Lunging at passing cars

[Shazmnldb]

Hi all

 

Cn anyone please give me some advice on how to stop my 12 month old Lilli girl from lunging at passing cars when we are out walking. I correct her with NO and a yank on the lead but she just does it again when the next car passes if she notices it and doesn't have her nose buried to the ground. She is also very naughty on the lead and is so excited every minute of our walks she just about pulls my shoulder out of its socket. I do not like correction collars and my husband says I should use one. She is so bratty at the moment and in hyper drive almost every minute of the day. She gets lots of exercise and playtime. We were at our beach house this weekend for the first time since we got her at 8 weeks old and there is a doggy beach we go to. We had her on a 30ft lead but she still went nuts at the other dogs, barked her head off at them so we had to take her home she was just too crazy. Other dogs were on the beach just running around and being normal but Lilli was a mental case. Any advice on this issue too would be really helpful. We go to obedience every Saturday and she is great but at home goes into hyper drive.

[Camden's Mom]

Sorry to hear Lilli is being so difficult on leash. Not only can that much pulling damage her neck and back (assuming she's wearing a collar) but it sounds like it's doing a number on your shoulder, too!

 

I guess the first thing to tackle, for everyone's overall health, is loose leash walking. There are several ways to go about dealing with pulling on the lead. Some people use a halter that has a clip on the front (Gentle Leader is a popular brand) so when the dog pulls ahead they are natural turned back towards you.

 

While I think the halter can be a useful tool, I think the best thing to do is to *train* the dog not to pull on the lead. Different strategies work for different dogs. There is the "become a tree" tactic. You have to be very patient, but the basic idea is that whenever the dog pulls on the leash you stop dead in your tracks. The message you are sending to the dog is "If you pull on the leash we are not going anywhere". Eventually, even the most stubborn dog will come back to see why you have stopped moving, releasing the tension on the lead and then you can move forward again. Make sure you have lots of time and don't plan to go very far the first time you do this. Stay strong, the dog will get it eventually!!!

 

Some people use a variation on this tactic... whenever the dog pulls on the leash you immediately do a U-turn and walk the other way. This communicates to the dog that if she pulls towards something she won't ever get to it. I think this is a very useful tactic for teaching a dog to approach something she wants calmly, as well. You will feel like you are walking in circles the first few times you do this but many people swear by this approach.

 

When my puppy was very young I would reward him with a treat every single time he looked up at me while on a walk. This was hugely helpful for building focus on me while we were on a walk and was the foundation for his loose leash walking. We eventually had to use the "tree" tactic along with rewarding for focus.

 

There are many other options and a quick search on this forum for "loose leash walking" or "pulling on leash" will get you a LOT of results. This is not an uncommon problem for this breed, but don't lose hope, you can get her through it with patience, consistency and persistence!!

[Camden's Mom]

Decided to break this up into two posts...

Regarding her reactivity, I'd say she's very "over threshold" in situations where you describe her as being a "mental case". Basically, she's too close to something that has her over excited/over stimulated (whether that means she's crazy happy or freaked out) and she has lost all ability to focus on anything but what has her overwhelmed.

I would do a LOT of focus work with her. If you haven't already , I would teach her a "watch me" (you can even make the cue word "Lillie") and work tirelessly on getting and keeping her attention while in a very low distraction environment. Once she's got this down in the house, take it to the back yard, then maybe the front yard and so on. Teaching her to focus on you can really help out in situations where you see she is about to go over threshold. Basically, whenever you notice that she is about to get stressed out about something, you can call her attention to you and then ask for a preferred behavior.

Example: You are at the dog beach and you see Lillie start to get stressed out by another dog who is nearby. You can use your "watch me", reward her for focus and then ask for her to "sit", and reward her if she sits. Keep her distracted by keeping her focus on you and she won't be able to react to the dog that had her getting excited beforehand. Be very aware of distance and how much she can handle. As long as you keep her under threshold (IOW she doesn't become a "mental case") you are setting her up for success!

You may want to do searches on the forum for "reactivity" or "leash reactive" and you're likely to find even better advice then i can give.

So, regarding the main concern of your original post (lunging at cars) I do not feel qualified to give a lot of advice here. My instinct would be to try to desensitize her to cars passing by, however desensitization can be a slow process and chasing cars is such a dangerous and potentially fatal habit. I hope others who have dealt with car chasing can give you good advice on how to nip that in the bud... it's a scary behavior and dangerous enough that maybe it could call for more harsh measures... I just don't know. You said you go to obedience classes once a week, have you asked the trainer there for suggestions on car lunging yet? I wonder if she could help you out at all...

[Shazmnldb]

Thanks Camdens Mom for your advice - much appreciated. I didn't know the term "reactivity" but I will certainly look it up in the forums. Tree trunk is a really good idea. Trying that on our next "short" walk.

[Camden's Mom]

I don't at all mean to come across as an experts on border collies (or dogs in general) but my understanding of a "reactive" dog is one who over-reacts to stimulus. It doesn't necessarily mean their reaction is aggressive, it could just be over excitement.

 

As an example: There are plenty of dogs who do not really like other dogs. While a "non-reactve" dog might just avoid contact and send off signals letting the other dog know she's not interested, a "reactive" dog would bark, lunge or make an overly dramatic scene about the entire thing. Or, from the other end of the spectrum, a dog who loveslovesloves other dogs might get overly excited and pull and lunge on the end of the leash in order to get to the other dog, unable to control her excitement.

 

This is my understanding of a "reactive" dog, but as I said, I am by no means an expert.

 

If you want some reading material "Control Unleashed" is a very good book. The "Look At That" game in the book might be useful for desensitizing Lilli to things that get her really excited. I've heard the puppy version of the book is even better then the original, although I've not read it.

 

Anyways, I'm hoping others will chime in with even better advice and reading suggestions for you, especially regarding the car lunging!

[alligande]

You have two separate problems. Walking on the leash is just a matter of training, search google for kikopup and lose leash walking and you will find some useful videos. It is not an easy skill to master, my next door neighbor who melts when my former foster looks at him has given up and uses a harness.

Lunging at cars is motion reactivity, my late Brody came to us like this, we solved it using a form of "look at that" with out realizing it until later when he became reactive to dogs at agility, this time I worked with the book control unleashed and he went from being the lunching barking nut job to his last trial getting a belly rub as the dog before him ran, but it takes time lots of time.

I have read that you should get the puppy version of control unleashed because it is a better written book, the original can be confusing and rather heavy.

Search the boards and you will find loads of advice this is a very common border collie issue as they are sensitive to motion, it is what they a bred for.

[Shazmnldb]

Thanks so much, the first thing I am going to do is get a copy of "Control Unleashed" sounds like a great place to start.

 

"Barking, lunging nut job" love it! Just like my Lilli Girl - she is a total, complete and utter nut job but a very lovable one.

 

One new thing that has just arisen is that she has found her voice - OMG and does she love using it, mostly at inappropriate times like the middle of the night and other times at absolutely nothing.

 

BC's don't you just love em

[WaveProfesora]

Can I second the head halter? It's help us tremendously with the lunging a bikes and motor scooters. As well as relaxation training. "Look at that," which comes from Control Unleashed has been modified. I've basically established a recall of "Hey Piv?" and I can get him to look at me even with most distractions. It's been a long process, but we're better now than we were when this started.

 

Search the threads for my issue and the responses I got. They were awesome and not unlike you're situation. My dog's name is Pivo so if you search that, it should come up easily.

 

Pivo is not reactive in any other situation, though, and pretty good about not pulling. So you may want to work on those things separately.

[Camden's Mom]

If she's found her voice it might be time to put a cue on it! Train her to bark on command (I use the command word "speak!"). Once she has that down, which I'm guessing won't take long since she's become a Chatty Cathy all of a sudden , teach her a silence command. I use "quiet" some people use "Shhh" but I find it's hard to do that loudly if the dog is far away. It really doesn't matter one bit what command words you use, but I'd teach her how to bark and how to be quite. I'm not saying it'll fix all of the inappropriate barking issues, but it's a heck of a good start. It'll give you a clear communication with her so when you are working on the nuisance barking she's not completely confused.

You can find videos of training a dog to bark and be quite on command on YouTube. I'd bet kikopup probably has one and I really like her training videos.

Edit: Looked for the Pivo thread out of curiosity. Good thread! Also, vey glad to hear Pivo is doing so well!!
Here's a link to the topic:http://www.bordercollie.org/boards/index.php?showtopic=34781

[GentleLake]

Can I second the head halter?

 

If you're considering a head halter (although I don't think that's what was originally suggested, but I'm not going to reread carefully enough to be sure. I think it was a front clip Easy Walk type hater that was being recommended), here's an article you might want to consider first: http://www.suzanneclothier.com/the-articles/problem-head-halters

 

It's been a while since I've read it, so I don't remember if she mentions that head halters pose some significant risk of neck injuries in situations where a dog may lunge suddenly, as in car chasing.

[Tricky]

Hi, I'm also no expert...but have a similar experience and the method we did use successfully was advised by a pro.

 

Our Ollie was a rescue and 7 months when we got him. Had never been walked and was a complete maniac around anything that moved. He was extremely intense with lunging at cars, just as you describe. We tried so many things...we quickly went away from the head halter for fear he would break his own neck (the jerking of his neck was obviously dangerous). The check chain seemed to make things worse - it certainly didn't stop him and I actually felt he was building an association - he would "ready" himself for the pain when a car approached and then get all the more reactive to it.

 

We ended up moving to a "down" whenever a car approached. (Obviously he needed to learn the command first however this was relatively straight forward). In the beginning, we often needed to stand on the leash, close to the collar (flat collar) to "pin him" if he was not going to stay down. He was praised & rewarded for staying down & calm. We practised small walks around the neighbourhood numerous times a day and before too long (a few weeks?) he was downing himself whenever he even sensed a car coming. We kept reinforcing this up for quite a while long time before dropping the down, even though he would still do it of his own accord every now & then.

 

Ollie is 2 years old now and completely calm around cars (no downing by him or us) - we honestly never thought such a transformation would be possible.

 

FYI we did all this before looking into CU, which we did for other reasons, however understand that system is highly recommended by many. We have used things like LAT successfully for other things.

 

Good Luck!

[alligande]

We also used a down with our dog. He was 3 1/2 and was mesmerized by moving cars when we got him, we would have him go in a down when we heard a car coming, initially he would stare at the car and be completely focused, but that faded away when he no longer had a physical response. I really can't tell you how long it took but there came a time when he was completely uninterested in cars going by. He remained motion sensitive, I have posted about his reactivity to fast running dogs in agility, which I used some of the techniques from CU for.