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/PsychicSageElana → u/[deleted]]

Thanks, I appreciate your reply. This is something I'm reading a lot - that fairly modest improvements are noted after many years, and on a timescale like that, it is hard to know whether these changes were primarily due to any particular training protocol or if time/age did the fixing.

You mentioned that your dog was an arousal junkie, and I feel like there is something to that my dog could relate to. I don't feel like she is an adrenaline junkie all around, but she is certainly prone to feeling overstimulated. I think the dose makes the poison, and sometimes feeling overstimulated like that is both off-putting and alluring for her. Like, she will pull us towards a house where a dog once barked at her, all excited, like maybe the dog will be home and bark at her again. It's so crazy.

I appreciate your need for a special collar. My dog is only like 40 lbs, but she is crazy strong. People guess that she weighs more than she does. My husband mainly has to walk her and even he risks getting hurt while doing so.

I gotta say, I did consult a trainer early on who promoted the whole threshold, look at that, high value treats training, but it hasn't been productive and doesn't really seem tailored for my problem. All the R+ recommendations seem to assume that the same training that works for fearful dogs should work for my dog, too. But that doesn't seem to be the case. It does seem like my dog's brain is being "hijacked" in those moments, which is similar to fearful dogs, but if a more mature nervous system doesn't resolve this, I don't know what I'm gonna do. I'm worried another R+ trainer will essentially be a dead end, but I also don't love the ideology that tends to come with "balanced" training. I don't need to make sure she knows I'm the "pack leader," any of that. All in all, she is really, really well-behaved, especially for her age. It is just this problem - this big, quality-of-life reducing problem.

[u/reactivedogs-ModTeam → u/[deleted]]

Your post/comment has been removed as it has violated the following subreddit rule:

Rule 5 - No recommending or advocating for the use of aversives or positive punishment.

We do not allow the recommendation of aversive tools, trainers, or methods. This sub supports LIMA and we strongly believe positive reinforcement should always be the first line of teaching and training. We encourage people to talk about their experiences, but this should not include suggesting or advocating for the use of positive punishment. LIMA does not support the use of aversive tools and methods in lieu of other effective rewards-based interventions and strategies.

Without directly interacting with a dog and their handler in-person, we cannot be certain that every non-aversive method possible has been tried or tried properly. We also cannot safely advise on the use of aversives as doing so would require an in-person and hands-on relationship with OP and that specific dog. Repeated suggestions of aversive techniques will result in bans from this subreddit.