Inter-dog fear aggression?, Joy's at it again...oh dear. Options

[haleigh]

If some of you remember, last summer Joy got into a fight with a big brindle at the dog park. The result was some superficial scrapes and (what I think to be) a bruised trachea.

Well, I did find that fantastic trainer who has helped me in so many ways with Joy's reactivity. This training place doesn't have ring gates, and she got Joy to the point where I can sit next to the other dogs (with no chairs in between ) and Joy just hangs out. I can even set her up 2 feet away from them before a run and she completely ignores them! I'm so proud of my little girl. Her newfound 'tolerance' is being applied to other problem areas, like readiness to be called off my dear stepmoms devil cat.

The only issue is her being "aggressive" to this big brindle Jack. Jack's a sweet dog, who has really low confidence. If you look at him cross-eyed he tucks his tail and runs. When Joy first saw him, she was reactive and lunged a few times, not unlike the other dogs. If we were running the course and Jack moved or his owner said his name, Joy lost focus and ran after him. Her hackles went up, ears were back, and she barked in a scared tone. At first, Jack was startled, but as time went on, Jack started to butt heads with her reactivity. If he sees Joy, he gets defensive and barks at her.

I was in for a real shocker on thursday at training- for the first time ever with Joy, I was scared she was going to attack another dog. The scarier part was the fact that she was trying to bite me to get at him. Joy actually went into a frenzy. She was doing backflips, snarling, baring teeth, hackles up, and growling.

The only time I'm actually in the ring is if it's my run. We've gotten Joy to the part where she can be civilized hanging around other dogs, and we don't want to push her into losing her head when a dog is actually running. Joy and Jack get switched out between runs to prevent any issues.

Any tips? I hesitate to call it aggression, since I believe she's legitimately afraid of Jack, but that doesn't help me at all. She's been doing so good with other issues, I want to nip this in the bud before it becomes a major set back. Thanks!


ETA: After her little "episodes" she calms down immediately and gets her head back...once Jack is out of sight. She doesn't shows any signs of stress after that.

[mbc1963]

Hi, Joy,

I'm not an expert at your particular situations, but I have worked with my reactive dog in specific cases where he needed to learn to be around a specific dog he didn't like, with peace.

The best outcome we had was when the disliked dog was owned by a trainer. The woman was happy to walk around in front of us for a while, dropping really good treats. Mozzarella cheese. Liver brownies. Within a couple weeks of running into her that way, my dog began to get really happy when she approached. And he seemed to attach that happiness to tolerance for her dog, too. It helped my dog not to react that she was ahead of us, and her dog was facing away from us the first few interactions. (My dog reacts much less if he's behind another dog, sniffing, no eye contact and no official "meeting.")

I'm wondering if you can't do a double desensitization: find something both dogs love, and stand them as far apart as they can be without reacting. Treat for calmness. (Or C/T if you clicker train.) What works for my dog is building the association between the specific dog he originally doesn't like and the presence of tasty treats, which are his highest reward. Move closer, treat, etc., gradually getting the two dogs near enough. This is probably what you've been working on with your trainer in regards to reactivity with all dogs, I suspect.

This requires the other owner's cooperation, of course. But she might be interested, given that her dog is developing a bit of defensive reactivity, too, which could escalate.

Good luck.

Mary

[Ms.DaisyDuke]

I would work on getting her attention on you before she gets to that point of no return. Work on smaller triggers first, the ones you know you can call her off of and gradually work her up to larger ones, like this dog. I know you are in classes together, but seriously limiting her exposure to this dog is a must. The more she get the opportunity to react to him the harder it is going to be to get her to stop. It is a self rewarding behaviour. Even though you can get her attention back on you after she freaks out like this doesn't mean her adreanaline has calmed down, so it also makes it more likely that she is going to react to other lesser triggers worse than normal after an encounter like that too. Watch her like a hawk in class and if you see the smallest indication that she is going to react, distract her. Watch her ear position and her mouth, sometimes Daisy will seem perfectly fine if another dog is walking by, but if you look closer, you can see her cheeks puffing out when she breathes and her breathing becomes heavier, I know that the dog is too close and I have to either be quick to praise her for good behaviour or distract her or it will be WW3. I would also recommend reading "How to right a dog gone wrong" by Pamela Dennison (sp), it has some excersizes similar to what Mary was talking about in it that I think will help Joy with her reactivity to other dogs or specific dogs.

Good luck!
julie

ETA: Having someone step in between you, joy and the other dog and handler will also help diffuse the situation or if you can get your body in between joy and the other dog, having joy or the other dog turn their back on each other may help too.

[haleigh]

Thanks for the advice

I started teaching Joy how to drop her head today with small things like my biology book and Bear. I read an article about teaching the aggressor how to diffuse the situation by having them throw out calming signals. I'm hoping that as time goes on certain calming exercises will help her gain confidence around other dogs. It's hard to work her around other dogs where I live since we have no dog park or anywhere else we can work her where dogs tend to congregate, other than petsmart.

[Root Beer]

Did you work on any CU stuff with your trainer? I seem to recall that you did, but I'm not sure.

If so, I would keep Joy at a good distance from this dog and play LAT and gradually move her closer, playing LAT.

[haleigh]

Yeah, I've been doing a lot of CU type of exercises with the new trainer. LAT has helped with the other dogs, but for some reason it's not helping a lot with the big guy. It just seems to be escalating :0

[haleigh]

STUPID DOUBLE POSTS! arghh. I think I need to get a new mouse...the button keeps getting stuck

[Alaska]

Have you tried parallel walking? That is, take the two dogs on a walk parallel to each other, on leash, at a great enough distance that neither reacts. Slowly (over days) decrease the distance between the two parallel tracks, keeping both dogs below threshold. That way they get used to the idea that being around the other dog does not mean they will need to interact with it, and thus they do not need to take the offensive every time they see the other dog.

Next step, after they can walk parallel tracks close to each other, is to go back to parallel tracks far apart but alternate having one dog do something a little more active than a walk, i.e. jog slowly (on leash, on the parallel track) with their person. The other dog should still be just walking. There are CU exercises like this, but I can't remember (and don't have CU handy) whether parallel walking per se is referenced in CU.

Also, if you are doing CU, are you in the CU yahoo group? You can get a lot of great help there.

You've really overcome a lot of obstacles with Joy and with your living situation - I'm impressed with your grit. Keep up the good work!

[haleigh]

I really can't thank some of you for your support since I've gotten Joy...without you guys Joy certainly would be gone by now.

The hard thing is that Jack and his owner don't really care about Joy's issues, and would rather stay away from us all together. The owner's really nice, but he's the average joe dog owner, who could care less about how his dog is affecting the other one. I know the other ladies in my class would help me, but I've gotten over them and their dogs

I suppose the smallest thing that would help that also wouldn't put the poor guy and his dog at an inconvenience would be throwing treats on the floor when Joy walks in. I was really thinking about how I could find a way for both dogs to simultaneously throw calming signals to each other when they're "close" to each other. I could only think that we could fake it by having the dogs pick up a treat off the floor. The only problem with that is getting Joy comfortable enough around him so she'll take food off the ground.

[Ms.DaisyDuke]

Throwing treats on the ground can work in the way you are thinking, but what I would do is get Joy good at doing it around dogs that she likes, and gradually lead up to the dog she doesn't like. It will also be a lot easier for her to do it if the other dog is doing it too. But I don't think just throwing a treat on the ground with be enough. You'll have to drop like an entire handful on the ground for it to have the right effect. Similar method is also mentioned in the book I listed above!

[mbc1963]

I agree with the parallel walking thing - I usually start with the other dog somewhat in front of us, where Buddy is sure to have no eye contact, and then transition until the dogs are side by side. Generally, if the other dog gets over the need to greet, Buddy can be safe around him. It's that "in your face," eye contact stuff that he hates.

I'm wondering if there is a way to just reduce their exposure to each other? Sounds like they're in class together, so it might be really tricky. In my experience, getting the dog to just plain not be around dogs who set him off is better than putting him into a situation where he might be set off. (The theory is that every time they get a chance to react, it reinforces the reactivity.) After a long enough time, Buddy can forget that he doesn't like another dog, whereas if he keeps running into the other dog and keeps freaking out, it perpetuates his idea that the other dog is bad news, plus trains his body to send adrenaline and get into freak out mode.

Tough situation. It would be so much easier if the other owner cared about working out the problems between these two dogs. Sounds like this one doesn't. I can't really blame her, either - if I owned some of the dogs Buddy doesn't like, I wouldn't really care to help Buddy with his issues.

I wonder if the trainer or owner of the agility course where you work might be willing to work with you, to set up a better situation? I know that my trainer in the early days was always really careful to set up success not only for my reactive dog, but for the other dogs in class that Buddy might scare. This guy wanted all his customers to be happy and to learn, so he dealt very specifically with Buddy's issues and how I could manage them. He still gave the other customers their money's worth - luckily, my dog was happy to be kept far away, in the background of the class - but they got additional education about ignoring reactive dogs, not letting their pups get up in strange dogs' faces, etc.. I think the other owners came out better off for having been taught appropriate cautions.

Mary

[Maralynn]

The hard thing is that Jack and his owner don't really care about Joy's issues, and would rather stay away from us all together. The owner's really nice, but he's the average joe dog owner, who could care less about how his dog is affecting the other one.

In all fairness to this guy, Joy did start the problem and then his dog reacted out of fear. He probably feels that his dog will do best if he just keeps him away from her. I'd probably be like that with Missy, too.

But then Kipp, would be the one to start something like Joy did, so I understand what it's like to be in your shoes, too

If the training methods you've been working on with Joy have worked in the grand sceme of things, have you tried taking it back to square one again when you are in the vicinity of Jack? Maybe take the next class or two, forget the agility side of things and just focus on fixing her issues with Jack?

[haleigh]

In all fairness to this guy, Joy did start the problem and then his dog reacted out of fear. He probably feels that his dog will do best if he just keeps him away from her. I'd probably be like that with Missy, too.

Oh, I definitely agree! I'm like that with other dogs too. His dog has issues, and he'd rather work on that rather than worrying about other people.

If I'm not getting any progress after our little winter break, I'll try talking to her about switching class times.

Oh, and other good news: In february Amanda Nelson is coming to our place for a workshop! My instructor told us before releasing it to the public...I'm really excited to say that I'm going

[Alaska]

Oh, and other good news: In february Amanda Nelson is coming to our place for a workshop! My instructor told us before releasing it to the public...I'm really excited to say that I'm going

That IS exciting! Amanda is one of the best workshop presenters ever (agility, that is). Defintely don't miss her.

If there is time, you might ask Amanda how you should handle the situation with Jack. My guess is if you hand Joy's leash over to Amanda and watch what she does, you will learn a lot. You might even email Amanda in advance about it. She'll let you know if she can fit it in.

[Alaska]

Oh, and other good news: In february Amanda Nelson is coming to our place for a workshop! My instructor told us before releasing it to the public...I'm really excited to say that I'm going

That IS exciting! Amanda is one of the best workshop presenters ever (agility, that is). Defintely don't miss her.

If there is time, you might ask Amanda how you should handle the situation with Jack. My guess is if you hand Joy's leash over to Amanda and watch what she does, you will learn a lot. You might even email Amanda in advance about it. She'll let you know if she can fit it in.

[Alaska]

Oh, and other good news: In february Amanda Nelson is coming to our place for a workshop! My instructor told us before releasing it to the public...I'm really excited to say that I'm going

That IS exciting! Amanda is one of the best workshop presenters ever (agility, that is). Defintely don't miss her.

If there is time, you might ask Amanda how you should handle the situation with Jack. My guess is if you hand Joy's leash over to Amanda and watch what she does, you will learn a lot. You might even email Amanda in advance about it. She'll let you know if she can fit it in.