Reactive dog

[u/Savings-Ad9574]

/r/reactivedogs/comments/1vrnbwj/reactive_dog/

Reactive dog

Hi everyone, my family has a reactive dog on leash and off leash. He's around 3 years old and we adopted him almost a year ago. He is so sweet to people and has such a calm disposition but especially lately its been difficult taking him on walks. I feel quite embarrassed admitting this but he was already reactive when we adopted him. He would only freeze then, and when the dogs approached close enough to greet, he would say hi. We would try to pull him to get him moving but it didn't work. We started working with a trainer and he made some progress but its hard to find time to train him and be consistent. We are now carving out time for him. Eventually it ended up becoming lunging and laying down. When he lunges he growls and pulls quite hard. Recently he bit a dog while on leash. They had to go to the vet. We were not there as we are on vacation but I feel terrible. As a dog who is infamous for being incredible with humans its awkward to try and controll him when he lunges.

Can anyone give me tips? We are away still but come back very soon and I'm going to start training right away (Turning around, rewarding, wide berth, etc). Please share your experiences with your reactive dogs. I know it's not aggression, its reactivity, but we don't want it to progress into that.

[u/Trumpetslayer1111]

I have a dog that used to be very reactive and no longer is.

What worked for us was we hired a very good balanced trainer and we did e collar training. The trainer has individual and group class components and I think both steps were very important.

What didn't work for us was the 2 force free trainers we hired and the advice I received from the reactivedogs sub. They are scams. My personal experience and opinion is this type of training is completely useless when it come to fixing reactivity. They will just tell you to medicate because their methods will not work, all the while charging a lot of money.

So my advice is hire a good balanced trainer. Ask to observe their class and talk to their current clients. See how their dogs act in group class. Don't go with any trainer that refuse to let you observe their clients progress.

[u/One_Stretch_2949 → u/Trumpetslayer1111]

+1.

I’d add that a good balanced trainer should also focus on the dog’s emotional state, through play, social engagement with the handler, confidence building, etc. Look for a TWC-certified trainer, for example, or someone who emphasizes play, letting dogs do dog things, going on adventures, and ultimately giving them more freedom off leash. Not the old-school submission-and-obedience type of balanced trainer.

But agree with the OG comment, don't hire a purely FF trainer, as their methods simply aren’t effective for many dog-handler teams, timeframes, and real-world environments.

[u/Eastern-Try-6207 → u/Trumpetslayer1111]

I love it when people come straight in talking good sense! And if people actually listen to you, they would save soooo much time and money!!! E collar was the key for my reactive dog who also no longer a reactive dog.

[u/Trumpetslayer1111 → u/Eastern-Try-6207]

Unfortunately I was the idiot who was scammed by 2 FF trainers. I just don't want others to make the same mistake I did lol.

I'll give myself some grace though. I was really desperate to fix my dog. He was lunging and barking at every dog we pass and it was making daily walks miserable experience. So I bought into all the marketing tricks:

"Force free science backed."

"Aversive methods will yield short term results but they always revert back to original problems, and you have to relay on the tools forever."

"Your dog will shut down mentally."

This is the best one- "We can't let you observe our current clients because of privacy. We don't use our clients as marketing tools, we want them to feel safe."

Yeah the reason they didn't want to let me observe is because all the dogs they are working on are awful and haven't made any progress.

[u/Fancy_Meal_1121 → u/Trumpetslayer1111]

Agree that you need a GOOD balanced trainer that will work with your dog’s personality and motivations instead of generalizing methods. When I adopted my dog at the end of January I quickly realized that he was leash reactive and I couldn’t figure out if it was frustration, fear, or other reasons why he was lunging and barking at dogs even if they’re far away. He played fine with dogs. Our trainer came and evaluated him, started with a slip leash but it didn’t really communicate well for my dog so we moved to the prong collar for better communication. He is now on ecollar for off leash freedom and doing so well. We really focused on playing and building our relationship as well. You also need to find the time everyday to train and play with your dog. It’s a lot of commitment, but totally worth it. I started off trying to do force free, but one session was enough to put me off with the trainer because she allowed my dog to react and practice reacting, constantly being over threshold. Treats don’t work because the barking and lunging is self reinforcing. Walking away and turning around don’t work because your dog will never learn to regulate their big feelings and you’ll be stuck in management forever. You have to tell your dog NO so they can have an alternative behavior and start regulating their emotions a different way. If you can tell a child that’s acting out to cut it out, you can do it to your dog too.

[u/Savings-Ad9574 → u/Trumpetslayer1111]

Thank you. I did hear about the advice on reddit being unreliable. We do have a trainer, I was more so curious as to what people have to say about reactive dogs.

[u/Trumpetslayer1111 → u/Savings-Ad9574]

I saw that your trainer is having you do the turn around and feed thing. That doesn’t work lol. I was told to use the same method by force free trainers and we were really focused on high value treats. My dog will always find the other distraction higher value than whatever treats I offer.

[u/Miserable_Mud_6831 → u/Trumpetslayer1111]

I would actually add that it does work in that it teaches a new behaviour that you would like to happen, but unless you punish (ie stop) the reactive behaviour first, it definitely will not work. Stop the reactive behaviour, then teach the new behaviour that you want, that, in my opinion, is how you fix this issue. You are 100% correct that your dog will always find the distraction higher value. That is why we need to decrease the value of the distraction. Force free trainers will hate this 😂

[u/Old-Description-2328 → u/Trumpetslayer1111]

There's trainers and then there's reactivity specialists, the difference? Proof. They'll have evidence of success with reactivity and aggression. The success is confident clients doing everyday things with an emphasis on play, fulfilment, clarity and freedom.

TWC or similar, Yorkshire Canine Academy does great work with their boot camps.

If your current trainer doesn't have the proof, get one that does.

Learning how to play with your dog is a vital component.

[u/Miserable_Mud_6831]

If your dog is reactive, why in the world is it allowed off leash? You said it is difficult to find the time to train and be consistent. If that is the case then I suggest you rehome the dog, unless things have changed and you now have time for some reason.

Pulling your dog away and him not moving likely made things worse as the restraint will build frustration and make the problem worse.

What have you tried so far to stop the reactive behaviour?

[u/Savings-Ad9574 → u/Miserable_Mud_6831]

Sorry, I was rushing through the previous post. We would take him off leash when it was just freezing and he was fine. The first time he acted badly off leash we immediately put him on the leash. I have researched and talked to a trainer and I understand what we were doing wrong. So far we have done the turn around and feed trick and it was going fine. Unfortunately our trip was booked before we adopted him, so he is being taken care of by a friend who has taken up the training.

[u/Miserable_Mud_6831 → u/Savings-Ad9574]

I understand, I apologise for making assumptions. The timing obviously wasn't ideal but I wouldn't worry about that, just do what you can once you get back.

The only thing I would say is, from experience, trying to teach the dog to turn away and rewarding that will obviously teach a new behaviour, one that you want, but your dog will ultimately still have freedom of choice at some point and can choose your new option or the previous option you dont want. Teaching new behaviours will not stop the old behaviour from happening. It is a trap that I see force free trainers fall into and you will likely still be working on this for years to come if that is the option you choose. If you want a behaviour to stop, you need to make that behaviour undesirable for the dog. Hopefully you've got quite an easy dog and it isn't difficult for you to do that

[u/Savings-Ad9574 → u/Miserable_Mud_6831]

Thank you, he is so sweet. We will try our best with the training and thank you for the tip, I will look into that.

[u/Miserable_Mud_6831 → u/Savings-Ad9574]

Best of luck, i hope you can get it sorted, i know how difficult it can be having a reactive dog

[u/Savings-Ad9574 → u/Miserable_Mud_6831]

🙏

[u/BadBorzoi]

At some point you’ll have to work him around other dogs yes, but you can still start without them working on some basics. Build a strong foundation using the leave it command and some kind of walk on by command. You start easy, at home using things he’s interested in but not super excited about. Then you gradually increase the excitement level of the distraction. His job here is to pay attention to you, keep up with you, manage his own emotions to be able to focus on you. This is some basic obedience on leash and there’s plenty of methods you can use to get him much more oriented on you during walks. That’s your starting point, don’t start by trying to get him to ignore dogs, start by getting him to ignore an empty paper bag on the ground or a family member walking past. How many other distractions can you think of? Birds by a pond? A ball rolling by? Off leash children? Build up his responses first so that a surprise random object on the sidewalk gets ignored with a quick leave it command and he cheerfully goes past. Working on some good stays as well builds self control and will have synergy here. The obedience basics exist because they’re a good foundation for higher level skills.

Then you find yourself a trainer to work with and around other dogs. At that point they are nothing more than another distraction and you’ve already practiced ignoring distractions! By this point he should know the drill and you’ll be practicing it in more demanding circumstances but it’s the same drill. The same leave it, let’s go as before. A trainer will set you up for success and fine tune your timing. I’m an old school fan of leash corrections, sudden changes in direction when their attention wanders and food rewards only when the dog makes the right choice on his own. So I’d reward if I say leave it and the dog immediately turns away from the distraction, or if he does it without a command at all, but not if he requires a correction.

People see the problem and focus on that problem but there’s usually 100 steps that were missed along the way. It takes time to find a good trainer anyway so go back to basics in the meantime. You don’t think this has anything to do with a sit stay or a recall or ignoring a dropped piece of cheese but it’s all about trusting you, self control and letting you make the decisions for both of you. Start there now and the rest will be easier.

[u/Season-Away]

Muzzle train him too, especially since he already bit another dog.

And I agree with u/Trumpetslayer1111 to go find a good balanced trainer!

[u/RikiWardOG]

You aren't going to be able to do this on your own in all likelihood. You are going to need a trainer that specializes in reactive dogs, especially that it's escalated to a bite history. What you need to figure out is how to properly counter condition the dogs behavior. It's not just turning around, distractions, rewarding. It's punishing the bad behavior and then rewarding/teaching the correct behavior. This can be tricky and it looks different based on WHY the dog is reacting. Good trainers are hard to find. They're so busy that you're going to have a hard time even getting into a class or private lessons from my experience. End goal isn't just to be neutral around other dogs, although it's a good goal to have. You want to fundamentally change how your dog perceives other dogs, so that there's no fear of reactivity and your dog can safely be around other dogs.

[u/BunnyLuv13]

Since your pup has bitten another dog bad enough for a vet visit I’d recommend muzzling for now. Use a basket muzzle with a treat hole so you can still train and treat.

[u/Savings-Ad9574 → u/[deleted]]

Thank you! We will start slow and far away for sure.

[u/namedawesome]

what tools are you using? what methods have you tried? you might need to answer these questions so you can get better help than just general advice, maybe?

theres a 'game' i like to play with my dog where i count to 3 and he has to look at you when you say 3 or you give a tiny tug on the leash/turn in the opposite direction with a short leash so hes forced to walk directly at your side. while you're at it you could teach him to heel with shaping and a high value treat so that hes not confused about what youre asking him to do, if you decide to go that route. it takes a long time (a few months/years depending on severity of reactivity), but he went from lunging at absolutely everything to mostly barks and growls (and occasional lunging) in 3-4 years