over threshold. He didn't respond to my voice because I did the wrong thing. The clicker is normally used in the context of the Look at That game where he gets rewarded for looking at another dog without exploding. He knows what he is being rewarded for and if he looks at a dog and looks back at me because I missed it, he will keep looking at the dog and then back at me until I catch on. In this particular instance I used the clicker incorrectly and as an interrupter to stop him from going over threshold because I wasn't on the ball. We also do the Look at That game without a clicker and treats and with praise as the reward. It depends on how stressful each situation is for him and prior to him being attacked recently, we weren't using LAT or BAT at all as he no longer needed it.

That's good he was still clear headed enough to hear the clicker so he was still within a workable zone and hadn't blown over the threshold or what we often say "lost the plot".....so there is still some good behaviour left in Justice to be gained in command compliance it seems which is great progress. People who have never had a reactive dog to deal with don't realise the infinite timing of events in training and management involved in achieving sometimes only marginal success. As I mentioned previously, as a handler/trainer mastering a reactive dog which are not easy projects provides great enhancement of a person's overall training skills in general :)

Edited July 14, 2014 by Amax-1

[hankdog]

Leash aggression is often because the leashed dog has no flight. A dog that has been mismanaged as youngster and not allowed to escape will not choose flight. Jake was six months younger than his mate. My behaviorist has postulated that he was possibly not allowed a safe retreat as a pup and his unthinking response to anything fearful or new is to make a lot of noise.

A phobic person will also attack if given no flight. The first thing many people do is reach for a heavy object to kill a tiny spider. Dogs do what works, if yelling makes your phobic object disappear then that's what you do. Jake is by no means a confident aggressor. I think treating a fear aggressive dog as such would do great harm to the dog. He may learn in your presence to surprises his first response but you wouldn't change his internal state.

Edited July 14, 2014 by hankdog

[Amax-1]

I've already been through this process once with him and did learn an incredible amount about both of us as well as about training and timing. I would however, have been very happy to have avoided the need to go through this again and miss out on the opportunity to enhance my training skills once more.

Leash aggression is often because the leashed dog has no flight. A dog that has been mismanaged as youngster and not allowed to escape will not choose flight. Jake was six months younger than his mate. My behaviorist has postulated that he was possibly not allowed a safe retreat as a pup and his unthinking response to anything fearful or new is to make a lot of noise.

A phobic person will also attack if given no flight. The first thing many people do is reach for a heavy object to kill a tiny spider. Dogs do what works, if yelling makes your phobic object disappear then that's what you do. Jake is by no means a confident aggressor. I think treating a fear aggressive dog as such would do great harm to the dog. He may learn in your presence to surprises his first response but you wouldn't change his internal state.

Yes, aggression can manifest in fearful dogs from scary experiences with no flight path but depending on the individual dog, they can also shut down and anything else in between so there is really not much point in trying to establish what's caused the reactivity in a time that can never be confirmed as to what did happen, and often nothing happened at all and the dog is just reactive, doesn't like other dogs.

I think most importantly is to establish the behaviour of what the dog is displaying now as it's being assessed for a training plan based on the mindset of the dog you are seeing when in a reactive state. When the dog's mindset is mis-read by a behaviourist and the wrong training approach applied in rehabilitation, it either makes the reactivity worse and more unpredictable, causes a shutdown or doesn't really fix the problem other than minor suppression of the reactive behaviour.

Edited July 14, 2014 by Amax-1

[hankdog]

I'm being irreverent but sometimes a shut down response would seem quite desirable.

I think the term threshold distance is quite misleading too. I gather for a lot of dogs there's no magic distance but rather a combination of factors. Initially I used to try find the exact distance at which he would react and then as per the text book that would be reduced. Much experience later and I can nearly 80 percent of the time predict whether he will lose it or not.

Border collie threshold is another country, he will freak out at them in the tv.

Fence between him and the dog and he can pretty much stand two meters away and be ok under instruction.

No fence,on leash if you're big and dark colored and confident and ignoring him then across the road and you can go by.

Off leash, well inversely proportional to size it's a circus.

I think you just have to keep plugging away patiently but after two years I've also learned that you really need to learn your own dog. Theory is general and therefor very simple, good to have but not applicable to every dog.

[Amax-1]

Leash aggression is often because the leashed dog has no flight. A dog that has been mismanaged as youngster and not allowed to escape will not choose flight. Jake was six months younger than his mate. My behaviorist has postulated that he was possibly not allowed a safe retreat as a pup and his unthinking response to anything fearful or new is to make a lot of noise.

A phobic person will also attack if given no flight. The first thing many people do is reach for a heavy object to kill a tiny spider. Dogs do what works, if yelling makes your phobic object disappear then that's what you do. Jake is by no means a confident aggressor. I think treating a fear aggressive dog as such would do great harm to the dog. He may learn in your presence to surprises his first response but you wouldn't change his internal state.

I agree hankdog.

I think it's also important when making statements, such as A-max's that if a dog sees another across the street and, given the chance, would rush over and attack, that this is therefore confident aggression and not anxiety or fear, to take in to account that each dog is different. Each dog has a different distance requirement that keeps them under threshold and some may not feel threatened and afraid until a dog is two metres from them, while others may feel threatened at 20 metres or 100 metres. If the dog's fear response is fight (whether due to past experience or being restrained from flight by a leash), I would think that response would kick in at whatever distance puts the dog over threshold, meaning that just because a dog is across the road going ballistic and wanting to chase the other dog off, it doesn't automatically mean the dog is a confident aggressor.

When I first started working with Justice he would go over threshold and kick in to fight mode if another dog was on the other side of the road but he wasn't confident and it would have been a huge mistake to have treated him as anything other than fearful and anxious. Over time he increased his threshold so that he could have a dog walk past him a metre away without reacting and eventually got as far as his response consisting of a sniff and then walking away, or moving behind me, when strange dogs ran up to him in public. Hopefully we'll get back to that point again but at no time was he ever confident in his aggressive displays. I think you need to be very careful giving advice to owners of reactive dogs that suggests their dogs should be treated as anything other than fearful and anxious, without an in person assessment done by an excellent behaviourist. The consequences of someone acting on that with a fearful dog could be very damaging.

There a two behaviour components in a dog attack, the trigger and the reaction. The trigger is fear and the reaction is active aggression and only a dog confident enough to win a fight will react in active aggression when a flight path exists. The further a dog will chase another dog to mount an attack, the more confidence the dog has it's ability to win the fight. Dogs lacking in confidence to win the fight are not brave enough to test their luck over any great distance. Dog aggression is exactly the same in principal as old school trained protection dogs in defence drive but in reverse in terms of the rehabilitation/training process of the behaviours.

I actually haven't provided any advice only discussed behaviour elements basically

[Amax-1]

I'm being irreverent but sometimes a shut down response would seem quite desirable.

I think the term threshold distance is quite misleading too. I gather for a lot of dogs there's no magic distance but rather a combination of factors. Initially I used to try find the exact distance at which he would react and then as per the text book that would be reduced. Much experience later and I can nearly 80 percent of the time predict whether he will lose it or not.

Border collie threshold is another country, he will freak out at them in the tv.

Fence between him and the dog and he can pretty much stand two meters away and be ok under instruction.

No fence,on leash if you're big and dark colored and confident and ignoring him then across the road and you can go by.

Off leash, well inversely proportional to size it's a circus.

I think you just have to keep plugging away patiently but after two years I've also learned that you really need to learn your own dog. Theory is general and therefor very simple, good to have but not applicable to every dog.

Correct, you are spot on there

Theories are ok and have their place, but many in dog training are purposely implemented to sell training packages, so we can only apply theories as they apply to own dogs.

[sheena]

This was Justice's first challenging encounter with another dog after being attacked two weeks earlier and his fear and reactivity resurfacing. I was stressed and flustered and was trying to get him to respond by calling his name, rather than the commands he's been conditioned to respond to when I want him to turn away from another dog, such as "leave it" and "let's go". If you read the rest of the post you quoted you would have seen that as soon as I did something he has been conditioned to respond to when on alert (using the clicker), he responded immediately. This situation was my error and not his and I agree that reactive dogs should have their training proofed to a level where they can respond when on high alert. He has responded to the commands he has been trained with on every high alert encounter since this occasion.

I have no interest in setting up a relationship where Justice isn't allowed to sniff or show me he's interested in something when he has a leash on. I do not expect him to be completely focused on me, provided he's not pulling me and responds when I ask him to do something. I have done training with him in the past when I was following advice I had been given about keeping him focused on me and not sniffing etc.. and these walks were not enjoyable for either of us.

I do think a dog's ability to respond when on alert is very different to a dog's ability to respond when over threshold. I know you didn't mention being over threshold but I wanted to bring it up in case anyone is reading this and thinks that they have a disobedient or untrained dog just because they can't get a response to verbal commands when their dog is over threshold, as this is not the case.

A dog over threshold really means the dog is too over stimulated in the moment to respond to known commands and what we see from a reactive dog is that he/she has lost the plot and reverted back to the default behaviour, barking, lunging etc for which we have no verbal control over the dog to interrupt the behaviour and re-gain the dog's composure.

Yes I did read all of your post and the dog did compose when using the clicker which means the clicker is being used as a lure and the message the dog is learning in the training process is that he shall respond to the click sound and not handler command. The dog ideally should associate the click with displaying the right behaviour as commanded by the handler as in "handler commands, dog obeys, click for obeying followed by a reward". In the circumstances, the dog was actually rewarded for blowing over threshold and reacting by luring with the clicker.

I know these moments are difficult and you have to make a call and the bottom line was you did re-compose the dog and diffuse the reactivity, so well done as any ability to defuse a reactive dog is good and moving in the right direction. From what you explained of the situation, the clicker is working more as a lure in the way the dog sees it, like he is relating the click as meaning he gets a reward but he's not understanding what the reward is for, what he did right to hear the click. Sometimes it's hard to tell if a dog sees the clicker as a reward lure or a marker for the right behaviour. I think Justice may be seeing the clicker as a reward lure more so than realising the click was actually for displaying the right behaviour you are seeking from him?

What you can also do, is train him for "work mode" where he MUST obey everything then a relaxed mode when the work is done, so you can train little sections of a walk where he must focus, no sniffing etc, then release him to relaxed mode where he can do what he likes. You can train a working mode commanding "ready" meaning for the next few minutes he must focus and obey then command "done" meaning he can relax.

As painful as it is to manage a reactive dog, they are worth their weight in gold to own one just once as they make you become a great dog trainer by the time you have mastered them. They teach you in 5 years what would normally take 20+ years of knowledge gained in dog behaviour :) :)

Justice wasn't over threshold. He didn't respond to my voice because I did the wrong thing. TThe clicker is normally used in the context of the Look athat game where he gets rewarded for looking at another dog without exploding. He knows what he is being rewarded for and if he looks at a dog and looks back at me because I missed it, he will keep looking at the dog and then back at me until I catch on. In this particular instance I used the clicker incorrectly and as an interrupter to stop him from going over threshold because I wasn't on the ball. We also do the Look at That game without a clicker and treats and with praise as the reward. It depends on how stressful each situation is for him and prior to him being attacked recently, we weren't using LAT or BAT at all as he no longer needed it.

Yes...I was going to say that, but you beat me to it :)

[hankdog]

My greatest dog training achievement has been getting my dog "hooked" on peanut butter. Now he's my minion....mwa hahahaha!

[hankdog]

I'm so excited . There's a new lady in our suburb, a large and small dog. The small is aggressive the large is I think a frustrated greeter. She has little control and a few weeks ago the small yanked it's leash loose and had a go at us. Luckily a passerby grabbed it since she couldn't do anything without bringing her large dog into the fray.

We saw them this morning, she stops and hangs on when she sees other dogs and just waits until the other dogs go past. I sat Jake and made sure he saw them, little one was by now barking and both were straining on their leads. In the 70m that it took us to walk past and turn down the street I only had to sit Jake twice, just when I thought he might be about to lose it. We had to turn into our street right in front of them, he managed the turn no problem and put his head down and powered away, not one look back.

We are really starting to run our little walk pasts like a well oiled machine but I was so impressed with how confident he seemed, he was almost pre empting me when I told him to sit, almost if he knew "ok, I'm about to blow better calm down."

He seemed particularly pleased with himself when he got his post walk past treat. I bought him a new harness and a bag of Greenies and ears. I hate stinky ears but he loves them.

[raineth]

Oh that is just wonderful

He is really coming along isn't he? Sounds like he is really starting to understand he has a choice, that he doesn't have to blow his top around other dogs. Well done Jakey, you certainly earned those ears :)

[Simply Grand]

I'm so excited . There's a new lady in our suburb, a large and small dog. The small is aggressive the large is I think a frustrated greeter. She has little control and a few weeks ago the small yanked it's leash loose and had a go at us. Luckily a passerby grabbed it since she couldn't do anything without bringing her large dog into the fray.

We saw them this morning, she stops and hangs on when she sees other dogs and just waits until the other dogs go past. I sat Jake and made sure he saw them, little one was by now barking and both were straining on their leads. In the 70m that it took us to walk past and turn down the street I only had to sit Jake twice, just when I thought he might be about to lose it. We had to turn into our street right in front of them, he managed the turn no problem and put his head down and powered away, not one look back.

We are really starting to run our little walk pasts like a well oiled machine but I was so impressed with how confident he seemed, he was almost pre empting me when I told him to sit, almost if he knew "ok, I'm about to blow better calm down."

He seemed particularly pleased with himself when he got his post walk past treat. I bought him a new harness and a bag of Greenies and ears. I hate stinky ears but he loves them.

Dogs thrive on predictable outcomes of their actions. I think with the work you've put in he's realised that if he follows your lead he can trust you to keep him safe. So rather than " better calm down" he thinks "no need to blow, paying attention and following mum seems to work better at getting me out of an uncomfortable situation"

[BC Crazy]

Way to go Hankdog Good boy Jakey

Thats terrific HD. Jake weighed up that situation & actually chose to stay clam instead of reacting.

Fabulous !!! He has come such a long way. Isn't it wonderful when you have a moment like that when they 'get it'.

[hankdog]

We had an interesting day, Jake was the demonstration dog for the dog training course today. Initially I didn't interrupt him, he dropped into a crouch and barked. No lunging though and he stayed loose leash. It was quite hard not to interrupt him, I felt quite sorry for him.

Finally we called him off and he came away easily.

We then did some practice approaches and he was quite well behaved which I thought was great given we had let him bark freely for quite a while.

It was interesting to hear the discussion points, mostly around responsibly managing him and his quality of life. Whether he's likely to be human dangerous and so on, things I really hadn't thought much about. I guess trainers need to consider all those issues when taking on a reactive dog.

Two useful tips were that I need to keep my hand out the treat bag ( after a year it's still my bad habit).

Also when he reacts then turns to me I treat him straight away. What I need to do is let him look calmly back at the dog without reacting and then reward the second time he looks at me. That way he is rewarded for maintaining a calm state rather than barking, I don't think you would do this up front but we have worked on look for a while now and he got it quickly. Then we practiced on the neighbour dogs this afternoon and he was great, until my daughter pointed out the neighbour dogs had disappeared and I was rewarding him for whipping his head around. So not surprised my dog gets confused.