Border Collie Dog attacking cars

[finnbob]

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please help i have just got a rescue border collie bitch aged around 7 mounth,

shes great in every way apart from when shes on a walk she stalks cars and the when they get close she lunges at them.

I have tried distracting her but its as if im not there shes so obsessed by the cars i cant even distract her with chicken or toys, i have tried walking her on a headcollar but it stresses her out to much so i have started using a traning harness.

If anyone could recomend any good traning tips it would be very appriciated thanks :thumbsup:

 

[affieluver]

actually forget that i will find something else :thumbsup:

 

[affieluver]

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Topic Dog Boards / Behaviour / BORDER COLLIE chasing cars - help PLEASE!!!!!!!!

By skyblue22 Date 27.12.05 21:23 GMT Dear All

hope you don't mind if I ask for your help again? Ever since I got Foxy, she's been an avid car-chaser, and even though I've made a point of walking her along the road almost every day (for 6 months now) she still goes berserk when cars go past, lunging, barking, spinning round, and trying to pull me into the road. Now she's bigger, it's even harder as she's so strong she can nearly pull me over. If we are crossing a clear road and then a car comes along, she tries to tow me back into the road to attack it, so I'm left dragging her out of the road as best I can.

Things I've tried that haven't worked:

Click and treat; long lead; short lead; gentle leader; harness; water spray; distract with toys and treats; lots of lead-walking away from roads;

The last thing I can think of that I haven't tried is a choke chain, a la Barbara Woodhouse, which a friend told me worked for his dog, but I know all that's gone out of fashion for the moment...

I got a private trainer in about 4 months ago; her idea was to have a friend drive up and down on a lane, and click and treat any little sign of NOT chasing the car, but that didn't really address walking on a pavement by a busy-ish road.

When she was very little, I could get her to reluctantly SIT as cars went past, but as soon as I started walking again, she would get in a great tizz; and I've never really got her past that point.

It's exhausting and stressful for me (and probably for her too) and if I don't get a grip on it, I'm afraid she will inevitably get hit by a car one day.

I saw a man the other day sitting by the road with SIX white collies, all off-lead, all sitting beautifully, and not even looking at the cars, while I needed all my strength to keep Foxy on the pavement as we walked past! I felt so envious!

By Brainless (Moderator) Date 27.12.05 21:57 GMT Chasing herding seems to be very hard wired into the collie psyche.

Personally I would go with the overload method. Surely she can't chase cars if there are hundreds of them?

I would take her out on a headcollar also attached to a half check collar, and walk very briskly with a shortish but loose lead, and walk her calmly along the busiest stretch of road you can find and ignore her behaviour. If you walk really fast she won't be able to do anytning but trot along beside you.

Does she understand the leave command. Train this with things that she doesn't find that exciting at home.

This certainly works for me coupled with just keeping going with cats and dogs barking at their gates with my dogs, but granted they aren't as reactive as a collie.

Hopefully experienced collie folk like moonmaiden and others will see your post with more advice. Barbara and the Grey Curly Tails.

By theemx Date 27.12.05 22:35 GMT I think the trainers idea with the car set up was to introduce her to the idea that cars ARENT exciting slowly, working up to busy roads later.

Its a good method, it takes time and dedication though like all methods, several MONTHS at least.

Have you really tried ALL the things you mention for that long or longer? They wont work in a matter of days/weeks!

The other method, as Brainless suggests is overloading/flooding. It might work - ive seen it done with balls, and a ball obsessed dog... but ball obsession is easier to manage than cars - and less likely to kill your dog.

Im not entirely sure how one would move on from 'thousands of cars, cant chase them all so i wont bother' to 'one car' though.

Em

By bevb Date 27.12.05 22:41 GMT I am having this problem with my 6 month rottie x GSD at the moment and she is a big strong powerful dog so its no joke. She is even worse in wet weather when the cars make the extra swishing noise and in the dark when thier lights are on.

I can now get the odd car ignored by telling her no and leave it and then praising madly for all cars ignored but we still jump and try and grab more than we are leaving at the moment.

I've never had this problem before and I class it as a very serious and dangerous problem. It also means I cannot let her off the lead if there is any road in sight where she may spot a car. So to be safe on a field bordered by a road etc she goes onto a flexi lead.

Good luck with yours.

Bev Horsey people join us http://horseweb2.proboards82.com/v45index.cgi?

By kizzy68 Date 28.12.05 08:22 GMT I have exactly the same problem with my 7 month GSD, he is so strong I was frightened I would get pulled in the road with him. Our trainer took him to our local High street (Quite busy..but a village high street) when the school children were coming our of school so more traffic than usual. He sat for 45 minutes with him, at first he was charging at everything, but after a while he was fine, there was too much traffic for him and he got bored in the end..Now he is fine if i take him through our town, but where we live although not a particularly busy road, when cars do come down there they seem to break the speed limit every time and whoosh pass he still lunges at them. He is very ball driven and will do anything for his ball EXCEPT stop chasing cars. But the most annoying thing is he doesnt do it if his trainer is with him, he grabs his collar before the car reaches us (to cut his thinking time down) and puts him in a down, works everytime for him.. but not for me!!! I have practised a really gruff voice (Frightens my OH) but not my dog.

By michelled Date 28.12.05 10:13 GMT i would really annoy you,not one of mine will chase anything with wheels because from pups they have not being allowed to.

however BCs do need to "satisfy" their chase/herd inscint. mine are allowed to chase each other, balls etc etc. However i will just add even if they were chasing a ball or even something like a squirrel rabbit,i could stop them instintly if i wanted to.So i am in control of this behavoiur.abit like a shepherd would be with his dog on sheep.

Your bitch sounds as if shes got really strong "eye", & you can get that to work for you.

what is she like arouund your car?

what is she like around parked cars?

on car rides id make sure she CANT see out,if shes constently seeing cars go past its just going to fuel the obesssion.

what you need to do is work on distraction, get her "eye" to work for you. teach her "watch me" whenever a car comes past she must watch you until it goes on, you can do this walking-so like Heelwork, or static.

you will first need to teach the watch inside & then in the gardenn & then somewhere like the park,before you attempt the roads.

ok so you say "watch me", her eyes fix onto you keep up the praise with your key word "good girl,you watching? brilliant watching,good girl" you keep it up until the car has passed, if she even flicks her eyes or moves her head,give her a little (gentle )jerk on the lead.."ahh-ahh you watch me....good girl" preferably under the chin,so it encoursges her chin up.(clearly this should be only on a flat collar or half slip)

after the cars gone realease & really praise, titbit & walk on.

if any of my dogs decided to tow me to attack a car i would stop, holler, "whatthebl**dyhellareyou doing!" put my hand in her collar & walk her on her FIRMLY back to the pavement & put her in a down for abit. that towing you into the road is "WAY" too much.

youve got some work todo!!!!!

she needs to know that its not acceptable Michelle & Flynn & Maverick (& nellie)

ERRRR...obedience dogs not obedient dogs

By tohme Date 28.12.05 12:06 GMT First of all before you can decide on appropriate course of behaviour modification/treatment you need to understand the reason your dog does this. It may be that moving traffic is making her extremely fearful and she is trying to remove it. It may be that the noise of the traffic is actually physically painful for her (collies are very sound sensitive) or she may have a very high prey drive and, because she is a collie/wsd?, she is a frustrated herder!

If your dog is fearful then your approach will need to include desensitisation and counter conditioning, this may not remove the fear altogether but will bring it down to manageable size ie from panic to being "uncomfortable". Suddeness, can be a problem for many animals including horses etc (not to mention us).

If her hearing is a problem, that is more tricky. This you can check using CDs etc.

If chasing is the motivation for her behaviour then you need to train a recall from (predatory) distractions.

However I would suggest that in your particular case you use a mixture of both desensitisation and counter conditioning and training recall from predatory distraction to make her manageable on the lead. The third factor is to get her to manage you rather than the traffic; collies are the managers of the canine world, so if you can get her to focus on you via food or a toy, this would be ideal.

Chasing something that is moving is a management issue. Do not put your dog in a position where it can make a mistake. Again you need to start training from a pup but if you have already allowed your dog to learn and practise this behaviour you may need to rely on a trailing line until your dog is desensitised to these distractions and knows that listening to you results in a great reinforcement. Chasing is a behaviour much better never learned as it is naturally reinforcing to the dog, which makes it hard for you to offer a better reinforcement. If you want to have a bombproof recall while your dog is running away from you then use the following approach:

Your goal is to train so that your dog is totally used to running away from you at top speed, and then turning on a sixpence to run toward you when you give the recall cue.

You need to set up the training situation so that you have total control over the triggers. For this you will need to gain the co-operation of a helper. If you have a toy crazy dog you can practice this exercise by throwing a toy away from the dog towards someone standing 30 or 40 feet away. At the instant the toy is thrown, recall your dog! If the dog turns toward you, back up several steps quickly, creating even more distance between the you and the toy and then feed an extremely high reward such as liver.

If the dog ignores you and continues toward the thrown object, your "helper" simply picks the ball up and ignores dog. When dog eventually returns (which it will because it's getting no reinforcement from anyone or anything), praise but don't feed. Pretty soon the dog will start to respond to a recall off a thrown toy. You will need to mix in occasions the toy is thrown and the dog is allowed to get it ie you do NOT recall if you want to make sure it does not lose enthusiasm for retrieving.

For the food obsessed dog, you can get your helper to wave a food bowl with something the dog loves in it and then recall the dog as soon as you let it go to run towards the food; again if the dog ignores you and continues to the food, your helper simply ensures the dog cannot access the food and start again. (It is extremely important that the helper does not use your dog's name to call it for obvious reasons).

Gradually increase the difficulty of the recall by letting the dog get closer and closer to the toy/food. Praise the moment the dog turns away from the toy/food in the early stages of training. Don't wait until the dog returns to you; the dog must have instant feedback.

Once the dog is fluent at switching directions in the middle of a chase, try setting up the situation so that it is more like real life. Have someone ride a bike/run/skate past.

Once this is achieved then, if you can find a safe area, introduce a car driving past. Then you may need to go to a car park and get several friends to do the same thing so that you can mimic traffic conditions.

I think using a combination of the three approaches would best suit your dog by the sound of it.

Of course this is just a snapshot view over the ether, an experienced behaviourist/trainer would have a much better view from a closer perspective, and I would suggest you need a few sessions not just a one off as the trainer needs to see "where the dog is now, where it is going and how to adapt/change as you move forward and progress".

HTH

By skyblue22 Date 28.12.05 22:51 GMT Thanks so much for all your replies everybody, good to know I'm not alone with this problem!

Michelle, she's FINE when she's in my car, she looks out for a bit as we drive through the woods to the road, then just lies down and falls asleep on the back seat. It's hard to make her "watch me" near the road, because ALL her attention is on cars passing or approaching and nothing else for that moment.

Tohme, I think you're right, she's half fearful and half excited - if I get down on her level, the cars do look like speedy monsters coming towards us, and must seem so big and fast and close I can understand it.

I like the idea of flooding/de-sensitisation - someone else told me that worked for them.

She's ok if the cars are at some distance, it's just walking on a pavement that's so difficult!

She was better on our first walk this morning, I kept her on the lead all the way through the woods (first 15 mins) and along the road, and only let her off on the way back.

2nd walk was all off-lead in the woods and fields, and on the 3rd walk, I let her off-lead in the woods, then put her on it to walk beside the road, and she hated it! She also hates the gentle leader (I do too!) but without it she just tows me along...

She's great at re-call, and will turn on a sixpence if I call her from a distance, but that doesn't help when she's beside me on the pavement...

I shall try out all your ideas, and thanks again for the help.

Topic Dog Boards / Behaviour / BORDER COLLIE chasing cars - help PLEASE!!!!!!!!

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[jinnyfizz]

A very common problem with border collies, I'm afraid

You'll find she needs a job to do. If she hasn't got one, she'll invent one for herself and it seems that she has decided that cars need rounding up and controlling :blink:

The only permanent solution is to keep her busy with alternative employment ...... agility, training her to work sheep and then trialling her, obedience and seek and retrieve training etc etc.

Also, collie bitches are control freaks and very bossy (w00t) I know! I've had one (RIP Fizz :wub: )

Once she has a job of her own, you will find it much easier to eradicate the car chasing habit :thumbsup:

Good luck :luck: :luck: - she will give you years of love and loyalty in return :wub: :wub: