He isn't perfect afterall, he doesn't like other dogs (with ?)

[Ann.without.an.e]

So last week we adopted this sweet little mutt from the pound.  I thought we would need to work through some severe training, but he has been almost perfect.  He must have been house trained because he has not gone in my house, he only chews his designated toys and nothing else, etc.  He loves people and hasn't shown any aggression at all toward people.  He is perfectly sweet and calm until he sees another dog.  He goes cra-zy!  It doesn't sound too playful either. He sounds very aggressive.  He isn't too big (35 pounds) so I can handle him.  Is there a good method for training him not to do this?

[shawthorne44]

This is what I would do:

 

1. Get a muzzle.
2. Get a zapper collar
3. Have the collar on for walks and zap for anything except ignoring the other dogs.  The walks should be Dog Whisperer type walks on a short leash with you in complete control.  
4. Then slowly allow your dog to get closer to other dogs.
5. Take the dog to the dog park with the muzzle on and the collar.  

I am still working through this with mine, only mine is 100+ lbs.  I would have never bought a zapper collar otherwise.  

 

[Pawz4me]

It's called being reactive.  Dogs can be reactive to only one thing (other dogs, joggers, people on bicycles, etc.), or to multiple things.  It essentially means they react to that thing(s) in an over-the-top way.  It can be a difficult thing to deal with.  You can Google "reactive dogs" to get a lot of good ideas for things to try.  The most common method is kind of a desensitization thing.  You start off bringing him as close to another dog as you can w/o him reacting.  You reward calm behavior.  To begin with he might not be able to get within 100 feet of another dog while remaining calm.  And then very gradually you work on getting closer and closer to the other dog, all the while never pushing your dog past his threshold for maintaining calm.

 

IME whatever method you choose will probably take a lot of patience.  Dealing with a dog who is reactive to other dogs can be a challenge because typically you need another dog in order to practice training the problem dog.  And not everybody has access to a good, stable dog to help out on a regular basis.

 

And with reactive dogs it's critically important for the owner to remain calm.  He will pick up his cues from you.  If you get stressed/excited it will just ramp him up even more.

 

ETA:  I don't recommend walking around your neighborhood practicing calm behavior randomly on walks.  Unfortunately, it's very common for dogs to be reactive to other dogs while on leash.  If you approach another dog with the intent of training yours, and that other dog goes beserk . .  well, you can make progress like that, but typically it's one step forward and three backwards.  Which makes for at best very slow progress, and more typically a worsening of the reactivity.  It mostly just sets a dog up for failure.  Not a great analogy, but it would be kind of like teaching a kid to ride a bike w/o training wheels on a tough mountain bike trail.  You don't do that.  You want them to have a smooth, safe surface that's not difficult to negotiate.  Once they learn to do that well, then you challenge them with rougher surfaces.  In this case you teach the desired behavior with a calm dog to help, and then you increase the level of difficulty with more challenging dogs.  But ideally you really need a known calm dog to help to begin with.  I know that's hard to do sometimes, though.

[shawthorne44]

 

 

And with reactive dogs it's critically important for the owner to remain calm.  He will pick up his cues from you.  If you get stressed/excited it will just ramp him up even more.

 

Yeah, this is why for me, I needed the muzzle on her.  Once it would start, I would feel my tension shoot through the roof.  With the muzzle, the worse case scenario isn't too bad and I can stay calm.  

[Pawz4me]

Yeah, this is why for me, I needed the muzzle on her.  Once it would start, I would feel my tension shoot through the roof.  With the muzzle, the worse case scenario isn't too bad and I can stay calm.  

 

It's much more complicated even that that.  The slightest tightening of your fingers on the leash?  The dog will feel that.  They really will.  I know this stuff pretty well, and even so it took me a very long time to realize I was ramping up my reactive dog simply because I gripped the leash tighter every time another dog approached us.  I was doing it so slightly that I didn't even realize I was doing it for a long time.  The dog did.

[Tree Frog]

It's called being reactive.  Dogs can be reactive to only one thing (other dogs, joggers, people on bicycles, etc.), or to multiple things.  It essentially means they react to that thing(s) in an over-the-top way.  It can be a difficult thing to deal with.  You can Google "reactive dogs" to get a lot of good ideas for things to try.  The most common method is kind of a desensitization thing.  You start off bringing him as close to another dog as you can w/o him reacting.  You reward calm behavior.  To begin with he might not be able to get within 100 feet of another dog while remaining calm.  And then very gradually you work on getting closer and closer to the other dog, all the while never pushing your dog past his threshold for maintaining calm.

 

IME whatever method you choose will probably take a lot of patience.  Dealing with a dog who is reactive to other dogs can be a challenge because typically you need another dog in order to practice training the problem dog.  And not everybody has access to a good, stable dog to help out on a regular basis.

 

And with reactive dogs it's critically important for the owner to remain calm.  He will pick up his cues from you.  If you get stressed/excited it will just ramp him up even more.

This is what we've run in to as well. We're fostering a 60 lb shepard mix who was fabulous the first couple of weeks. No problems walking with him around other dogs. We knew he'd become more comfortable with our family when we began having problems, including him biting first my dd then me when we walked him and another dog was directly across from us. Fortunately, our fostering organization helps with behavioral issues, and the trainer suggested we work with him to "train" it out of him. (The trainer thinks he's reactive because he is a young dog who was used to running up to any dog he saw so they could play and he was stymied when he could no longer do that.)

 

We always have treats we give him when we take him out and began teaching him a watch command. Our trainer said he is to look at us any time we say "watch". At first, I gave him a treat each time he looked towards me. I'm now moving away from giving him a treat each time he complies so the treats are more effective. She also taught me to do a quick turn, telling the dog "turn", turning 180*, and very quickly running; this is to be very high energy for an emergency dog contact when I notice him reacting to another dog nearby. We have enough other dogs and distractions in the neighborhood that I can practice this on a fairly regularly basis. We've been working on this for 2 weeks now and just starting to allow him to notice when another dog is nearby.

 

The book she gave us to read to better understand what we're doing is called Feisty Fido: Help For the Leash-Reactive Dog by Patricia B. McConnell and Karen B. London. I really like this method better than what we did with our old trainer for our other dog. It is much more gentle and seems quite effective.

[Pawz4me]

The book she gave us to read to better understand what we're doing is called Feisty Fido: Help For the Leash-Reactive Dog by Patricia B. McConnell and Karen B. London. I really like this method better than what we did with our old trainer for our other dog. It is much more gentle and seems quite effective.

 

Patricia McConnell is absolutely wonderful.  I *heart* her.

[RoughCollie]

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