Reactive advice

[AmandaP]

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Hi all,

looking for advice about what’s normal and not! We have a lovely gentle labradoodle who’s nearly two and neutured. We meet reactive dogs out on walks and I’ve got to know which ones to avoid. My dog never used to react back but will now have a go back to dogs that start off first. Dogs that aren’t bothered don’t bother him. We walked past about 20 dogs recently at a national trust property and he was fine! We meet dogs off lead and he’s timid but okay and likes to be chased! I distract him with treats with the look at that command when we encounter dogs on leads as I want him to watch me. This works except when a dog goes beserk at him and he will bark back but quickly focuses on me and we walk off quickly. I don’t want this to happen but is this something dogs do? Sorry if I sound stupid but we’ve not had a dog before thanks all xx

 

[JudyN]

Not stupid at all, it's great that you want to do it right

I'd say that this is entirely normal and if you're able toget him to focus back on you when he has a 'moment' you're doing really well. He's in late adolescence so has the confidence to stand his ground and answer back now, but not the maturity to think 'nah, he's not worth it' and walk on. No different to humans really!

But you definitely don't want it to become a habit, and every time a dog yells at him and he feels the need to shout back, it can reinforce the behaviour - it can send a rush of endorphins through his system that can be self-rewarding. So keep on doing what you're doing, and trying to avoid these conflicts in the first place... You might be able to spot these incidents before they happen, e.g. from the look of the other dog as it gets close, and immediately lead your dog a little further away and give him a treat. The treat in itself will help him focus on you rather than the other dog.

A couple of things to watch out for - you're not 'rewarding' him for 'being good' when you give him a treat, you're simply building a connection between 'I see a dog' and 'I get a treat'. This both makes the other dog less of a threat and helps him choose to focus on you (as opposed to you demanding he does). You're primarily aiming to change his emotions rather than simply trying to change his behaviour.

Also, sometimes if there's a 'scary' dog, then having to look at you can be more stressful for him... he'd rather keep an eye on the other dog to make sure it doesn't go for him. What you really want isn't for him to think 'Must look at owner, must look at owner...', but 'That's a silly dog, what a lot of fuss about nothing - oh Mum, I saw a dog, do I get a treat now?' and walk on by.

 

[AmandaP]

Thank you so much. I do stress and over analyse so much about my lovely dog. Drives my husband nuts! Your advice is perfect and I’ll stick to it. When I think rationally it makes sense. He does have a bit of new found confidence and also has chilled a lot recently too, so he has matured. I do feel for owners of reactive dogs and I think I’m terrified it might happen to us Buddy’s such a wuss and is a timid man (despite socialisation he always has been a bit unsure) He hates dogs sniffing his bum He has friends he meets and loves running around with them! I sometimes feel he’s desperate to play but most dogs we meet are older and prefer a peaceful walk Thanks again for replying x

 

[DixD]

I’d really work on the “watch me”, which I think is what you’re doing with a different verbal command, And I’d slowly work up to dogs that are getting in his space. Start small, with no distractions, then add in minor distractions, eg., people passing by, a bike zooming past, bunches of schoolchildren. You get the idea. It’s called proofing, your dog doing what you ask, despite distractions. You’ll soon get to spot the body language of pesky dogs and owners, by even slight micromovements. You can bet your dog has, before you, So, you can start your command well before they reach you. Although he is an adolescent, he is a mix of two intelligent breeds, and should learn quickly. Many young dogs are competing and winning in agility, and it’s a very distracting environment.

Also, think, as your dog is reacting, or if you feel is going to react, what emotions am I sending down the lead. You can be sure your dog is reacting to them as well as the situation, eg., anxiety, irritation, frustration. As JudyN says dogs associate emotions with circumstances.

interestingly, I was talking to our neighbour in the park, a couple of days back. His 7 month pup had just got set upon, out of nowhere, by a big black Labrador. (Couldn’t work out from the description if it was the one who had been bothering Hugo.) He was very angry and concerned about his dog, and the poor thing was highly agitated, and kept pulling and looking towards where the altercation had been. I was being very calm, trying to lessen all the stressful energies. I looked at my two, and they were just standing quietly at my side. I assume they were taking their emotional lead from me, and not reacting to the young dog and owner’s energies. I really praised them, and they got a real jackpot of treats.

The owner is now going to have to work hard to encourage the pup’s confidence because someone just let their dog rush up and go for ir,

 

[Mitchell Perry]

Hello, I am glad to see that you are putting the effort into correcting this as soon as possible. Nobody wants to see their dog get into a street argument, or even worse a fight. Maybe you could look into the psychology of dogs to help you to understand what they may be thinking at these times. Maybe it's an odd way of trying to be friends or maybe its the opposite. You could take a look at this website here https://graduatedogs.com/dog-psychology/ There is some good information about how dogs think and Ivan Pavlov the Russian dog Psychologist. Hopefully, you can learn something from it and it helps you understand your dog more.

 

[AmandaP]

thanks so much. I’ll keep working on this and do my best to pre-empt anything I can. Buddy’s not bothered at all by groups of strange people approaching, bikes, loud noises l, he’s as chilled as anything and trots on by, so we are lucky that way I think it’s just dogs that bark and lunge at him from afar or dogs that eye ball him and are giving off spooky vibes. When he sees dogs that are overtly happy or not bothered he’s fine. I guess it’s the same as us humans having some random stranger suddenly have a go at us for no reason I also try scatter feeding if there’s a strange dog approaching which works well sometimes. We have had on lead encounters with dogs we don’t know that have been fine but I don’t want to risk it (and these have been small fluffy dogs that are his favourite)

thanks again for the advice and reassurance! I appreciate it x

I’d really work on the “watch me”, which I think is what you’re doing with a different verbal command, And I’d slowly work up to dogs that are getting in his space. Start small, with no distractions, then add in minor distractions, eg., people passing by, a bike zooming past, bunches of schoolchildren. You get the idea. It’s called proofing, your dog doing what you ask, despite distractions. You’ll soon get to spot the body language of pesky dogs and owners, by even slight micromovements. You can bet your dog has, before you, So, you can start your command well before they reach you. Although he is an adolescent, he is a mix of two intelligent breeds, and should learn quickly. Many young dogs are competing and winning in agility, and it’s a very distracting environment.

Also, think, as your dog is reacting, or if you feel is going to react, what emotions am I sending down the lead. You can be sure your dog is reacting to them as well as the situation, eg., anxiety, irritation, frustration. As JudyN says dogs associate emotions with circumstances.

interestingly, I was talking to our neighbour in the park, a couple of days back. His 7 month pup had just got set upon, out of nowhere, by a big black Labrador. (Couldn’t work out from the description if it was the one who had been bothering Hugo.) He was very angry and concerned about his dog, and the poor thing was highly agitated, and kept pulling and looking towards where the altercation had been. I was being very calm, trying to lessen all the stressful energies. I looked at my two, and they were just standing quietly at my side. I assume they were taking their emotional lead from me, and not reacting to the young dog and owner’s energies. I really praised them, and they got a real jackpot of treats.

The owner is now going to have to work hard to encourage the pup’s confidence because someone just let their dog rush up and go for ir,

 

[AmandaP]

Not stupid at all, it's great that you want to do it right

I'd say that this is entirely normal and if you're able toget him to focus back on you when he has a 'moment' you're doing really well. He's in late adolescence so has the confidence to stand his ground and answer back now, but not the maturity to think 'nah, he's not worth it' and walk on. No different to humans really!

But you definitely don't want it to become a habit, and every time a dog yells at him and he feels the need to shout back, it can reinforce the behaviour - it can send a rush of endorphins through his system that can be self-rewarding. So keep on doing what you're doing, and trying to avoid these conflicts in the first place... You might be able to spot these incidents before they happen, e.g. from the look of the other dog as it gets close, and immediately lead your dog a little further away and give him a treat. The treat in itself will help him focus on you rather than the other dog.

A couple of things to watch out for - you're not 'rewarding' him for 'being good' when you give him a treat, you're simply building a connection between 'I see a dog' and 'I get a treat'. This both makes the other dog less of a threat and helps him choose to focus on you (as opposed to you demanding he does). You're primarily aiming to change his emotions rather than simply trying to change his behaviour.

Also, sometimes if there's a 'scary' dog, then having to look at you can be more stressful for him... he'd rather keep an eye on the other dog to make sure it doesn't go for him. What you really want isn't for him to think 'Must look at owner, must look at owner...', but 'That's a silly dog, what a lot of fuss about nothing - oh Mum, I saw a dog, do I get a treat now?' and walk on by.

He has started to look at me when a dog approaches in anticipation for a treat so I’ll keep pushing with this. He is a clever dog. There’s a house we pass where a dog we can’t see barks like crazy and Buddy almost waits for it to bark look at me and get his treat!

 

[JoanneF]

Trainers talk about the three Ds in relation to dog reactivity.

Distance - some dogs react when another gets too close to them for comfort.

Duration - some dogs will tolerate another for X seconds but X+1 is too much.

Distraction - which I think you are experiencing - a calm dog, slow dog, disinterested dog is fine but an excited dog, fast moving dog, over-exuberant dog causes a reaction.

No more advice to add, I just thought you might like to know there is some information to explain it.

 

[DixD]

thanks so much. I’ll keep working on this and do my best to pre-empt anything I can. Buddy’s not bothered at all by groups of strange people approaching, bikes, loud noises l, he’s as chilled as anything and trots on by, so we are lucky that way I think it’s just dogs that bark and lunge at him from afar or dogs that eye ball him and are giving off spooky vibes. When he sees dogs that are overtly happy or not bothered he’s fine. I guess it’s the same as us humans having some random stranger suddenly have a go at us for no reason I also try scatter feeding if there’s a strange dog approaching which works well sometimes. We have had on lead encounters with dogs we don’t know that have been fine but I don’t want to risk it (and these have been small fluffy dogs that are his favourite)

thanks again for the advice and reassurance! I appreciate it x

That’s great if he’s not reacting to any of the groups I suggested, a brilliant start to proofing the behaviour. Here’s an interesting video of Lee Windeat proofing his dog’s weaves for agility. It goes through the weaves no matter the distraction. That’s what I call proofing!

 

[DixD]

thanks so much. I’ll keep working on this and do my best to pre-empt anything I can. Buddy’s not bothered at all by groups of strange people approaching, bikes, loud noises l, he’s as chilled as anything and trots on by, so we are lucky that way I think it’s just dogs that bark and lunge at him from afar or dogs that eye ball him and are giving off spooky vibes. When he sees dogs that are overtly happy or not bothered he’s fine. I guess it’s the same as us humans having some random stranger suddenly have a go at us for no reason I also try scatter feeding if there’s a strange dog approaching which works well sometimes. We have had on lead encounters with dogs we don’t know that have been fine but I don’t want to risk it (and these have been small fluffy dogs that are his favourite)

thanks again for the advice and reassurance! I appreciate it x

you have to be careful about associating treats/reward with badly behaved dogs, or your dog will associate the other dogs with the reward, and start looking for them to get his reward. It’s best to use your command as a completely different action, an alternative job to do, and he associates the reward with the action. That way, your dog is responding to you, not to the situation. You want to strengthen the bond between you and your dog, so he’s ready to respond any time, not strengthen his belief that other dogs mean some kind of reward. Just say, for example, he took a sudden dislike to people wearing floppy hats, and barked at them. You’d have to reward him every time he saw somebody with a floppy hat and didn’t do anything. They are more a distraction to be ignored than something to be noticed,

watch people throwing balls for dogs up the parjk. It’s a fine example of backwards training. The dogs bark, the owner throws a ball, so the dog becomes quiet, while it chases the ball. What they’ve taught the dog is that, if you bark, you get rewarded. Dogs are very logical. What they shoukd be training, and you’ll see experienced dog owners do this is, is “if you sit (for example) and watch me, you’ll get a ball throwing reward”. My little lurcher could sit, facing me, and I’d throw the ball over her head, then ask her to come, heel, do a little heel work, and then “Go!”. She’d be off like a racing rat, as they say, bring it back and hand it to me. She was a very good girl for a wee dog with high prey drive! <3 <3

 

[JudyN]

you have to be careful about associating treats/reward with badly behaved dogs, or your dog will associate the other dogs with the reward, and start looking for them to get his reward. It’s best to use your command as a completely different action, an alternative job to do, and he associates the reward with the action.

I sort of agree, but sort of not... If my dog doesn't like other dogs but I get a really good, strong 'sit' and 'watch' then it might overcome the desire to yell at the other dog, but he still doesn't like the other dog (though in time, after lots of 'not reacting to other dog', reacting will stop being a habit) - you're changing the behaviour, and not the emotion. Plus you have to be ready to ask for the behaviour before he reacts, rather than focusing on you becoming an automatic response in the face of a snarky dog. The reactive dog my friend walks will look at her when another dog gets too close, but I can see his eyes rolling with anxiety.

My dog often looks to me for a treat when we pass another dog, even one he never would have had a problem with anyway - and I usually give him one. To be honest, because he was such a MONSTER in his younger days I'm more than happy with this, and he's a large dog with a fast metabolism so I don't have to worry about his waistline. I might feel very differently if I had a small dog who piled the pounds on easily.

 

[DixD]

I can see where you’re coming from, JudyN. Hugo’s the only dog I’ve had, who was Slightly reactive towards other dogs, for a period, and it turned out he was in a lot of muscular pain, so I think was protecting himself. It’s gone now, and he’s back to his very tolerant self. And Wolf, despite his neuroticism, was remarkable with dogs, even if they were jumping all over him.. So, I think I’m probably looking at that type of situation from prevention rather than an established problem, as I haven’t had that kind of exposure, but, from Hugo’s brief period, I can imagine how it must feel, and it’s good that things have improved since the Monster days!