by Positive Dog | Dec 7, 2019 | General Training, Reactive, Aggressive, or Overexcited Dogs
When you have an anxious or reactive dog you might have people tell you that your nervousness or [random personal quality] is the problem or a part of the reason your dog misbehaves.
These often unsolicited opinions are usually well meaning. After all, that person is calm and confident and have a well behaved dog, so there’s your proof! *Insert dramatic eye-roll*
A Valid Point
It is easier for a dog to relax when they are being handled by a relaxed person. However many nervous and high strung people seem to own well behaved and calm dogs. So what gives? The truth of the matter is that your relationship with your dog is two-sided. Your dog’s behaviour affects you just as much as your behaviour affects your dog.
You Likely Did Not Start Out Anxious
The very first time you walked your dog, were you anxious? Probably not. At some point, your dog likely did a weird thing and you thought “hmm… I’m not sure about that”. Then as your dog’s behaviour worsened, you became more anxious. YOU developed a Conditioned Emotional Response to seeing other dogs/people/garbage cans, and perhaps even to walking your dog in general.
Give Yourself a Break
Really, cut yourself some slack. You wouldn’t be anxious if your dog didn’t have a problem. You being anxious makes your dog’s problem worse… which makes you more anxious. This is not your fault.
So what now? Recognize that you and your dog are a team. Train at a place where you both can be successful. We talk a lot about training at a distance where your dog can be successful, but that is just one piece. In order to progress, we must start from a place where you and your dog are OK. If either part of the team become anxious to the point of being over-threshold, the team cannot progress. Start slow. Build confidence in you both.
by Positive Dog | Dec 5, 2019 | General Training, Reactive, Aggressive, or Overexcited Dogs
Wouldn’t it be nice to have a dog who can sit or lie quietly while another dog passes. Do you wish your dog could at least walk by another dog without more than passing interest. Why do so many of us struggle with this skill?
Puppy Socialization
(Please contact me if you do not know how to properly socialize your puppy)
If you brought your dog home as a puppy, you likely spent a lot of time actively socializing. The new puppy met hundreds of dogs and people, including people in hats, people with umbrellas and wheelchairs, people with beards, shaggy dogs, big dogs, small dogs, cats… There are more than a few checklists out there to follow to ensue you have a well socialized pup who will grow up to have no issues.
Maybe that was wrong?
Socializing your dog is a good thing. HOWEVER, many people equate socializing with allowing their dog to practice rude behaviour. PLEASE, PLEASE do not allow your puppy or new dog run up to other dogs or people just because “he’s friendly!” Envision how you would like your 5 year old dog to behave. Are you teaching your puppy to behave that way? At what point is he learning to be a polite greeter?
Bob is a very friendly guy. He LOVES hugs! Bob runs up to random people and dogs on the street and gives them unsolicited bear hugs. Bob meets a few people and dogs who really enjoy his hugs, but he receives many negative reactions and scares quite a few people.
Don’t let your dog be like Bob. Just because your pup is friendly, it doesn’t mean it is ok to be rude and pushy. Good manners start with calmness, thoughtfulness, and self control. Some dogs are born with these skills , most dogs need to be taught them.
But My Dog is a Rescue 
Thank you for taking the time to find and save a dog who needed you. I have a few rescue dogs too. Even though a dog has been rescued from a bad situation, it does not mean that rude behaviours are OK. Retraining established and previously reinforced behaviours takes time and patience.
Many dogs who were never exposed to other dogs, or who lived on a chain or behind a fence, learn to be frustrated when they see another dog. This is a very common source of leash or fence reactivity.
Take the time to train your new dog as though they were a new puppy. It is never too late to start this, even if you have had your dog for months or years.
Start From a Place of Success
How far away from the exciting/scary things do you have to be so that your dog can relax? Start there. Add difficulty a little at a time and in short sessions. Your pup will learn more quickly if he starts from a place of success rather than failure. To help build calmness, we want our dogs high on dopamine, not high on adrenaline.
by Positive Dog | Dec 27, 2018 | General Training, Reactive, Aggressive, or Overexcited Dogs
The key to fixing reactivity is to keep your dog under threshold most of the time. ‘Under threshold’ means that the dog is not so upset that they are barking/lunging/panicking/attacking. When a dog does go over threshold we need to get then out of that situation, settle them down for a bit, and try again. The incidents should be infrequent enough that your dog can recover between incidents if/when he or she does go over threshold.
The program I use counter conditions the dogs to the trigger, whatever that might be for that dog. Here’s one of many foundation games that we play:
Relax!
Relaxing on cue is trained without triggers around, or around dogs/people he is somewhat comfortable with. #1 Rule – if your dog is worried, he/she is allowed to stand up. It is very important that your dog feels they are allowed to leave the situation. Our goal is to create a relaxed dog, not one who is afraid to move – that is a core difference between positive and punishment based trainers.
Disengage
Teaching disengagement is very important for when your dog does go over threshold. Before it will work in extreme situations this skill must be trained a lot while your dog is under threshold.
The Science: Adrenaline and Cortisol vs Dopamine.
What do we want from our dogs? Calmness around other dogs/people/etc. Imagine this scenario
*You can replace shock collar with prong or choke collar or any tool used to hurt/threaten/punish your dog.
Adrenaline
You’re wearing a shock collar. You look at a blue car and maybe try to kick it or yell at it. You hear a beep and feel a shock to your trachea. Every time you see a blue car this happens, repeating 10 or 20 times. The next time you see a blue car, what will your automatic response be? Your body will receive a shock of adrenaline to prepare you for the beep then shock you’ll probably stop trying to kick the car, but it isn’t because you suddenly feel calm around it. Every time you see a blue car or maybe a blue truck or maybe a blue bicycle, you’ll get a dose of adrenaline.
This is counter productive to building confidence and being calm. Even just wearing the collar will fill you with adrenaline. Wearing the collar just heading outside for a walk, no cars in sight, but anticipating you might see a blue car… more adrenaline.
Dopamine
If every time you see a blue car before you tried to kick it, instead of the shock we gave you cheesecake. This releases dopamine in your brain. Dopamine helps you be calm, improves your memory and helps you stay happy and motivated. Your environment is controlled so that those blue cars are far away to start. Every time you see a blue car you get a few bites of cheesecake, then are asked to turn away and move away from the car, earning another bite of cheesecake.
Eventually when you see a blue car your body will release dopamine anticipating the cheesecake and turning away from the car. Eventually going out for a walk will make you happy and relaxed, keen to find those blue cars to earn that shot of dopamine and more cheesecake – or maybe its steak today. You don’t know, but it’ll be good =)
And that is why we use food instead of shock collars to fix reactivity.
by Positive Dog | Dec 18, 2017 | General Training, Reactive, Aggressive, or Overexcited Dogs
The key is keeping your dog under threshold while you work.
Imagine a scale from 0 to 10 where 0 means your dog is calm, cool, and collected, and 10 means your dog is lunging and crazy to go eat/sniff/play with/kill the thing that has him all wound up. Ideally, we train when your dog is at level 2 or 3. At this point, your dog sees the trigger and is interested, but not yet moving towards it or vocalizing. If your dog is moving towards the trigger or vocalizing, he is too high on the scale and you should use some of your management games (Back-Away Game, Focus Game, Tricks) to get some distance between you and the trigger.
When your dog acknowledges the trigger
hen your dog alerts to the trigger, listens for, looks for (maybe the dog or person or squirrel was there, but left), feed your dog. YOUR DOG DOES NOT HAVE TO LOOK AT YOU! This is the biggest mistake people make. This game is all about your dog and the trigger, not about us. If you reward your dog looking at you, you are actually teaching your dog to just ignore the trigger, which is a handy management tool, but it does not fix the root problem.
That’s it in a nutshell. When your dog alerts to the trigger, feed your dog. Repeat. If your dog is not taking the cookies, and you are sure you are using something of high value, it means your dog is over threshold and is too high on that scale. Use your management games to move him away from the trigger.
After a few reps
Once you’ve delivered up to 10 treats, or fewer if your dog starts to go over threshold, use your management games to get your dog away from the trigger. Then trot him out a bit, ask him to go sniff the grass or pee on a tree, or play tug if he will play. Do something to get your dog moving and relaxed. Many dogs will shake off the stress or pee on a tree at this time to diffuse the tension. Now you can go back towards the trigger and repeat!
So how does this actually work??? Why don’t we just punish the dog for bad behaviour?
By giving your dog an awesome treat in the presence of a trigger, but when your dog is under threshold, you are creating a ‘conditioned emotional response’, or as us behaviour geeks say, ‘CEU’.
Imagine you are afraid of spiders. If I left you in the kitchen, filled with 20 tarantulas, and tried to teach you how to cook quiche, we probably would not be very successful. You would not be in a good mind set to learn or think about anything really. Imagine I yelled at you, or yanked on your neck, or gave you an electric shock. Now do you feel like cooking quiche? This is why shock collars and corrections of any kind do not work for reactive dogs.
Instead, imagine I take you to a huge field. Waaaay off in the distance, you notice what you think is a spider. I give you some cheesecake. You eat the cheesecake, then look for the spider. You get more cheesecake. You are happy to eat the cheesecake because you know the spider is way too far away to be of any danger. Eventually, as we play this game more and more, you will start looking for spiders in anticipation of cheesecake, instead of in panic. The more we play, the closer you will be able to be to that spider. This is counter-conditioning the dog’s current emotional response to a trigger.
For those of you with the happy go lucky dog or the dog with a high prey drive, this game teaches your dog to be calm and relaxed in the presence of the other dogs or squirrels etc.
You can learn a lot more about this technique by reading “Control Unleashed”.
The look-at-that game is classical conditioning rather than operant conditioning. If you like reading and feel geeky, read up on Skinner vs Pavlov and you’ll get an in depth explanation of how it all works. Whenever we are trying to change an emotional response to a stimuli – fear or over-excitement/arousal, classical conditioning beats operant conditioning.
Really, cut yourself some slack. You wouldn’t be anxious if your dog didn’t have a problem. You being anxious makes your dog’s problem worse… which makes you more anxious. This is not your fault.
