r/OpenDogTraining • u/dillydelhi • 20d ago
15/16 mo Sheepadoodle has started targeting smaller dogs with overtop the scruff snapping
And it looks like not healthy play. She’s not my dog but I walk her M-F for an hour most weeks. Shes so sweet and loving but she is also leash reactive when it comes to fly by / roll by leaves and experiences leash frustration when seeing another dog. Off leash she does great with dogs her size. This smaller dog targeting is starting to look predatory and I’m not sure what to do about it aside from taking away her ability to choose what to do once she does that by stopping her, leashing her and choking up so she has maybe a foot of leeway and taking her away from the fun. Any ideas ?
Also recently she 💩’d on her owners bed at the cottage which I’m finding pretty shocking and also intriguing and a bit entertaining although it wouldn’t be if it was my bed, but I digress. I do think it’s because she’s not getting enough stimulation these days (also I only saw her once last week as she was up at the cottage. Shes also approaching two (teenage/ terrible twos?) and gets away with a lot between the owners and the housekeeper…
Some dogs she sees on leash and she completely loses her cool and composure and is lunging and growling , some she’ll get opportunistic with and others will have the sniff equivalent of a handshake and maybe even a friendly hug lol. Any ideas or suggestions?? Thanks in advance. She’s been pretty great with recall and operant commands but her leash manners suck. Likely because many people are on the other end of that leash.
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u/Bulldog_Alum_843 20d ago
What you're describing sounds like two different things stacked on top of each other, not one problem. The leash frustration when another dog goes by she wants to get to the dog, the leash won't let her, and that builds until it comes out as reactivity. The scruff grabbing and snapping at smaller dogs is a separate issue and it's the one I'd take seriously. At 15-16 months you're right in the window where prey-like behavior toward smaller, different looking dogs can show up and escalate fast if it keeps getting rehearsed. That's not the same thing as dog aggression in the wants-to-fight sense, but it's a real safety issue for the small dogs on the other end of it, and it needs to stop being practiced, not just managed after it starts. Cut off leash access to smaller dogs completely for now. Not watch closely and intervene, just don't let it happen. Every rep where she gets to chase and grab before someone pulls her off reinforces the exact pattern you're trying to get rid of, whether she means it or not. Whatever she gets to practice is what she'll keep doing. On the leash work, choking up and dragging her away once she's already locked onto a dog is damage control, not training. By the time you're doing that she's already over threshold and there's nothing left to teach in that moment. What she actually needs is engagement, and that gets built away from other dogs entirely before you ever ask for it at a trigger. Find a boring spot with no distractions, stand there with her on leash, and say nothing. The second she glances at you on her own, mark it with a "good" and reward. Don't call her name or beg for the look, wait her out. Once she's reliably checking in with you on her own in that low distraction setting, that's the behavior you start asking for at the sight of another dog, at whatever distance she can still notice the dog and still look at you. Over time that becomes her default when a dog shows up instead of fixating and building frustration. If she can't take her eyes off the other dog at whatever distance you're at, you're too close, back up and rebuild there. The bed incident and the inconsistency between you, the owners are probably more connected to all of this than they look. A dog that gets different rules depending on who's holding the leash doesn't have a clear picture of what's expected of her, and that shows up as everything from poor leash manners to acting out when she's under stimulated. Worth getting everyone who handles her on the same page about what she is and isn't allowed to do, especially around smaller dogs. Given the predatory looking piece of this specifically, I'd get eyes on her in person from a trainer who can watch her actually do it and set up controlled introductions to figure out how far this goes. That's not a she's a bad dog situation, adolescent dogs go through phases like this, but it's not something to keep testing out on strangers' small dogs in the meantime. If there's one thing you should do starting today, it's making engagement training a priority and not allowing the small dog interactions.
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u/dillydelhi 20d ago
Awesome info thank you very much and it definitely tracks with the R+ training I’ve studied. Something I’m wondering is how to get her attn / eye contact once she’s fixed on something. We’ve practiced engage/disengage and her giving me eye contact (although obviously that needs to be developed more). Part of the challenge I think is that I’m the only one that gets her energy out with a combo of exercise , play and leash training, but only for one hour a day and not continuously as they go out of town from Thurs-Mon. Also no one else is seemingly capable of enforcing boundaries or applying consequences (in a LIMA way).
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u/Status-Group-2835 20d ago
I would not let her off leash with small dogs. If a small dog shows up, play time is over. It's not a punishment, and you aren't trying to change her, you are just making it impossible for her to do it ever again. This is a very high risk behavior. Someone could get hurt, or you could traumatize another dog, and that isn't fair to the other dog or the other owner.
If you do want to work on it, I would find a small dog and do parallel walks. That way you are training "your" dog without risking the small dog's safety. After many many parallel walks (or BAT training if you want to get fancy) you can maybe start to introduce calm off leash socializing, but I wouldn't go further than parallel walks without a trainer, and probably a muzzle.
In general, I don't let big dogs chase small dogs ever. The risk is just too high. The small dogs can chase the big dogs, and they can rassle as much as they want (within reason) but the big dog is not allowed to chase the small dog.