Circling & barking at strangers

[RainDrops]

Sorry for the long post. I have an issue I'm trying to solve with my dog but I'm at a loss for what to do at this point and it's stressing me to death. She is 9 months old, and generally great with strangers, even children. She loves attention from them without being overly needy. She is naturally polite. When I first got her (at 7 months from previous owner) she would sometimes bark at big or tall men, but she has pretty much stopped this after a lot of exposure. But when we are off leash in safe areas (fenced or far from roads), she will occasionally exhibit some really bad behavior. She will go up to a person (often people she's already met and been fine with) and she will get this excited look and start barking and lunging and running around them, clearly excited and playful (though can seem scary). It instantly puts her over her excitement threshold and she does not want to listen to me if I tell her to stop. I interpret this behavior as her attempting to get a reaction out of people, because she has learned that barking and lunging makes them pay attention to her. This behavior seems to be self reinforcing. She has done this to adults and children alike, sometimes with obvious triggers like strange dress, but most often without reason.

She also wants to do it to scooters or rollerblades, though this action may have a different motivation because she will try to catch the rollerblades with her teeth. I have seen her show some improvement regarding rollerblades, where she seemed to lose interest and be less tempted to chase and bark after multiple exposures with a lack of response from the rollerblader.

She seemed to be getting better about this, doing it less and less. Still seemed more inclined to try it with children, but still with the vast majority of children she would be fine. I first try to call her off and if that doesn't work I go and catch her, then chill her out and redirect her away from whatever person she was interested in. And she's generally fine after that, interacting normally with the person. If we are in unfenced areas, I have been using a long lead to help her understand appropriate distances to keep from me, and to understand not to go up to strange dogs unless I allow it. But I've taken it off if there is another off lead dog she would very much like to play with, because the lead will tangle if I leave it on. That's how I arrived at a situation today. There was a family there with an off lead retriever and I let Fern off to meet the dog (given it was a calm area, well behaved older children) after having her approach slowly with me. The children were not that young, and behaving fine just standing there. I think Fern was disappointed the dog was not as playful as she hoped, and turned her attention to one of the children, circling and barking. But this time she started trying to nip his ankles as she ran around him. We caught her as quickly as possible, told her off and apologized to the family.

I know this is a very seriously bad behavior, and I want to keep it from happening. But there doesn't seem to be an obvious trigger. It's not a movement based "herding" response because there's often no movement involved. She has decent self control with many things, but as I said, her recall is not effective if she is pushed over the excitement threshold. I have been working on exposing her to more and more excitement on our walks, and she has been great with this. She is getting to the point where she will respond to basic commands even in very busy, exciting areas (of course on leash). But it can be a very calm situation and as soon as she decides to engage in the circle/bark she will not listen to me. Or if she does listen to me, she will come to me very briefly and then run back and resume. I live in a very populated area and "take her places without people" is not a good solution. She is great with people almost all the time. She never does this behavior on leash (not sure about long lead). Going to these parks is her favorite thing in the world, but I need to find a way to teach her proper behavior so there is no chance of her hurting somebody.

I have tried to use positive reinforcement training with her and it's mainly worked well. But I cannot figure out how to target this with PR training. As soon as she begins the behavior, she is too far gone to correct with an alternative behavior or to redirect. I'm considering that this behavior might require more corrective measures like an E-collar for her own safety, because I'm terrified she'll get labeled a dangerous dog for just being playful in a very wrong way. 

 

[GentleLake]

She's still very young and hasn't learned impulse control. Until she does, she needs to be kept on a long line so you can interrupt the behavior and keep her from self-rewarding.

[RainDrops]

31 minutes ago, GentleLake said:

She's still very young and hasn't learned impulse control. Until she does, she needs to be kept on a long line so you can interrupt the behavior and keep her from self-rewarding.

This seems very sensible, but I'm concerned with doing this because in many situations she will get the long line very tangled which seems very dangerous, and this includes all fenced areas that she goes. 

[Flora & Molly]

It might help to call her to you quicker to prevent the situation from happening.

When Molly was a pup she jumped up on people in off leash areas. Correcting while she was doing this didn't help, because she was so excited. Therefore we would call her to us way in advance before the people were too close, put her on her leash and taught her to heel while we went by. As soon as we passed them we would let her off leash. After a while we could ask her to do this without putting her on a leash. And now at three years old she knows to ignore strangers on walks.

Another thing to do is to move on sooner. If you see the dog she wants to play with isn't very interested: move on. This way she doesn't have time to find something else to do. Remove yourself and your dog from the situation.

Lastly, I wouldn't call my dog to me in situations where I know she might not listen. It is better to go and get her than to let her blow off the recall.

I hope this helps

 

[RainDrops]

6 minutes ago, Flora & Molly said:

It might help to call her to you quicker to prevent the situation from happening.

When Molly was a pup she jumped up on people in off leash areas. Correcting while she was doing this didn't help, because she was so excited. Therefore we would call her to us way in advance before the people were too close, put her on her leash and taught her to heel while we went by. As soon as we passed them we would let her off leash. After a while we could ask her to do this without putting her on a leash. And now at three years old she knows to ignore strangers on walks.

Another thing to do is to move on sooner. If you see the dog she wants to play with isn't very interested: move on. This way she doesn't have time to find something else to do. Remove yourself and your dog from the situation.

Lastly, I wouldn't call my dog to me in situations where I know she might not listen. It is better to go and get her than to let her blow off the recall.

I hope this helps

 

Thank you this is good advice. I think I need to focus more on what subtle behaviors might indicate that she's considering misbehaving, and focus on shutting her off before she gets going. It is challenging because it happens so fast! But she is definitely learning to stay with me more (as long as her excitement is under control), and I think the impulse control is slowly improving. I just don't want any bad accidents to happen along the journey of course.

[jami74]

We have a similar thing when we come across walkers without dogs, although not quite to the same extent. Our boy will run up to them but stop just short of getting there and run away again. If I'm not quick enough he'll repeat it two or three times until they are too far away from us to bother. I'm not sure if he's trying to engage them in play or 'seeing them off'. Obviously I work on preventing this from happening by being very aware of what's going on around us and recalling him to put him on the leash before he starts.

Everything I've read suggests teaching them what you do want them to do when they find themselves in a situation, rather than just trying to extinguish a behaviour and expecting them to know what to do instead. I saw a really good example yesterday. We saw a walker with a golden lab in front of us and as we've always had good experiences with golden labs I thought it might be an opportunity for a friendly meet and greet and possibly play. But when we got closer the walker called the lab over to her and it sat next to her looking at us and then looking back to the owner for a treat. As a result I called my boy over and we walked quickly past (he was happy to come because the lab was ignoring him and he got rewarded with a couple of dropped treats and a throw of the ball). I have to say that I was really quite excited to see that in action because I have read loads of articles and personal experiences about 'Look at that' and teaching alternative behaviours and watched loads of YouTube videos where the dog seems to get it straight away and is rehabilitated in a few short minutes, but it's the first time I've actually seen it done and working in real life.

7 hours ago, RainDrops said:

Going to these parks is her favorite thing in the world, but I need to find a way to teach her proper behavior so there is no chance of her hurting somebody.

I have tried to use positive reinforcement training with her and it's mainly worked well. But I cannot figure out how to target this with PR training. As soon as she begins the behavior, she is too far gone to correct with an alternative behavior or to redirect. I'm considering that this behavior might require more corrective measures like an E-collar for her own safety, because I'm terrified she'll get labeled a dangerous dog for just being playful in a very wrong way. 

It's the same for us. I wish we had miles and miles of countryside to enjoy with the guarantee of no other people, but we don't. And I'm also terrified of our boy getting a bad label, other people have even said to me they don't think his behaviour is very bad for a young dog but I know for a non-dog person being barked or lunged at can be terrifying. I don't think an E-collar is the best way to go, what would she learn if every time she excitedly bounced up to a person something horrible happened round her neck? I'm not sure it would teach her that coming to heel or laying down would be a better option. It might teach her that bad things happen when people are near. Prevent it as much as you can and ask for an alternate behaviour, soon she'll know what to do instead.

[urge to herd]

Great advice! I'd also add to start keeping her with you on leash sometimes when you come across strangers, with or without dogs. Teach her that the sight of a friendly dog or a person does not mean she gets to interact with them. Walk on by, reinforcing her good behavior. Do this a LOT. An off-leash area does not mean HER leash comes off. I know you won't want to spend a lot of time in an off-leash park w/her on leash, but just a pop-in a few steps into the park. Say hi to somebody and then back out. Or if there is an off-leash park without fencing, stroll through the very edges of it. If someone approaches you simply tell them you're training your dog and keep on going.

I'd suspect that her excitement level starts ramping up before she gets into the off-leash area, or as soon as she sees something that triggers her circling/barking habit. Walk her through these situations numerous times, sometimes she gets to go play, (as long as she plays nicely) and other times she does not. That will, hopefully, keep her calmer longer, and increase your success w/callbacks.

Good luck!

Ruth & Gibbs

[RainDrops]

2 minutes ago, urge to herd said:

Great advice! I'd also add to start keeping her with you on leash sometimes when you come across strangers, with or without dogs. Teach her that the sight of a friendly dog or a person does not mean she gets to interact with them. Walk on by, reinforcing her good behavior. Do this a LOT. An off-leash area does not mean HER leash comes off. I know you won't want to spend a lot of time in an off-leash park w/her on leash, but just a pop-in a few steps into the park. Say hi to somebody and then back out. Or if there is an off-leash park without fencing, stroll through the very edges of it. If someone approaches you simply tell them you're training your dog and keep on going.

I'd suspect that her excitement level starts ramping up before she gets into the off-leash area, or as soon as she sees something that triggers her circling/barking habit. Walk her through these situations numerous times, sometimes she gets to go play, (as long as she plays nicely) and other times she does not. That will, hopefully, keep her calmer longer, and increase your success w/callbacks.

Good luck!

Ruth & Gibbs

Thank you for all the advice. We will work on these things. I do think she is a bit demanding at her current age, and she is constantly testing to see what she can do to get what she wants, which includes trying to control people with the barking and lunging. It's easy when it's me she's trying to control, and I've so far stamped out all her attempts to manipulate me. But with strangers it can be hard. I am so thankful of the bad things she doesn't do, and I try to remind myself it could be worse. She doesn't chase cars, and she isn't reactive or fearful. So there's that.

[D'Elle]

If I had a dog in my care who did what you describe even once that dog would henceforth be on a leash at all times. Not a long line, a regular leash. 

I would then work, on leash, on the behavior while I am able to control where she goes. There are various ways to do this.

 To change the behavior entirely I would recommend the "look At That" protocol in the book "Control Unleashed".

Do not ever, ever let your dog even have the opportunity to do this again. It is a self-rewarding behavior and any time she gets away with it just makes it harder for you to train her out of it. It is also potentially dangerous for her. Best of luck. I know the Look At That game works.