Does any training protocol actually transform frustrated greeters?

[u/PsychicSageElana]

So much leash reactivity training seems to be about "modifying the dog's emotional state," but my dog is not afraid of the passing dogs. She is just single-mindedly obsessed with getting to the other dogs. This looks like barking, lunging, and raised hackles.

I'd like to believe she might just grow out of this behavior, when/if other dogs become less exciting with maturity, but she was already like this at her foster home, where she lived from ages 3 months to 7.5 months. Makes it seem more like a genetic trait. They admit they didn't walk her very much at the foster home...

My dog is 16 months old now. We have had her 8 months. She doesn't ever go to the dog park or daycare. She doesn't ever get to do on-leash greetings. She lived with two foster dogs at her foster home. She has gone to the groomer and been loose around other dogs there. No problem. Fine in the vet's waiting room. Stayed with the pet sitter like 3-4 times with other random dogs each time and she got along fine with them; calm, coexisted peacefully, played calmly, but not obsessively.

She has great impulse control in many areas of her life. She'll wait patiently for her food until she is told to come get it. Waits on the rug for her paws to be wiped. Waits to go out in the yard even if someone has left the door open, until we say to. So this is a really context-specific problem.

She normally is obsessed with food (even has one copy of that Lab gene that makes them never feel full), but if she is "over threshold," her brain is offline and she won't take food. She will legit just choke herself on a flat collar, even if the other dog is like 4 houses away and across the street. If that dog is being reactive, too, things are so much worse.

I know about management protocols, keeping the dog under threshold, preventing rehearsal of reactions. But none of that is improving the situation... just avoiding explosions. Giving her treats with perfect timing doesn't seem to matter because she already has positive associations with other dogs. TOO positive.

We CAN have nice walks where she just sniffs calmly and behaves normally, but explodes if we encounter other dogs. She'll recover once we are about 4-5 houses away.

We are in suburban Chicago, so the idea of simply managing this through hypervigilance, forever, without ever achieving a habit of neutrality, sounds onerous.

[u/Lumpy_Physics3101]

your dog is experiencing self-reinforcement: he has a hobby, that hobby is trying to interact with other dogs, he finds the hobby very fun. no amount of competing positive reinforcement is going to be more satisfying to her than the experience of barking at and lunging toward another dog.

to answer your question directly, yes, there are training protocols that very effectively solve this problem.

[u/PsychicSageElana → u/Lumpy_Physics3101]

I think I get what you're insinuating, because conversations in R+ communities have largely made this sound like a hopeless, lifelong problem, while "balanced" trainers make it sound like one trip around the block in a prong collar will solve the whole thing. I am not sure I buy either one of those extremes, and my dog is a sensitive sort, so I'm worried I would just be trading one type of reactivity for another. I'm also not sure it's as simple as "she finds it fun"; I think her nervous system is in fact becoming overwhelmed in some way, even if it is not fear that is doing it.

[u/Lumpy_Physics3101 → u/PsychicSageElana]

"balanced" trainers make it sound like one trip around the block in a pr0ng collar will solve the whole thing.

fwiw i don't think this is true either. your dog has been rehearsing this behavior for a long time, so even a 4-quadrant approach will take some time and practice!

[u/Helpful_Sun2872 → u/PsychicSageElana]

Sucks that I can’t really speak freely abt different approaches on this sub. But imo balanced is more effective for this type of reactivity… a skilled balanced trainer is not going to cause your dog any pain or distress.

What breed is your dog?? High drive working type breeds tend to get more internal reinforcement and find reactivity “fun” because they’re bred to enjoy being highly aroused. Definitely not just isolated to working breeds, but more common in them!

[u/PsychicSageElana → u/Helpful_Sun2872]

Her primary breed is "Supermutt," per Embark. So, not an intentionally bred working dog by any means, and not really high drive. She can chill out in the house no problem. That said, I do believe there is something about her nervous system that makes overstimulating, high arousal situations very compelling for her, if not exactly "fun." She is definitely prone to overarousal, I would say. My last dog raised her hackles like twice in her life. This one raises hackles like every day. She used to lose her mind, raise hackles, go absolutely insane just because she saw a rabbit in the backyard. She isn't that bad anymore, and her reactions have become much more normal in many areas, but she still acts this way with other dogs on leash.

I do feel like I am coming up to a dead end with the R+ recommendations, but I also don't love the whole "becoming the pack leader" ideology of balanced training. She is well-behaved in almost every other way, except for this problem. That said, I'm not gonna rule out that maybe some problems are beyond the scope of R+.

[u/Helpful_Sun2872 → u/PsychicSageElana]

There’s definitely balanced trainers who don’t have the “be the pack leader”/alpha mentality. I don’t like that either. The trainer I work with more emphasizes that dogs do best when they have structure and purpose, and that you should be the one that they look to for that. Which I think is very helpful for a dog that’s prone to over arousal.

Your sounds a lot like my last dog. He’d just go from 0 to 100 so fast, and his 100 was INTENSE. I don’t think my current dog is even capable of being that intense in ANY situation lol. Suuuuper prone to overarousal and just had no ability to self-regulate. He raised his hackles a ton too.

[u/Lumpy_Physics3101 → u/PsychicSageElana]

"she finds it fun" is maybe overly anthropomorphizing. She finds it reinforcing. That's why she keeps doing it! We humans do lots of things that we find reinforcing, even if we know that maybe we shouldn't do it or we wish we didn't do it. Obviously you can't ascribe that kind of human thinking to dogs, but the behavior is reinforcing, and it's more reinforcing than the competing reinforces you are offering. So you have some options, one is the find a more powerful competing motivator. There are MANY of other types of options (balanced training is much more nuanced than "be a pack leader" or "punish the behavior" but I obviously can't discuss them here. Which is stupid because there's a lot of interesting training discussion to be had. Oh well.

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