Random Aggression

[drharps]

My pup is almost exactly 1 year old. I take her pretty much everywhere with me, but recently she's developed a random aggressiveness to certain things. For instance, we'll go to the beach and she'll sit there quietly, then seemingly out of nowhere will lunge at a person or dog that walks by, aggressively barking. She does this on our walks/runs as well. She'll let 100 people walk by, then randomly lunge at the next. 

Thoughts? Training techniques? 

[D'Elle]

Hard to help without seeing this or knowing more about it, about you, the dog, your relationship.

What have you been doing when she does that?

The behavior is not likely to be literally random. 

If you can give more information it might help us to make suggestions. Also, I would suggest that you start by very closely observing your dog. Not just at the beach, but at other times when you are out and about as well. Her lunging and barking isn't really out of nowhere, just unexpected to you, and it would help for you to understand what the trigger is if you can. If it were my dog, I would tighten my observation of her. I would essentially never take my eyes off her while at the beach, and I would observe her behavior closely in other settings as well. You can get a lot of info just by watching.

Ultimately what you will need to do is stop the behavior before it starts. If you can figure out the trigger (men, hats, beards, fast movement, slow movement, whatever) that helps. But close observation will teach you what she does just a second prior to lunging. She will perk her ears, tense her body, open her mouth...something. Then when you see that you can use a technique to get her focused on you instead. The book Control Unleashed has a good technique for this:  the "Look At That" game.

[drharps]

Thanks. It's really hard to tell. 

Here are a couple of examples:

Took her on a walk in a crowded area. A bunch of kids were running around and everyone was fairly active. Maybe the 25th kid to run by, after about 20 minutes, she lunged at. He was no different than any other kid as far as I could tell. 

At a bar with her, after maybe 2 hours of laying at my feet a woman came up to pet her. My dog let her and was super friendly. An hour later, the woman was leaving and wanted to say goodbye to the dog and she lunged at the woman.

I've tried paying attention and the closest I can tell is she stacks her energy and then gets fixated on something to the point of boiling over. I try to break her concentration but she often times will stay completely focused on the subject. Saying her name, saying 'look at me', and even grabbing her head and turning it all do nothing. That's usually when I know something will happen, but there are other times she's just lying down and jumps up. 

I think what needs to be done is to cut her energy every 30 minutes or so when I am at a place (like the beach). That's why i have another thread about easy close-quarters energy kills. That said, I'm still curious if people have other tips on how to handle the aggression or what they have done. 

[GentleLake]

It sounds to me like she may be more than stacking energy, but is maybe trigger stacking. That happens when a dog is experiencing multiple stressors that don't immediately spark a reaction but when they eventually hit a critical point the dog erupts.

I'd familiarize myself with stress signals and watch her closely to see if she's exhibiting any of them. Sometimes they can be very subtle. In addition to the ones D'Elle mentioned, there are other like lip licking (or quick, short flicks of the tongue), a furrowed brow, ears folded back, averting eyes, sniffing at the ground or floor, whale eye, etc. There are lots of pictorial examples on the internet and Turid Rugass' little book On Talking Terms with Dogs: Calming Signals is a fabulous resource. She also explains that this can sometimes be a learned response.

By the time a dog is so fixated on something that she's ignoring your attempts to distract her, she's already way over threshold and so unable to think clearly or to learn anything.

When I've worked with dogs like this, I've found that it can be very hard to read the subtle signals because I'm so caught up in trying to control the dog and prevent the outburst. I'm better at it now, but what I've done is enlist the help of a certified animal behavior consultant or a good trainer (not all of them are really equipped for this) who can observe us with more detachment and see what's going on. Sometimes just being able to see the interactions between the dog and her environment and between the dog and the handler from a different angle and distance can reveal a lot that the handler doesn't initially see.

If you go this route, please be very careful to avoid anyone who uses any kind of corrective measures. Adding a correction to a situation with an already anxious dog is far more likely to add addition stress than otherwise.

And definitely consider Look at That training. It's really an excellent tool. But you'll need to identify those stressors first so you can get ahead of things before she goes over threshold.

Good luck.

 

[drharps]

Thank you very much Gentle Lake, that makes a ton of sense and I'll check out those resources. 

I have a trainer coming tonight, and we've used him before, though he's receptive to the e-collar idea. In fact, we just got one for tonight. I'm not a fan of them, but he's had Borders for years and seems to like the idea, though not as a first resort. After tonight, I'll try to find a positive energy/animal behaviorist. 

[urge to herd]

Trigger stacking occurs in humans, too. Think about a day when you had a flat tire, the shirt you were going to wear was stained, there was nothing to eat for breakfast, and when you walked into work the boss started yelling at you. Any one or two of these things you could have dealt with fairly easily. Get to 3 of them, and your jaw is starting to clench. Get to 4 or more and there's an explosion.

It's the same with dogs. Too much stressors too close together and something cracks. Three hours at a bar is a lot for a border collie ~ all that motion & noise. I'm kinda surprised she didn't 'crack' earlier.

I've learned to read Gibbs' body language and actions, he's pretty easy. AND, I've learned to keep one eye on him, or at least check in frequently. Sometimes there's just a slight stiffening and hardening around his eyes and mouth. If I weren't looking for that, I'd be totally surprised when he went for the dog that was crowding him. We were able to avoid that.

Watch, watch, watch your dog in ALL kinds of situations. Learn her 'tells', and there are almost always tells.

Ruth & GIbbs

 

[prozach2]

There are some great YouTube videos by Kristen Crestejo on reading your dog’s behavior. She uses mostly BCs in the video. I bet if you watched those you’d get better at picking up on situations that are upsetting your dog before he lashes out.

[denice]

I would try to pay close attention to the folks behavior she is upset about.  Watch if they are making eye contact, they way they walk up and approach you or her.  There might be something she is reacting to. I would try to notice anything similar about them.  Also try to figure out the difference if she is fine one minute with them but not the next.  Are they leaning over her as opposed to kneeling down... It maybe also a scent.

I would not allow her to stay in one place and fixate on anything.  Get her up, walk around, ask for behaviors...

[GentleLake]

13 hours ago, drharps said:

...he's receptive to the e-collar idea. In fact, we just got one for tonight.

Please don't let him use an e-collar on what's most likely a fearful or stressed dog. It could make the problem much worse if you add such a negative, painful stimulus to the situation. It can prove to the dog that she really does have something to be concerned about (Wow! That scary person showed up and I got zapped. I really need to defend myself now!). You could be pouring gasoline on a fire.

[D'Elle]

I double what Gentle Lake says above. Don't ever, ever use an e-collar on this dog! Please.

If you do, you are very likely to make matters a whole lot worse. No matter how that trainer presents him or herself as having experience, it is a bad idea. Don't get talked into it.

You say that after about 20 minutes of being around those kids she lunged at one. This tells me plainly that 20 minutes was simply too long for her.  Ditto at the bar. She was simply being asked to tolerate what was to her a stressful situation for too long and she reached a breaking point.

Imagine yourself at a noisy cocktail party with people getting drunk and loud. It's OK with you for the first half hour or so, but suddenly at the 45 minute mark you NEED to get out of there.  At that point if someone comes up to you and gets in your face, you might not be able to be polite. Same thing.

Limit her contact with any possible stress situation to much shorter times. There may in fact not be any trigger having to do with the individual people she reacts to; it may simply be that she has a low saturation point for those situations.  I would strongly suggest that you take her to such places for only 5 to 10 minutes at a time, and while she is lying peacefully pay attention to her: petting, nice talk, the occasional treat. Then leave. You might be able to build up the time very slowly over the course of months. But she may always be a dog who just doesn't tolerate long periods of time around noise, movement, people, etc. If that is the case, do yourself and her both a favor and leave her home if you want to spend a long time in one of those places or situations.

[CptJack]

This person posted on another dog forum I am part of and didn't like the advice he got - which unsurprisingly was much in line with what is posted, here.  Hopefully, hearing it from two entirely different groups of people will help. 

[drharps]

On July 20, 2018 at 5:51 PM, CptJack said:

This person posted on another dog forum I am part of and didn't like the advice he got - which unsurprisingly was much in line with what is posted, here.  Hopefully, hearing it from two entirely different groups of people will help. 

Actually Cpt I tend to like getting a variety of opinions to see if one resonates or makes more sense, so I wanted to see what this board had to say given it's with people who tend to know the breed type better. It has nothing to do with "didn't like the advice" I got. 

[drharps]

To respond with what the professional trainer said, he actually didn't find my dog aggressive or fearful - he likened it to what you said gentle lake of it mostly being trigger stacking. He said overall she's seemingly fine, but has not learned that her barking and lunging is an unwanted behavior so he gave me a few tips on reducing the stacking likelihood, which we practiced successfully at the beach. He didn't think the e-collar was necessary, although said it could be used around the house if I immediately show her what I want and reward her for the good action - which we'd already been doing and without the e collar. 

[D'Elle]

drharps, glad to hear this from you. It sounds as if you may be on the right track and I am most relieved that you are not using the e-collar. I personally think the e-collar is rarely needed with any dog (although they can be useful in some extreme circumstances). I would only use one on a border collie if literally everything else had been tried, for a long time, and it was the last resort before the dog would have to be killed. This is extremely rare. 

[GentleLake]

I too am glad it seems not to be as dire as you feared it might be. I know how easy it is when you're in the midst of something, especially something as potentially grievous as aggression, to let your mind run to the worst case scenario and to feel overwhelmed. It's a serious issue.

I'm happy the trainer was able to calm your fears and give you some good tips for working with your dog. Take things slowly. Now that you know that she's easily stressed you should be able to limit her exposure to stressful situations and watch for the warning signs that she's reaching her limits and get her outta Dodge. Just like something as simple as house training, preventing the overload and not allowing her to get to the point where she acts out is half the battle. Prevention is better than correction.

Best wishes as you progress. Please let us know how things are going.

[drharps]

Thank you GentleLake and D'Elle. Yes, I am confident I can get things right with her. All my previous dogs were much easier, though they lacked the drive and intelligence of Tikka so that is understandable. At her core she's an incredibly sweet dog - which the trainer who also kennels her - acknowledged.

One question I have: you mentioned the "look at that" technique is good. I'm curious if that is functionally any different than "look at me," or if because you're using her natural inclination to look at the stimulus it's a better way to break her concentration. We are currently in the midst of teaching her "look at me" so I'm wondering if it makes sense to also teach her "look at that" or if it's same-same. 

Thank you again. 

[GentleLake]

No, it's not the same.

Looking at you is good to encourage handler focus, but if you teach her only to look at you, there's still that scary thing just out of sight that causes the anxiety.

By cuing her to look at that (i.e whatever's causing the anxiety) instead, she has permission to take a quick look to see and acknowledge its presence and then look back to you for reassurance and direction. You're not asking her to fixate or stare at that, whatever it is, just to check it out and then check in with you.

It would be a really good idea to either read the book or check out some resources on the method online. I believe there are quite a few these days.

 

[D'Elle]

The Look At That    training is excellent. the book is Control Unleashed and I highly recommend it. Paperback, Amazon, not expensive. You can also Google You Tube videos on it.  Very different from Look At Me.