Thursday, March 10, 2011

Reactive Dogs

Right now I am literally flooded with reactive dogs in my group classes and private sessions. I specialize in that area of training, however I am pretty sure that these dogs aren't flocking to me from far and wide because of that. I have a theory though.

What is a reactive dog anyway? A dog that over reacts to a stimulus. This can be other dogs, people, livestock, objects etc.

Here is some jargon for you with reactive dogs:

Trigger: this is the stimulus that sets the dog off.
Threshold: maximum "place" that dog can withstand trigger.
Counter-conditioning: changing the dog's association or feelings to the trigger usually by pairing treats or a reward when the trigger is present.
Desensitization: gradual exposure to triggers.
Flooding: extreme exposure to triggers. We don't want to do this!

Why are some dogs reactive? Well the studies and meaningful literature out there states it can be hereditary (we see this in selective breeding for calm guide dogs or pushy police dogs), it can be learned from a situation (dog gets attacked and becomes fearful of other dogs or dog is abused by humans and is now fearful of humans), it can be a product of being taken away from litter mates too early or lack of socialization (to dogs or people) and lastly it can be from getting corrections from the owner when the trigger is present.

In Oregon, I had reactive dog clients, but not nearly in this volume at one time. My theory for why I am seeing so many in California has to do with all the reasons why dogs can be reactive.

1. I have noticed a lot more people here rescue dogs. Rescue dogs tend to have baggage and sometimes this is reactivity issues. Perhaps the previous owners locked the puppy in a garage and never socialized him or maybe an older resident dog picked on the new dog and they then took him to the shelter to prevent more bullying. Maybe the dog became reactive from fence fighting in the kennels at the shelter.

2. There are an insane amount of irresponsible breeders here. People having whoops litters and selling pups for $20 or free and letting these pups go way too young (as in 5-6 weeks old). The puppies don't get time to learn proper play habits with liter mates and then they are confined to a home until their shots are complete and by that time the golden window of socialization (up to 12 weeks of age), has closed.

3. Vets here are a bit anal about puppies getting ALL their vaccines before going out in public. Perhaps there is an increase of parvo scares and the like due to a higher population of irresponsible owners and breeders. I am running into people that are keeping their dog in their home until 6 months of age! Most vets don't give rabies till 6 months, but the DHLPP series is finished by 12-14 weeks if started on time. Dogs aren't harboring rabies at the pet store or park. Usually rabies is contracted from wild animals, and it must be contracted from a bite. The other diseases are spread by fecal matter so a dog that is infected can step in its own feces, walk into a pet store and your dog walks over that spot and licks his paws later. It is the DHLPP diseases owners need to worry about. Current literature suggests that pups are actually completely protected by the third shot in the series and a forth is "just in case."

I am also seeing various degrees of reactivity: simple barrier aggression only when the dog is leashed, reactivity only towards small dogs, inappropriate greetings and play-style (however friendly towards dogs), fearful of only men, fearful of only children, truly aggressive towards all dogs.

The general training concept is the same for all the above cases. However, there is a ton of behind the scenes work to be done before an owner tackles reactivity training successfully.

1. Dog must have some basic obedience skills and be able to "watch," "sit," and not pull on the leash.

2. Dog must be evaluated for chronic stress. If the dog is stressed, he cannot learn. There are many homeopathic remedies and pharmaceuticals reactive dog owners can use in conjunction with training to enable learning.

3. Owner must know what the dog's ultimate reward is.

4. Clicker training is helpful, though not essential.

5. Owner needs to embrace that they are not going to correct their dog, but change his association with triggers and owner needs to be aware of exactly what happens when a dog goes over threshold physiologically.

Once these "steps" are taken care of,  we can get down to work.

Let's pretend that I have just adopted a Border Collie that is a year old from rescue picked up as a stray with no known history. I take "Lane" home and after a rocky two weeks, he is fine with my two. We get down to clicker training and teach him the basics. I don't trust Lane off leash yet, so I have only walked him around my neighborhood and brought him into Petco a handful of times. He is shy of people, but warms up after a few meetings. He seems very interested in other dogs, but the few we have seen, I have just turned him on his harness and walked the other way. I decide that now Lane is crate trained I will bring him to my classes. He sees an exuberant puppy in class and explodes. Barking, lunging, teeth showing. Out of shock, I say, "No!" loudly and drag Lane away.  His ears go back and he grovels since I yelled at him. I now realize we have work to do.
1. I know rescue remedy works great on Lex, so I dose Lane with it whenever we are going to go work with dogs 30 mins prior to leaving.
2. I know Lane absolutely loves string cheese, so I stock my treat bag with it and use it only for dog issues.
3. Lane is on an easy walk harness for control and to make sure he doesn't get a correction when seeing dogs
4. I arrange for my mom to meet me on neutral territory with one of her puppies. I instruct her to be across the street not moving. Lane sees the puppy and whines, I tell him to "watch," he does, and I click and treat. He looks at the pup again and does nothing. I say "Good Look!" and click and treat. Lane catches on quickly that Look means look at the trigger, do nothing and get a treat. Within a five minutes he is rapidly head turning from the pup to me. We haven't moved, neither has the pup.
5. I take about ten steps back up a driveway and tell my mom to start moving with the pup. Lane perks up and his ears are forward, tail straight back and still. I can tell he is about to go over the top. I quickly tell him to watch and get no response. The whining starts, I immediately stick a large piece of cheese in front of his nose and as he chomps down on it, we do a u-turn away from the puppy and gain more distance. You see, now that the puppy is moving, we had to get more distance away from it in order to still be successful. We work for 10 more mins and slowly work our way back to where we started, still across the street and end. 20 mins of non-stop work, he didn't go over threshold and we ended on a good note.

I now know that I don't want to sabotage our work, so if I take Lane out for walks, I always have my clicker and treats and his harness on and if we see a puppy in the distance we get out of dodge to work on our Looks and watches. When I do take him to work, I make sure it isn't a puppy class or that I cover his crate since it isn't fair to let him react in his crate. If I don't have treats and we see a puppy, we just retreat. Over time we will get there.

I could continue this saga into what I would do with my imaginary dog for our next training sessions. If you are interested in this, please comment and I will write some more installments.

2 comments:

  1. Great post. I'd love to read more!

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  2. I like your blog! I am Mel's roommate...Stitch's aunt. LOL Will follow your blog now. Learned lots already! Thanks for sharing your experience. :)

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