Anxious Walker

[hankdog]

K9Pro run by Steve Courtney is over in Kurrajong Heights , he's been useful to many including myself. Go to his website and for free you'll find instructions on training the behavioral interrupter. Proof of the pudding so to speak if you follow this you will have one very useful tool and will cost you a lot less than trying all the different harnesses etc. It takes a while to get an appointment so don't delay in booking if that's the way you decide to go. A reactive dog is a lot of work but you'll find stories on this website of people who have successfully rehabilitated their dogs so it can be done. Edited to say great analogy Corvus about the spiders and chocolate... also illustrates the role of the value of the treat, I haven't stopped thinking about how much I want a chocolate????

Edited October 4, 2012 by hankdog

[Nekhbet]

It's actually quite difficult to positively reinforce distance increasing behaviour.

How about increasing the distance between the dog and the stimulus. The more times the stimulus 'goes away' to the dogs mind, the more they ramp it up to make it happen. It doesnt have to make sense to us it has to make sense to the dog that it's behavior has been perceived to achieve the end goal of distance increasing between it and what is causing it to react.

It's how you test and start protection dogs. The reinforcer is the stimulus running off or backing up, the dog can escalate its behavior quite quickly, and they tend to get louder and faster to react. Totally separate to the dog having a handler or not. When you want to apply some pressure the decoy walks in when the dog is reacting, dog then learns more reaction to make the decoy 'go away' and when you get the reaction you want, big fuss and run off in supposed fear.

[Aidan3]

It's actually quite difficult to positively reinforce distance increasing behaviour.

How about increasing the distance between the dog and the stimulus. The more times the stimulus 'goes away' to the dogs mind, the more they ramp it up to make it happen.

That's negative reinforcement, which is how most distance increasing behaviours are learned.

[Nekhbet]

That's negative reinforcement, which is how most distance increasing behaviours are learned.

I missed the positive bit ... My brain should come with a warning on fridays "May make some sense occasionally"

[Aidan3]

That's negative reinforcement, which is how most distance increasing behaviours are learned.

I missed the positive bit ... My brain should come with a warning on fridays "May make some sense occasionally"

:laugh:

[Nekhbet]

yeah I'm the dumb bum who read the sentence about 3 times and thought nooo that doesnt make sense ...

[Mrs Rusty Bucket]

The known versus the unknown

I don't know how she could not know. She will dob in a treat carrier from 50m+ distance, and she sees me hand the treat over... and then she wants it.

[Weasels]

Perhaps mean old mum makes her work harder for treats than strangers do :p