Here’s Hailey, who was one of the demo dogs in Pittsburgh a few weeks ago. Crystal is fostering Hailey, and had only had her for about a month before the seminar, and we were both concerned that her general arousal levels might make the seminar too much of a challenge for her. As it turned out, she did very, very well. She was definitely reactive when she saw other dogs, but it did not appear that she was fearful or intent on aggression. Hailey was the classic bark/lunger who became so excited when she saw another dog that she lost control. She could work herself up into increasing levels of excitement until her behavior became difficult to manage.
Managing arousal did seem to be the name of the game here. Hailey was extremely friendly to me, mildly stressed about being on the stage but handled it well, and was happy to take treats from me and Crystal. Teaching her to look back on cue (“Watch” or LAT) is a great idea for Hailey, but I thought she was also a great candidate for a method that reinforced her for making her own decision. This felt especially important for Hailey, because self control is something she needed to work on (like lots of terriers and bully breeds especially, I find. Agree?)
Unlike Ceilidh, the demo dog before her, Hailey didn’t “lock on” in anyway when she saw another dog, she just became more and more excited and difficult to manage. As I always like to do, we started with giving her treats up on the stage to relax her and teach her that there were great things up there. Then we had a mellow dog enter the room, as far away as possible. Because Hailey’s behavior was variable, we were able to immediately click and treat when her head turned slightly toward us and away from the dog. At first I clicked on a turn of no more than a half an inch, but very quickly the head turns got bigger and bigger until she’d whip her head around to us like a champ. Because we were well under her threshold, she learned extremely fast that “look at other dog, look at Trisha/Crystal” gets a treat. Note that there was no cue… we waited for Hailey to initiate the behavior herself, and because she was under threshold AND had variable behavior (unlike Ceidlih) we were able to make tremendous progress. Following the steps of BAT, we didn’t just click and treat a head turn, we backed up considerably after the click and before the treat.
One could argue that backing away from the other dog wasn’t positive reinforcement for her, because Crystal knew what she REALLY wanted was to play with the other dog. But I couldn’t see it working out to let her get closer and closer, and having only had a month’s experience with her it just wasn’t wise to let her off leash to run to the other dog and on leash she’d just go back to being overly excited. So we waited for a head turn, clicked, backed up and made a fuss over her, giving her great treats. Gradually we allowed the other dog to get closer and closer, so much so that Crystal said she’d never been able to be so close to another dog on leash before without going crazy. Yeah!!! We were all thrilled at how well she did, and Hailey looked just as pleased with herself.
I suggested that they continue working on BAT and also work on focusing her attention on cue, along with lots of exercises that will help her learn to manage arousal levels (stay, wait at door, leave it, etc.). The best news came in an email not long ago from Crystal, in which she related that Hailey had been playing with another foster who himself had a rude, pushy play style and Hailey clearly became uncomfortable. Hailey eyes began to change and she stiffened and began to focus on the other dog as a target, not a playmate. Crystal said her name (which she’d been working on) and Hailey immediately broke off and came to her. Then she was released to play again, but this time when the other dog got rude Hailey excused herself and went over the Crystal all on her own. (Jackpot!!!) Soon they were playing well together and Hailey had learned that some dogs just, well, play better than others. Yeah Hailey! (but I add, Yeah Crystal for being so observant and for working so hard on foundation exercises.) By the way, Hailey is a foster, and here’s information about her if you are interested in a dog who was an absolute delight to train at the seminar.
MEANWHILE, back on the farm: HOT HOT HOT. It’s miserable outside. 95 or 96 or 97 and high humidity. Argh, I’m a disaster in hot weather, so Willie isn’t getting much in the way of walks outside right now. His exercise is all just his PT inside right now, with short walks outside. (Granted they can’t ever be longer than 15 min now, but in this heat they are more like 10!). I’m grumpy about the weather (65 degrees is about right for me and I don’t mind minus 20 anywhere near as much as I mind 90). However, as much as I’m whinging (a Scottish word for complaining, love it) about the weather, I have AC and can at least sleep well at night. I feel so sorry for people and dogs who have no option. We’ve been worried about the sheep, and so Jim set up a huge fan in the barn that is helping them considerably. Good news with the flock is that Spot seems to have recovered from mastitis. She was first diagnosed with pneumonia, but didn’t get better after treatment. During the next vet visit it became obvious what the problem was, so after a course of injections she seems much, much better. Thank heavens, I thought I was about to lose another ewe.
So last week I was worried about Sushi (diagnosed with kidney failure) and Spot and (always) Willie’s shoulder, and this week Spot is recovered, Sushi’s kidneys look GREAT after taking out an infected tooth and Willie is doing okay. He has healed up from the surgery on his bicepital tendon, now it’s all about his 2 damaged ligaments. We were reminded how crucial it is that he do as little as possible for another 2 months unless it is PT. (The surgeon wanted him to do NOTHING for 4 months and THEN start PT, but she agreed after talking to the therapist that it was okay to slowly, carefully do specific exercises.) So we are continually reminding ourselves to go slow, and are aware that he’ll have to wear the Hobbles for awhile once he is allowed off leash. Once that happens, there is NO way I am going to be able to restrict the use of his shoulder!
Here’s Willie doing one of his exercises, balancing on his forelegs on a slowly moving exercise ball. We both think this one is fun.
Jim will keep up the exercises while I’m in Denver, hope to see some of you there.
Come up and say hi if you make it Denver and read the blog or FB!
Lisa T says
I find BAT has some really positive results and so glad to hear you did too!
Amy says
My young dog is reactive to people, bikes and other dogs on leash. He will “lock and load” much like Ceilidh’s behavior with dogs when he sees bicyclists. However his reactivity is much less with people and dogs and can be redirected with LAT and BAT. He has shown a lot of progress with LAT and BAT training for people and dogs. When I started working with him on his reactivity he wouldn’t look at me or my husband in the face. It took him over 6 months to learn to look at us.
(He came from extensive physical abuse which would be a fair assessment as to why he wouldn’t look at us.)
Initially, I would ask him just to look at the treat in my hand but that was still something he wasn’t comfortable with. We started to experiment with other options and we continued to struggle with the “look” so I started asking for a “sit.” He knew what sit was and felt comfortable doing that. Even today, he will offer a sit when we see something exciting approaching, and he is heavily rewarded for that.
Crystal Collins says
BAT was great for Hailey. Because she struggles with impulse control issues, sometimes it is very difficult to try and “force” her attention on me with cues like “Watch.” I am so happy with how quickly she has learned. Hailey had never seen a clicker in her life until two weeks before this seminar, so I was especially proud that she really seemed to “get it” on stage, even in front of over a hundred people!
Dr. McConnell, I never would have thought to walk backwards with Hailey because of her desire to get to other dogs, but it is an excellent new tool in my box.
The first time I took Hailey on a walk with another dog, she made high pitched, frustrated yelping noises even when she was walking somewhat calmly beside me because she was so over threshold. It was not until she was allowed a long greeting session that she settled. She is now able to walk around other dogs without that issue at all. It is definitely helping.
Here is a video of Hailey playing with the other dog mentioned in the article:
KathyF says
Chrystal, thanks for posting that video. My Sparky is very much like Hailey, as described here. It was great to see her playing with another dog, something Sparky has yet to do. When he’s around them he pretty much ignores them now, which is better than lunging/barking. Next step will be letting him have one on one play opportunity with a dog (he’s been on a “pack walk” with about 16 dogs and handled it by ignoring the rest of them!).
Fjm says
I am so glad things are better with Sushi and Spot, and that Willy’s recovery is going well. And you make me grateful for our cool, wet summers – I actually put the heating on last night, it was so chilly!
em says
Another great post. It is so helpful to remember that many reactive dogs are not aggressive, though encounters with them can turn ugly if their frustration isn’t managed in a positive way.
Hailey looks a lot like Sandy, my recent addition! Sandy’s a Shepherd/Rottie/hound? cross though, not a bully breed (as far as we know….I should really do that DNA test, just to satisfy my lingering curiosity). She shows a lot of the same overexcited behaviors, too, though not as severely. On the plus side, she is super biddable and really wants to please, so I find that she is very easy to redirect. Of course, after Otis, a boulder rolling down a mountainside would seem easy to redirect 🙂 The vast majority of her very few objectionable behaviors are frustration-related. She will bark, in the car or behind the fence, and she will whine and prance on the walk if she sees something that she is very interested in. The first day or two, she’d lunge and bark (high pitched and super excited, almost yelping) and drag on the leash.
Daily exercise and free play at the park have helped tremendously by reducing her general frustration levels to almost nothing. Reinforcing good, relaxed leash manners and redirecting her attention back to me while we’re out has left her much, much better on walks, and she barks much less at the fence since she has become habituated to the comings and goings of the neighbors.
The car remains a trouble spot because I can’t really focus on her while I’m driving and at least once a day, we’re going TO the park after a long night of sleep AND she is waiting to poop until she gets there, so she’s tightly wound, to say the least. She does best if I give her some other task to perform (look at me, sit, down, -whatever) because she does readily focus her full attention on performing these tasks (and getting praised/rewarded for them), unlike Otis, who sits like a champ, but only ever gives it a fraction of his attention in the most boring of settings.
Sandy is excitable and vocal in play and can be a bit bossy when other dogs get snarky or too rough, getting intense when they refuse to back off, but she does listen when called away and calms down almost at once. She also shows some signs of ‘herding’ behaviors, chasing down or cutting off big running dogs and jumping at their shoulders to stop them (she mostly does this to Otis, who apparently enjoys it, but to him, she can do no wrong). She does have a fantastic initial greeting, though, happy faced and loose bodied, a quick sniff and an immediate turn and trot back my side. She is an MVP at the dog park for breaking the ice with nervous new dogs.
Here she is with Otis, whooping it up at the park on their first day together…
http://www.flickr.com/photos/47504277@N05/5581876741/
Michele says
Yay for Hailey! It was so exciting to be there to see her make progress on stage. A few of us were choked up by the end by how well she had done! It was a powerful lesson. Thanks to Patricia, Crystal and Hailey!
Lacey H says
Thank you so much for the contrast between Hailey (who is like quite a few of my fosters) and Ceilidh. And yes, I quite agree that self-control is a vital skill, and one I work on seriously.
Linda says
The description of Hailey’s over arousal when she sees other dogs (lunging/barking) is exactly what my 7 yr old Border Terrier has been doing since she turned 3. She is a total mellow dog in the house and with our other Border Terrier. How do you practice the LAT techniques when there is no availability of a mellow dog to be your partner in this training?
rheather says
I have a comment about how well jackpot! has worked for me. I’m using dog reactivity ideas with my pony, who has issues. (I read the symptom list of PTSD once and she fit it very well.) Between this blog and the comments, things are going so much better for her now-we can put the halter on and take it off! Wheee! But just this week the jackpot(lots and lots of treats-not the measly two I was giving out) finally sunk into my brain. Then last night she got frightened when I had a foot picked up. Usually that means several days of working back up to holding that foot but since I had just jackpotted her for the other foot she thought a second or two and then gave me the foot again! I was amazed, and this morning she started offering me her foot as a ‘maybe I’ll get a treat behavior’. So if you ever think that things are getting repeated too much, sometimes it takes a while for a behavior(mine) to change.
I’m a hot weather person-I live with no ac in Texas. Minus 20 would be a sign I was in frozen hell!
Shelly says
BAT is just so cool. I admit, I geek out over it. I see some of the most amazing progress with dogs by using BAT or any other protocol that uses RELEASE OF SOCIAL PRESSURE as a reward. For a while, as a society, we were getting so caught up expecting that all dogs be friendly at all times. Humans can’t even do that! It is nice to see a trend towards more dog friendly techniques for dealing with anxiety, aggression, fear, frustration, and other “social phobias” in dogs.
I’ve used BAT or some variation of it with many clients, and with repeated success. My own dog has made dramatic improvements since we were a demo team at the Seattle seminar last September. He has become much more sociable on leash, more relaxed off leash, and has improved tolerance for other dogs being “rude” in confined spaces.
I’m glad to hear Sushi is doing so much better, and Willie will get there. I can’t say I envy you with the Wisconsin summer. The humidity (and corresponding mosquito outbreaks) are a large part of why I moved to the southwest. I hear it’s been quite rough this year. I’ll take my 105 and 5% humidity in the desert! Although, I fully admit, I miss Rocky Rococo’s Pizza!!!
lin says
Okay, totally off-topic: is ‘whinging’ pronounced with a hard ‘g’ (like winging), a soft ‘g’ (sponging) or silent ‘g’?
AnneJ says
I am trying some BAT training with my young Aussie- she barks and lunges at other dogs, she just wants them to go away. So when she’s calm she gets to move away. It seems to be helping more than the watch me training I was doing before.
Cindy says
It’s pronounced ‘whinj’. I was often told to stop doing it when I was a kid
mungobrick says
Well, I pronounce it with a soft g…
Fjm says
Definitely a soft g – it is a term in frequent use here in Lancashire! Another useful local word is to mither – usually heard in the phrase “Stop mithering!”. I’ll leave you to look up the meaning, rather than hijack the thread!
trisha says
So glad to know I’ve pronounced it properly! And I’ll be in Scotland soon so I can hear it spoken by natives, can barely wait. And how could I not look up “mithering” (to make an unnecessary fuss). I’ve gotta say, I love the words Scots use… is that because some of my ancestors are from there? And hey, Cindy, lin, Fjm and mungobrick… are you in Scotland? Are you coming in September? 🙂 Do I get to meet you in person?
Cindy says
That’s the pronunciation I was trying to get across- guess the ‘j’ was misleading! I’m in TX but I’d so rather be in Scotland, especially right now with this heat. My grandparents are from Ireland so that’s why it’s part of my vocabulary.
A comment on the original subject of this thread- my 20 mo old male gsd and I have been training to herd sheep and as a result I’ve been slacking on the socialization he needs during this adolescent time. As a result he’s become vocal and reactive to dogs and bikes and men in reflector sunglasses at the park. I recently reviewed ‘Lassie Come’ and have put the ‘woah’ to good use! For those who haven’t seen the dvd, it’s a command to teach your dog to stop when he’s running away, turn around then ‘come’ back on command [we have the same deer chasing problem Tulip had]. Stosh responded to it immediately, most likely because I imitated the tone of voice you use and the short command. I’ve found it invaluable when he’s charging ahead, even on-leash, to get to whatever he’s locked on at the park. His entire demeanor changes immediately and he turns to me, losing interest in what he’s looking at. Naturally it will be a valuable command in herding when I can use the ‘woah’ and a down when I need him closer but not to me. I can’t recommend the dvd enough for those of us working on getting your dog’s attention and a response.
Dena (Izzee's Mom) says
The word “whinging” is used in parts of Canada, too. Probably in the areas heavily settled by Scots.
Fjm says
I was hoping to get to see you in Scotland, but am also hoping Sophy might be in a delicate condition by then … although after the extremely convincing phantom she threw in the spring I am not getting my hopes up too high!
Crystal Collins says
Update on our reactive demo dog: Miss Hailey HAS BEEN ADOPTED! 🙂 She is doing better than we ever hoped.
trisha says
BEST. NEWS. EVER.
I am soooooo happy! Yeah Crystal, you are the best!