Who Would You Say Is At Fault

[lilypily]

I guess both are at fault but I think if you own an aggressive dog then more responsibility lies with you to make sure something like this never happens.

I have owned one in the past and I was always very vigilant about steering clear of dogs/people and being very cautious about everything around me. I never let my guard down in public.

This^^^^ is why I attribute some fault as well on the other owner (not dog) I too have owned a very dominant aggressive male and I was like the above quote. It would of been negligent of me to take him to a dog class, he would have wreaked havok.

It was one of those split second moments and I believe that me yanking the lead saved my puppy. Yes, my fault for allowing my pup to enter another dogs space, but (waiting to be jumped on again) if you know your dog has issues then don't put them in a close environment with other dogs.

Dogs with issues need training too and how do you know that being in obedience class wasn't part of this dog's development? Should my dog have not been allowed to go to obedience classes because he has issues, just because other people might not pay attention to what their dog is doing? In a training focused environment you generally expect people are keeping an eye on their dog. I'm also not confident that the other dog "meant business" just because it lunged and snapped. Justice would sound terrifying to someone who doesn't know him, when he's doing his reactive display. Even my best friend and my mum were shocked the first time they saw and heard it and he means no harm at all, just wants the other dog to go away and not hurt him.

ETA: The dog owner was sitting where other dogs could avoid them. By your own admission your dog would not have gotten in its face if you'd been paying attention and had control of your dog.

I know accidents happen and am not trying to paint you as a dreadful person but I'm viewing this from the perspective of someone with a reactive dog who has been on the other end of this sort of situation multiple times.

I absolutley agree dogs with issues need training Snook. It occured after the training session, when it's a bit of socialisation time. The owner was very much in the middle of everyone and there dogs. I'm not trying to paint owners of reactive dogs as dreadful, been there, done that with Roofy for 10yrs. If a dog is super reactive, like my Roofy was you have to hyper vigalant and unfortunately expect people to make silly mistakes

Edited April 7, 2014 by lilypily

[RiverStar-Aura]

I'd see it at being mostly Lilypily's fault (sorry). If we forget the fact that the incident happened at a training club, if this was just a person sitting at a park on the grass with their dog and someone else got too close, I wouldn't be blaming the person on the ground. If I see people sitting with their dogs (or even just sitting in general be it on a bus, train wherever) I make a point of not sitting on top of them or going near them.

I'd be angry if someone stood too close to my dogs and I if we're just sitting around trying to mind our own business.

[lilypily]

I absolutely agree that reactive dogs need training too, I think structured obedience style work is great for them and controlled exposure to other dogs is needed of you are going to reduce the reactivity.

As I said though I wouldn't have my reactive dog somewhere where I couldn't move it further away or where it felt it couldn't move away and rely on others to avoid me.

That makes it sound like I'm saying the other owner was more responsible for what happened, I don't think that at all and maybe it hadn't occurred to them that there could be an issue. Hopefully they too have taken something from it.

I don't know what the set up is at lilypily's training centre but other than one occasion where I wasn't thinking anyone would try to walk between our chair and the next one over because it was in front of a wall, leaving me nowhere to go when someone did decide to do just that, we usually sat on one side of a walkway in to and out of the group, under the advice of our behaviourist who was delivering the training. The reasoning was that the dogs were placed in front of us on a mat and the walkway gap was much larger than the gap between the rest of the chairs (which people also randomly walked through), so increased our distance from passing dogs, and also gave us better options for escape if needed. Justice was also at a point where he didn't care if a dog walked past him and was even one of the best behaved dogs when it came to training our dogs to walk past an oncoming dog at close proximity. It was only the dogs who were allowed, either through inattention or stupidity on the part of their owners, to lunge, leap or drag themselves in to his face (and yes, one dog did actually leap quite a distance at his face when the owner was busy chatting at the end if a class). It's not always possible to get from sitting to standing and moving away though if the dog only lunges towards yours at the last second, even if you're paying attention.

I agree with you snook. Yes I did not see my pup approaching the other dog, so I can only assume that he did in the way he approaches all new dogs, slowly and if the dogs are large he immediately drops belly up. I don't know if i'll go back. Pup Preschool was hit and miss. I did get several good training tips, but boy did they do some stupid things with him.

Lesson learnt though and fortuanately no harm was done.

[lilypily]

I absolutely agree that reactive dogs need training too, I think structured obedience style work is great for them and controlled exposure to other dogs is needed of you are going to reduce the reactivity.

As I said though I wouldn't have my reactive dog somewhere where I couldn't move it further away or where it felt it couldn't move away and rely on others to avoid me.

That makes it sound like I'm saying the other owner was more responsible for what happened, I don't think that at all and maybe it hadn't occurred to them that there could be an issue. Hopefully they too have taken something from it.

I don't know what the set up is at lilypily's training centre but other than one occasion where I wasn't thinking anyone would try to walk between our chair and the next one over because it was in front of a wall, leaving me nowhere to go when someone did decide to do just that, we usually sat on one side of a walkway in to and out of the group, under the advice of our behaviourist who was delivering the training. The reasoning was that the dogs were placed in front of us on a mat and the walkway gap was much larger than the gap between the rest of the chairs (which people also randomly walked through), so increased our distance from passing dogs, and also gave us better options for escape if needed. Justice was also at a point where he didn't care if a dog walked past him and was even one of the best behaved dogs when it came to training our dogs to walk past an oncoming dog at close proximity. It was only the dogs who were allowed, either through inattention or stupidity on the part of their owners, to lunge, leap or drag themselves in to his face (and yes, one dog did actually leap quite a distance at his face when the owner was busy chatting at the end if a class). It's not always possible to get from sitting to standing and moving away though if the dog only lunges towards yours at the last second, even if you're paying attention.

I agree with you snook. Yes I did not see my pup approaching the other dog, so I can only assume that he did in the way he approaches all new dogs, slowly and if the dogs are large he immediately drops belly up. I don't know if i'll go back. Pup Preschool was hit and miss. I did get several good training tips, but boy did they do some stupid things with him.

Lesson learnt though and fortuanately no harm was done.

Lesson learnt is the main thing. :)

I would seriously consider returning to training but if you're not happy with how they run things in general, maybe ask DOLers for recommendations for somewhere near you that's really good and much more in line with what you want? It can be such a valuable experience for your pup if it's done well.

I know of several smaller training schools around so i'll enquire.

[Rascalmyshadow]

My very reactive girl went to training, we went to very small classes where there was lots of one on one so people actually listened to the instructions.

Everyone was told to keep well away from her and give plenty of space. It worked very well.

If we did need to take her anywhere with lots of dogs she would wear a muzzle.

I had other dogs run up to her a few times out walking but was always quick enough to put myself between.

In the end I would take her out late at night.

I never blamed anyone else for her behaviour nor did I expect anyone else to go out of their way for me.

[sandgrubber]

No one is at fault. This is a training situation. You can't learn if you don't have permission to make mistakes. If the attack is serious, the person running the class is responsible. Such situations should not be allowed to develop.

I would hope that the trainer would use the event to teach a lesson, though.

[Amax-1]

It's the responsibility of all dog owners to respect the personal space of other dogs IMHO, that is you don't allow your dog to approach another dog in an uncontrolled manner as fault is irrelevant if an attack occurs, that is laying blame doesn't ease the pain for the effected dog or bring back a dead dog that a larger reactive dog may have killed, so common sense needs to prevail on the balance of prevention is better than cure.

We need to remember that reactive dogs are genetically structured that way and are a handful to manage in comparison to dogs who are not genetically structured with reactive aggression and a complete drongo can manage a non reactive dog well. Often the handler of a reactive dog although not perfect can be a super handler in comparison to the drongo with a better dog. Too often in training clubs, handlers of reactive dogs are condemned because of their dog's reactivity without thought given that handling reactive dogs isn't an easy task and is a harder task to train the reactivity out of them if that is ever possible.

Edited April 7, 2014 by Amax-1

[Simply Grand]

I guess both are at fault but I think if you own an aggressive dog then more responsibility lies with you to make sure something like this never happens.

I have owned one in the past and I was always very vigilant about steering clear of dogs/people and being very cautious about everything around me. I never let my guard down in public.

This^^^^ is why I attribute some fault as well on the other owner (not dog) I too have owned a very dominant aggressive male and I was like the above quote. It would of been negligent of me to take him to a dog class, he would have wreaked havok.

It was one of those split second moments and I believe that me yanking the lead saved my puppy. Yes, my fault for allowing my pup to enter another dogs space, but (waiting to be jumped on again) if you know your dog has issues then don't put them in a close environment with other dogs.

Dogs with issues need training too and how do you know that being in obedience class wasn't part of this dog's development? Should my dog have not been allowed to go to obedience classes because he has issues, just because other people might not pay attention to what their dog is doing? In a training focused environment you generally expect people are keeping an eye on their dog. I'm also not confident that the other dog "meant business" just because it lunged and snapped. Justice would sound terrifying to someone who doesn't know him, when he's doing his reactive display. Even my best friend and my mum were shocked the first time they saw and heard it and he means no harm at all, just wants the other dog to go away and not hurt him.

ETA: The dog owner was sitting where other dogs could avoid them. By your own admission your dog would not have gotten in its face if you'd been paying attention and had control of your dog.

I know accidents happen and am not trying to paint you as a dreadful person but I'm viewing this from the perspective of someone with a reactive dog who has been on the other end of this sort of situation multiple times.

I absolutley agree dogs with issues need training Snook. It occured after the training session, when it's a bit of socialisation time. The owner was very much in the middle of everyone and there dogs. I'm not trying to paint owners of reactive dogs as dreadful, been there, done that with Roofy for 10yrs. If a dog is super reactive, like my Roofy was you have to hyper vigalant and unfortunately expect people to make silly mistakes

I agree the owners of reactive dogs need to be super vigilant and fully aware of what is happening at all times in that sort of environment. I also realise people make mistakes and the one or two times that an owner was actually apologetic for not controlling their dog and didn't let it happen again, I was okay with that. The reason I was usually pissed off though was because the vast majority of owners, who had been told explicitly by the trainer to not let their dogs approach us, looked pissed off with me when I asked them to stop their dog before it got to us or when Justice reacted to their dog in his face, when we weren't the ones at fault. In the one instance where I was at fault for sitting near the wall I apologised profusely to the owner and took full blame for what had happened.

On lead socialisation as part of obedience classes also carries an expectation that owners are attentive and in control of their dogs. I would be really interested to know the response of the other dog's owner if you asked about the dog's reactivity and whether it has a history of aggression because, like I said earlier, if Justice put on a reactive display toward your dog you would probably think he meant business too just because of how he looks and sounds (and he will lunge too), when he doesn't mean business at all.

Snook, I think your attitude and actions with Justice are very responsible and reasonable :) And most importantly your approach has benefitted Justice and everyone around him because he's come so far. In the situations you've described, where people have specifically been told in advance to keep their distance, you've asked them to move away if they come close or their dog is being highly inappropriate by lunging and jumping I would say that the other party was at fault and you were not. You also clearly manage Justice differently as he improves, I expect in the earliest stages of his training you wouldn't have had him sitting in a room with a group of other dogs.

Edited April 7, 2014 by Simply Grand

[Amax-1]

If you have a dog that is DA then shouldn't you have it trained to a certain point before taking it into a environment full of dogs

That's easier said than done in many training factions where aversives are not applied to set consequence for inappropriate reactivity. If owners of reactive dogs are reliant on "look at me" training structures and crap like that to provide reliability in face of other dogs, these situations will only manifest into greater problems. It's difficult to find trainers and clubs these days who can address reactivity properly and actually fix it to a reliable level unfortunately.

[Simply Grand]

If you have a dog that is DA then shouldn't you have it trained to a certain point before taking it into a environment full of dogs

That's easier said than done in many training factions where aversives are not applied to set consequence for inappropriate reactivity. If owners of reactive dogs are reliant on "look at me" training structures and crap like that to provide reliability in face of other dogs, these situations will only manifest into greater problems. It's difficult to find trainers and clubs these days who can address reactivity properly and actually fix it to a reliable level unfortunately.

Ahh, I was actually agreeing with what you were saying until this post, especially the bolded part. There is science to back up building positive associations and teaching alternative responses for reactive dogs and I could name plenty of dogs who have responded well to "that crap". If you're going to ask people to understand and acknowledge that your chosen methods of training can work you might want to open your mind to the fact that other methods can be effective too.

[Simply Grand]

If you have a dog that is DA then shouldn't you have it trained to a certain point before taking it into a environment full of dogs

That's easier said than done in many training factions where aversives are not applied to set consequence for inappropriate reactivity. If owners of reactive dogs are reliant on "look at me" training structures and crap like that to provide reliability in face of other dogs, these situations will only manifest into greater problems. It's difficult to find trainers and clubs these days who can address reactivity properly and actually fix it to a reliable level unfortunately.

Justice's reactivity has primarily been addressed with positive training methods involving desensitisation and counter-conditioning and his obedience training was all done with positive reinforcement. We also used low level aversives such as vocal reprimands and being removed from situations etc and that was perfectly sufficient for him. Aversives are not a requirement for behaviour modification and should only be used on a case by case basis, looking at the needs of that individual dog and owner. Justice is a very soft dog and would only become frightened or perhaps even shut down with the use of strong aversives. Aversives also aren't particularly conducive to counter-conditioning, given that you're trying to create a positive association with other dogs.

That being said, I do agree that refusal to consider aversives when it comes to behaviour modification and training is just as unhelpful as the attitude that aversives are mandatory for success. Also, from what I have seen and heard, most obedience training centres aren't set up to deal with reactive dogs very well anyway and most owners of these dogs would be much better served by gaining assistance from a good behaviourist, either in conjunction with or instead of obedience training.

[huski]

I have owned a DA dog before and I was hyper vigilant about handling him especially if I took him somewhere like obedience club. You have to know your dogs limitations. Personally if I owned a dog that was highly aggressive if other dogs got in it's space I wouldn't sit down in a place that's heavily saturated with other dogs (essentially giving you no out if another dog owner did the wrong thing). I would have been way too paranoid and worried about something going wrong. There is a difference between a dog that doesn't appreciate rude dogs getting their face and a dog that wants to maul other dogs that come near it.

Edited April 7, 2014 by huski

[lilypily]

I have owned a DA dog before and I was hyper vigilant about handling him especially if I took him somewhere like obedience club. You have to know your dogs limitations. Personally if I owned a dog that was highly aggressive if other dogs got in it's space I wouldn't sit down in a place that's heavily saturated with other dogs (essentially giving you no out if another dog owner did the wrong thing). I would have been way too paranoid and worried about something going wrong. There is a difference between a dog that doesn't appreciate rude dogs getting their face and a dog that wants to maul other dogs that come near it.

This is my whole point. Yep I was in the wrong, but I don't feel that I would of deserved to have my pup killed for simply approacing another dog. I'm not being melodramatic, I really do believe this dog would have killed my pup if he had of got him.

Even though I was at fault, it has scared me and put me off going back.

Edited April 7, 2014 by lilypily

[skip]

I think I get where you are coming from.

But don't give up from this one instance. Choose another school if you can however most people only have one choice.

Classes are fun and so good for your dogs socialisation. However you are in charge of what happens in class.

I pay a fair bit of attention to dogs around me and also usually only do one 1/2 hr lesson. One hour is just too long to train.

Shake this incident off and go on to enjoy the social side of things for you and your dog

Happy training

[Amax-1]

If you have a dog that is DA then shouldn't you have it trained to a certain point before taking it into a environment full of dogs

That's easier said than done in many training factions where aversives are not applied to set consequence for inappropriate reactivity. If owners of reactive dogs are reliant on "look at me" training structures and crap like that to provide reliability in face of other dogs, these situations will only manifest into greater problems. It's difficult to find trainers and clubs these days who can address reactivity properly and actually fix it to a reliable level unfortunately.

Ahh, I was actually agreeing with what you were saying until this post, especially the bolded part. There is science to back up building positive associations and teaching alternative responses for reactive dogs and I could name plenty of dogs who have responded well to "that crap". If you're going to ask people to understand and acknowledge that your chosen methods of training can work you might want to open your mind to the fact that other methods can be effective too.

Teaching alternative responses motivationally works well with dogs who have the drive levels to adapt to handler focus activities, but not all dogs do have that in trait therefore teaching alternative behaviour in some dogs requires aversives where the best rehabilitation method is dependant on the dog's character, not the method preference of the trainer. It's no good correcting a dog with aversives who has adaptive response to focus activities any more than it's no good trying to focus a dog who doesn't have any to avoid an aversive. A very opened mind to training methods and tools needs to employed in the "successful" treatment of reactive aggression, not one method fits all.

[Amax-1]

If you have a dog that is DA then shouldn't you have it trained to a certain point before taking it into a environment full of dogs

That's easier said than done in many training factions where aversives are not applied to set consequence for inappropriate reactivity. If owners of reactive dogs are reliant on "look at me" training structures and crap like that to provide reliability in face of other dogs, these situations will only manifest into greater problems. It's difficult to find trainers and clubs these days who can address reactivity properly and actually fix it to a reliable level unfortunately.

Justice's reactivity has primarily been addressed with positive training methods involving desensitisation and counter-conditioning and his obedience training was all done with positive reinforcement. We also used low level aversives such as vocal reprimands and being removed from situations etc and that was perfectly sufficient for him. Aversives are not a requirement for behaviour modification and should only be used on a case by case basis, looking at the needs of that individual dog and owner. Justice is a very soft dog and would only become frightened or perhaps even shut down with the use of strong aversives. Aversives also aren't particularly conducive to counter-conditioning, given that you're trying to create a positive association with other dogs.

That being said, I do agree that refusal to consider aversives when it comes to behaviour modification and training is just as unhelpful as the attitude that aversives are mandatory for success. Also, from what I have seen and heard, most obedience training centres aren't set up to deal with reactive dogs very well anyway and most owners of these dogs would be much better served by gaining assistance from a good behaviourist, either in conjunction with or instead of obedience training.

Dogs generally react out of fear and quickly learn that lighting up drives away the threat and eases stress which becomes a learned behaviour. Sometimes an aversive as in a hard correction to break the reactive drive when in face of another dog, the dog realises that other dogs are not so scary and reaction isn't necessary so what begins as calm behaviour to avoid correction manifests into a less stressful situation with the calm behaviour instead of aggressive lunging which can be further reinforced by rewarding the calm behaviour. Shutting down softer dogs with aversives is a training error, not a fault of the aversive, but the problem is, the more in the modern day era who don't learn aversive methods wanting to model themselves as humane trainers leaves owners of dogs who need aversives for the best chance at behaviour modification all dressed up with nowhere to go other than "watch me" regimes for dogs lacking genetic focus to be properly adaptable.

Generally reactive dogs are of weak character....they are not strong dominant dogs where aversives can elevate aggression......those types of dogs have extreme confidence and are not reactive unless heavily provoked and don't need reactivity management. Given that most cases of reactivity is due to weakness, aversives have a greater place in rehabilitation of reactive behaviour as weak dogs respond well to physical dominance as a general rule. Same goes for dogs with genetically high drive and a liking to handler induced reward are rarely reactive as they adapt so easy to handler focus activities to work around reactivity. Most truely reactive dogs are of the same mould IME, lower drive dogs, hard to focus in distraction types as their general character.

Edited April 7, 2014 by Amax-1

[sandgrubber]

Have I missed something? I've seen no mention of how large this class is, and little mention of how the trainer set forth, communicated, and enforced rules. Also no mention of discussing the incident in class with those involved. I've attended classes that were utter chaos . .. too large, no one can hear the trainer, people pretty much doing what they see fit. Such classes may be ok for easy-going dogs whose owners want to learn basics, but they are not appropriate for working through the problems of reactive or DA dogs. The club or the trainer or whoever set up the class should be ensuring the safety of everyone involved. Should this situation have come to a bad end, I would guess that the club or the trainer would be legally liable, moreso than the owner of the aggressive dog.

From what I've read (not everything carefully) the humans involved learned from this event . . . other than aversion.