schrevolution

Hi all, I was wondering in what situations you would use a walking aid such as a martingale, etc? Or if you would use them at all. Twice I've had separate trainers tell me that because Ziggy is powerful and despite different methods to get him to walk better (making a 180 when he pulls, using treats when he pays attention to me, stopping in my tracks and not moving until he comes back, etc.) . One of these trainers is from a Control Unleashed class, the other was his agility instructor. Frankly I'm really tired of the pulling, he is powerful and he will dive and pull to get at something he wants which could be any random thing, from a rock, to a stick, to just some weird smell, who knows. He's also reactive and my fear with using any aid is that he will accidentally correct himself if something sets him off and make his reactivity worse. I started using a shorter 18 inch leash which helps because the more leash he has the more speed he can put behind a lunge. Today was particularly frustrating because we went to his control unleashed class and there are other reactive dogs, and even though we're well spaced out there are occasional incidents of lunging combined with him pulling me in all kinds of directions during the class. I don't like to get frustrated or angry when I'm trying to train him so I kind of had to stop and sit out the last few minutes of class because I knew it wouldn't do him any good. Venting aside, I'm tempted to try something like a martingale or even a plain slip collar, although I've been avoiding it. I'm at the point where it seems the more positive methods of getting it to stop haven't been working and it isn't pleasant to get jerked around. I'm just trying to find out what others have done or if they've used walking aids and what were the results. Thank you, schrev

Get the bigger crate for sure, I flew Ziggy with Delta, so not sure about your airline but I ended up having to buy one of their crates, even thought the one I bought was the same size as his wire crate at home. The diagram at cargo even showed the dog with its tail not even touching the back of the kennel O_O Talk about almost panic attack (it had been an ordeal getting him to the airport because I drive a miata, so no way to bring him and the kennel safely, and surprise suprise, airport shuttles won't go to the cargo area) they didn't even bother to tell me they had kennels for sale . Luckily I thought to ask and he made it, but definitely don't underestimate the kennel size.

He does like tug, but I don't know if he likes it enough to redirect to that when his triggers are present. Maybe I can build up his desire to tug more and bring a rope with me and see. The dogs and people are the main issues, I've decided I don't really care about the cats, since my neighbor has been allowing her cat to roam free and he actively follows us when he spots us on walks O_O. Today he was on the stairs waiting for us when I tried to get back to my apartment, and when we backtracked around some cars to get out of his way, I realized he had disappeared, and knew that he was now under the cars trying to get to us! I hope this doesn't turn out badly but there's not much I can do if he continually is putting himself in the way But the tug idea is a good one, I try to make every walk a time for training as well so maybe I'll switch it up and try this for a little bit.

Thank you for the reply I think I'll try to tread carefully with this idea, I've never used a whistle and he is my first dog. I think I'll focus harder on keeping him below threshold and maybe get a whistle to start developing a good recall and not focusing on it being the interrupter I was looking for. Hopefully that will help in the long term. I definitely don't see this as irreversible, hopefully we'll work through it. Today was dramatically better though, he didn't get the chance to react once, so just one day at a time.

Hi all, I've been trying to deal with my BC mix Ziggy's reactivity for a while now, and I'm finding that the hardest thing to do is keep him under threshold. I have a game plan, slightly adjusting our walk time and keeping them short so that I we have less chance of running into other dogs, which seems to bring out the worst of his reactivity recently and understandably terrifies their owners to see my nearly fifty pound dog lunging at their dogs. He's 16 months, and I'm trying to reduce this while he's still very much a puppy, but living in an apartment has its challenges. For example, we found ourselves surrounded by all three of his triggers yesterday, a cat hiding under a bush, a person approaching in the distance, and the sudden appearance of an equally large and equally reactive dog as we attempted to move away from the other two. So, I began wondering, for situations like this, where I know there are things out of control and we are going to come face to face with his triggers and sometimes he's going to react before I can even think, would it be wise to start training him to respond really well to a whistle? Or something equally loud/surprising? I've been working on teaching him a good "let's go" but when surprises jump out at us (literally with the stray cats around here) there's no making him leave calmly. I feel like a whistle blast would distract and confuse him enough for us to make a hasty retreat. Has anyone done this with success?

Sorry about the confusion They live on the first floor, so I guess it's more of a porch than a balcony, but the porch wall is right next to the stairway so the cat is level with Ziggy when we go down the stairs. The cat will jump down on the stairs after we've passed, which doesn't make Ziggy happy either. So usually he's on his owner's space, but he's so close that it causes a problem. Thanks for the videos, the exercises seem easy enough and I'll probably just have to be more cognizant of where the neighbor's cat and other cats are when we go out. I was worried about doing anything to scare/deter the cat since we live near a busy road and I'd hate to push the cat away from his home and into danger. We see the trainer in two days so hopefully she'll have her own insights on desensitization. In regards to the strays, I have no idea how they are still alive since it's been over 100 degrees here, but the neighbor seems pretty smart about only letting the cat out in early morning/late evening, unfortunately that's our schedule too so we keep running into each other. Thanks for the help! We'll see how it goes between kikopup's exercises and the trainer's advice.

Ballistic in that he lunges the worst and growls loudest when a cat is around and will be completely uncontrollable until I move him out of sight of the cat. With people/dogs I can just pull him to the side and make him sit or distract him with treats, but with a cat he will not take treats or anything.

Ziggy (>1 year BC mix) has developed some leash reactivity recently to humans, dogs, and especially to stray cats. I've been able to manage his dog/human reactivity and am going to a private session with a trainer on Saturday to discuss all of this, but the cat thing is a little more than frustrating. There are several stray cats around the apartment complex, and frankly I think he's terrified of them. What's frustrating is that a downstairs neighbor has been allowing her young cat to roam recently, and since her balcony is right next to our stairway the cat will sit right next to the stair so that it's either rush past and hope for the best or go back inside and wait. He goes absolutely ballistic whenever he sees a cat and even though I can switch directions when I see the strays this cat is ever present and I know Ziggy's behavior will only get worse if this continues. Is there any way I'll be able to counter-condition him in this situation? I'll probably bring this up to the trainer as well but does anyone have any other suggestions?

Ziggy will get extreme zoomies and nippy if I don't pay attention and it's past his scheduled bedtime. Otherwise that's usually when he's at his cuddliest right before sleep. It only makes his tantrums worse if we do an exciting activity before bed so I tend to keep the evening chill. After an hour of obedience class he's at the end of his patience and exhausted so he may throw a tantrum, but he'll stop when he realizes he isn't getting anywhere.

I'm not sure if Ziggy is truly "stubborn" but he is certainly determined to lay on the sofa. It's not even that he waits until I'm out of the room, he'll leap up right next to me even though he knows he's going to get pulled back down a second later, although maybe I've allowed him to see it as a game? I'm assuming it's my fault somehow anyway, that and the foster family before me whose pictures of him before he was adopted all have him on the sofa

Thanks everyone for the input It seems I have a couple of plans of action, so if plan A doesn't work I know I have a plan B. This was all good advice so hopefully we'll find something that works for us

I understand the worry about this being too much. I do live in an apartment so keeping him outside isn't really an option. This is only for 8 weeks mind you so it won't be like this forever, then I'll be back to a regular school schedule. I wouldn't say he's destructive, it's just an unknown, so I could possibly gate off the living room with everything he might chew picked up. He just seems more comfortable when I leave if he's in the crate, if that makes sense? I'd been testing him for short trips that weren't really long enough for him to realize he could get in trouble and he doesn't seem as happy with me leaving in those situations as when he's in the crate. Maybe I just need to bite the bullet and leave him in the living room and hope he's ok? Would Rescue Remedy help in this situation? I'm unsure if he would truly get anxiety but maybe as a preventative? I'll be waking up at 5 am so we can go to the dog park/ go on a long walk with training involved, as well as stocking up on kongs? Once a week day care is still an option as well, but daily dog walking/ daycare gets really expensive here. Thank you for your replies, I have the same concerns so maybe this is a better plan?

So, there are a few posts about this topic but I think I want to know that if you crate for work, how did your dogs handle it in the beginning? A little background, I have a bc/mix named Ziggy who just turned a year and currently he is staying with my family until I arrive this weekend. He's going to be there with me for 5 weeks, but when we return I start 8 weeks of rotations for school so not only will he have been in a strange place for a month but then when we return our schedule is going to change pretty abruptly. I'm planning on adjusting my schedule so that we get up and go to bed earlier so we can continue to have our regular walks/visits to the dog park in mornings, etc. but I'm wondering if anyone experienced any drastic changes in behavior once they started crating them for a work day? Unfortunately it won't be likely that I'll be able to come home during the day but I've been considering doing daycare on Wednesdays to break up the week for him. Do I need to be worried that he's going to start hating his crate or barking all day? (he doesn't do that now, but I've never been gone for 9 hours at a time so who knows?) -schrev

Someone might have better advice but this is just what I've been doing with Ziggy when he pulls. I'll bring a treat bag and clicker and when he pulls I stop dead in my tracks and don't move. As soon as he looks back at me to figure out what's going on, click and treat. He realizes that paying attention to me gets him a treat and pulling means we go nowhere. We're also in obedience and I bring the treat bag and clicker to practice heeling, focus on me, etc. We learned "watch", which means make eye contact with me and "touch" which is just hand targeting and every now and then I'll give one of these commands while we walk and that helps him pay attention to where I'm going and not focus too much on the world around us.

Thank you for the reply, this is all very helpful I'll start having my family talk to him over speakerphone and work on "look at that" more. I like the idea of them having something I've worn to reassure him, pretty sure he'll get over it when I get there but it's going to be a whirlwind of change, especially with two guys around. I'm crossing my fingers this will be a chance to get him more used to guys. I definitely don't want to push him too much, we've had a lot of construction around so a lot of workers all in one place, and I've had to detour around my building because he didn't seem too keen on passing through them. On a lighter note, there was a child's scooter car (the kind with a big smiley face on the front) in the middle of the sidewalk and from at least thirty feet he stopped dead in his tracks and would not budge. When I realized what it was that had him terrified I was in stitches, even thought it probably wasn't fun for him Seems we've got a lot to work on.