Search the Community

Hoping for some insight and/or training tips for a car-obsessed BC rescue, neutered female, 3-5 y.o. Any ideas for better bonding/training/behavior conditioning, books, youtube videos, etc., would be tremendously appreciated. I fear that if I cannot make more progress on this, I may have to return her to rescue as she is right now at high risk of being killed or causing a traffic accident --- I just cannot be vigilant enough to guarantee she will never have an opportunity to escape the leash/yard/front door. I previously raised a BC from a working line from puppyhood, who loved anything in motion but had no reactivity to cars. I live in a suburb with a fair amount of traffic and traffic noise from a nearby 4 lane street. My new BC rescue (11 weeks since adoption) is highly reactive to cars moving within 50 feet, and wants to eye/stalk/chase. She also becomes extremely agitated (panting/eye stalking) when traveling in the car. She has lunged hard enough at passing traffic to break the leash clip open on one occasion (she now has a chest harness with a heavy duty clip). She is even highly reactive to traffic noise from a nearby street. She has twice escaped from her lead/the house and made a beeline for this heavily trafficked street although there was no car traffic visible to her at the time -- then sat/lay down on the median and watched as if herding. She has NOT actually tried to chase the traffic, but I live in fear that she could cause a serious accident to drivers on that street. I am also at risk of being pulled off my feet when she lunges, which is dangerous because I have early onset osteoporosis. After working on clicker counter conditioning for this reactivity with a trainer over the last month, she is LESS reactive -- I can break her off the stare/drop down/chase sequence to look at me with treats in hand -- but she will not listen if no food is around. We have also done lots of training for "watch me," which also works only to a very limited degree once the treats are gone and she sees a car moving within 50 feet. She has ZERO interest in toys/tennis balls/tugging or chase games with flying objects, and is generally low energy (for a BC). She will actually turn her head away in avoidance if a toy is presented to her. She previously was in a foster family with a farm for 3 months, where she could ramble daily over 50 acres, but showed zero interest in herding their sheep. Because of their relative isolation from traffic, the foster family did see her car reactions, and did not report any reactivity to cars before I adopted. She has no instinctive recall either, nor any inborn circling pattern, and although I am working on it, I don't anticipate that she will ever have the recall that some BCs have that are raised properly from puppyhood, or just have as a genetically bred for trait so that they can do their job for a farmer.