dog

How to Fix Leash Reactivity

Leash reactivity…what is it? Does your dog have it? Is it aggression?

dog reactivity

Fix Leash Reactivity

Let’s unpack what leash reactivity is. When a dog is on leash, and has a reaction to certain triggers/distractions. These reactions can be minor like change in posture or panting, to something more severe like lunging and barking. Luckily, for most dogs reactivity does not equal aggression (though sometimes it does).

Why does my dog have leash reactivity? There are a few different possibilities to this question. First, many overly friendly dogs who are leash reactive are excited when they see another dog. They may end up barking, jumping around, hitting the end of the leash and carrying on. Often these dogs are dogs who attend dog daycares, dog parks, or are allowed to go up and say hi to most dogs they see on a walk. While this type of dog is not aggressive it is often embarrassing for the humans and often stressful for the other dogs. Another reason your dog might be leash reactive is barrier frustration. Think of a dog who is barking when it is behind a fence or in the house behind the window.

A leash acts as a barrier, and when it is tight dogs can become frustrated. This type of dog is usually fine to see dogs when there are no barriers present. The next type of reactivity is fear based. When a fearful dog sees another dog and he reacts, in his mind he made the scary thing go away. Often this dog has had one or more negative experiences with another dog or is due to lack of exposure to dogs (though usually it is caused by a bad experience). These dogs usually can warm up to other dogs once a proper introduction has been made.

The last type of leash reactivity is true aggression. This is uncommon but does exist. This is a dog who definitely wants to hurt another dog. It is rare this type of dog can be fully trained out of this and may need management for the rest of it’s life. Luckily it is rare to see true aggression.

How do I fix reactivity? While the reason your dog is reactive plays a small role in the training plan to resolve the behaviour, in the end the recipe will remain similar if not the same regardless of the reason.

The core foundation of working on reactivity will revolve around 5 key factors.

Distance – When it comes to addressing reactivity, we want to meet the dog where they’re at instead of trying to muscle through the situation. What we mean by this is if your dog is in the grade school equivalent of Kindergarten, then don’t put your dog in a grade school level above their skill set, like say grade 6. In order to stay within their skill set we need to find out what our dog’s threshold is for success.

Say your dog can see another dog at 40′ but at 35′ your dog starts to pant, and their tail goes up, you need to start working with your dog at 40′. When you push the dog past their threshold you are in essence muscling through it. In this scenario 40′ is the dog’s threshold and would be what we consider to be where the dog is able to learn. If you push the dog too far (or too close) then your dog will no longer be in a learning state of mind. If your dog is freaking out, lunging, barking, and carrying on, they cannot learn.

Movement – Part of working through reactivity is to use movement to help keep our dogs calm. If you consider your dog like a pressure cooker when you ask him to sit still, it is far more likely they will explode. If you keep them moving (with some strategy as movement alone will not necessarily fix the issue), you can help them feel more calm. Another reason to use movement is because if say when we see a dog, we panic, we pull our dog off to the side, and we either distract them or we let them stare the other dog down, we are also ourselves being reactive.

Our goal is always to achieve a neutral response to things around the dog. If when we see another dog, we either a) rely on distraction or b) pull our dogs off to the side and let them stare, our dog is not neutral at all. A neutral response to seeing another dog or trigger would be to see it, look at it for 1-3 seconds, look away and carry on.

Correction – In order to disagree with reactivity we need to be able to correct the unwanted behaviour. However, we do not rely on correction alone. So many people have tried correction alone and it rarely works out for them. Why? There are a few reasons so let’s discuss. First is timing. Most of the time we see people waiting for their dog to be reactive in order to want to correct them. If your dog is blowing up it is too late, very few dogs will respond to a correction when they are already losing their mind. Second is how firm of a correction is given.

We are not saying you need to do a double handed yank on the leash, but if your correction is too soft it will have no meaning to the dog. Lastly, the type of training tool used. Tools are not all equal and a correction given on a harness will not yield the same results as a remote collar, head collar or prong collar. Tools do matter and it will take you a VERY long time to work through reactivity on a harness.

Reward – We use a lot of food rewards in our training, and working through reactivity is no different. You might see other trainers trying to use food to distract, desensitize or counter condition the dog, but they we we use food is to reward the dog for every good choice they make. That might mean we reward them for less than perfect choices so long as it is better than the alternative choice they would have made before. You will often hear us talking about naming and explaining as well which is a type of perception modification used to help the dog feel better about their surroundings.

The way we use N&E is when our dog notices something (anything not just their main triggers), we will tell them what it is. For example “that is a car, yes” and then feed. Your tone should be neutral like you are saying to them it is just a car. You can use multiple rewards for one trigger which can be super helpful in stressful situations. The idea is that not only are we helping the dog feel better but also creating what we call a cut off cue.

Dog looks at the trigger, then looks at you for the reward. This is creating muscle memory in the brain that the dog is not to hard stare at the trigger, and can relieve stress by simply looking away. We also want to remember that improvement should be rewarded even if it is not perfect. If your dog is better than they were even 1 minute ago, you can reward that despite the fact that they may not yet be perfect.

Repetition – An important element to resolving reactivity is repetition and practice. Reactivity does not go away over night and will require plenty of practice before they get to neutral. We recommend setting up as many practice sessions as possible. This may mean driving outside of your neighbourhood to say a dog park to practice outside the park. When do you stop practicing? When your dog no longer needs the practice. Simple as that. That could be a couple of weeks, that could be two months. The better you follow the plan the sooner you will no longer need to practice!

 

Why obedience is not the answer to your problems

obedience dog training hamilton

Obedience is not the answer to your problems?

Obedience…such a commonly used word when we talk about the way we train our dogs.  We have been brainwashed to think that obedience is the only thing we need to worry about. The end all be all to training. They must obey, they must sit, they must lay down, they must do what we say. They must do so willingly and with positive reinforcement only, but also without an expectation of reward. However, dogs are sentient beings with emotions, thoughts, and feelings. Why as humans do we think we are superior and need to control our dogs? Because that is what obedience is all about, control. If I say sit you must do as I say and sit because I feel the need to control you and make decisions for you despite how you are feeling about the situation.

Lets unpack why an obedience based training mentality is not ideal and actually not needed.

1. Obedience does not change the way the dog feels about the situation. Take for example if your dog is reactive on leash and it stems from fear, so you ask for eye contact from your dog and you enforce the rule that when we pass a dog you must give me eye contact on demand, in no way does this change the way the dog feels about passing dogs while on a walk.

All it does it put blinders on your dog. Your dog is still afraid of and would still react if it was allowed to look at that other dog. In the training world this is called teaching an “incompatible” behaviour. So that means you teach the dog to do something else so that it can’t do the behaviour you don’t like. This does not change the emotional state of the dog and rather only suppresses the behaviour. As trainers and owners, we should be looking for ways to help support our dogs, lift them up, help them feel better in their own skin. Instead of focusing on obedience alone to solve all our problems.

2. The second reason being that we should not feel the need to control another living being. I am not saying you can’t teach your dog to sit when you ask them to. It is more about the mindset behind the WHY you need your dog to sit. When someone wants to focus on obedience, I often as why? Why does your dog NEED to sit before crossing the street? Why does your dog NEED to sit before you give him a treat? Most people cannot answer this without a “because I said so” type answer.

Of course there are a couple of life saving commands that all dogs should know and respond to like “come” and a solid “wait” for safety around doorways that lead to the outdoors. However, this need to command our dogs “because we said so” is pointless and unnecessary. What it comes down to is that we are using control and commands based on our desire to be in charge and need to have our dogs listen to what we say.

3. The third being that when a dog is performing obedience commands they are not in free behaviour. What does that mean? If I have to tell my dog to go to “place’ because that is the only way he can handle certain situations then my dog is not making the choice on their own but rather only behaving because I have told them what to do. I don’t see the need to micromanage our dogs.

Not only is it exhausting for the human, can create conflict for the dog, but also we have to think about what our dogs would choose to do if we didn’t tell them what to do. Meaning if the human isn’t there to tell the dog to go to place, what would the dog do? What if someone else is watching your dog and they don’t know how to enforce the command? We want to teach the dog how to be well behaved and make good choices so they can live in our human world without having to be micromanaged all the time. Not only will you enjoy your dog more, but we will remove unnecessary conflict from your relationship.

When it comes to training, we should focus on relationship, teaching our dogs how to make good choices without being told what to do, work on how to be calm when they don’t necessarily want to be, and how to feel better about situations that make them uncomfortable. Let’s worry less about being in control and more about the animal in front of us that we consider family!

Dog Training Collars – Choosing the right one

dog training collarsWhen training your puppy or dog, the tool you use should be efficient and effective. The way you use the tool should be clear, consistent, and humane. While I am not going to discuss any one specific tool, know that we use a variety of training collars when training a dog. The only tools we do not use are harnesses (of any type), or regular flat buckle collars. Of course we do have our preferences, but that is not the point of this post.

When training your dog you should be using your leash and training collar to provide the dog with information. How clear the information is will depending on the tool, and your skills and timing. There are some people with many years of experience around dogs who can use a piece of fishing line to train a dog. However, they are few and far between. Now take for example if you were to try to build a wooden box. You have a table saw and a drill, or you have a dull hand saw, some nails and a rock. Now you can probably still get the job done with the dull hand saw, nails and rock. You can cut the wood with the hand saw, but it will be slow and a little messy. You can use the rock to pound the nails into the wood. Now, the job can get done, but it wasn’t efficient or effective and the end results aren’t as great as they could be. Next, let’s look at the table saw and drill. You can cut perfectly straight lines and you can put it together quickly with the drill. Both get the job done (kind of), but one is far better than the other.

Dog training tools can be viewed the same way. The wrong tool is the dull saw and the rock. The right tool, table saw and drill. Now, for those concerned with some of the tools that might look torture devices (prime example is the prong collar), note that a table saw and drill can be used incorrectly or even with intent to cause pain. BUT when used properly they can help you build beautiful works of art! Just like the saw and drill, dog training collars can be used incorrectly, or even with the intent to cause pain. However, that comes down to the person holding the leash not the tool itself.

So, if the tool you are using is giving you the results that a dull saw and rock would give you, you might want to reconsider and try something else!

Happy Training!
Katherine Vooys-McDonald
Canines In Balance
Hamilton, Ontario

Dog training Collars

Puppy Socialization – What does it really mean?

Puppy Socialization

What is puppy socialization? Recently I shared an article explaining my hate for dog parks. OK, hate might be a strong word…more like my strong dislike for dog parks. If you read the article you will understand why I dislike them so much (if you did not read it here it is http://www.kdmathews.com/-bark-blog/just-say-noto-dogparks).puppy socialization

When people get a new puppy or dog, everyone says “oh you have to socialize them right away”. Somehow, somewhere the definition of socialization turned into taking your dog to the dog park to be around as many dogs as possible regardless of their temperament or disposition.  Don’t get me wrong, I love the IDEA of the dog park. Dogs, off leash, enjoying the company of other dogs and people. Sounds lovely doesn’t it? Unfortunately too many dogs who shouldn’t be at the dog park frequent on a daily basis. Unfortunately, most dog owners have no idea what to look for in a dog who should or should not be freely socializing with other dogs. Unfortunately, not enough people are advocating for their dogs (and maybe they just don’t know how or that they should). Unfortunately, this leads to dogs being bullied, dog fights, and dogs who were once confident around other dogs leaving fearful and insecure. Just last week we were training our dogs outside of the Grimsby Dog Park and saw a dog fight break out within 10 seconds of one dog entering the park…not to mention the over adrenalized dogs running around in pure chaos, the humping (ohhhh the humping…non stop humping), and owners off in their own little world chatting or on their phones.

So now that we’ve cleared up with a brief overview as to why I do not like dog parks and why they should not be your “go to” for socializing your puppy or dog…you’re probably still wondering what the heck you CAN do to socialize your dog! Socialization needs to be productive and positive. Yes, getting your puppy around other dogs is important but it needs to be around the right dogs. One bad experience can affect your puppy for the rest of their lives. Most dogs who are reactive or dog aggressive were not born that way. More often than not, there was at least one bad experience that caused the behaviour and many owners can pin point that experience. The risk of taking your puppy or dog to the dog park is far too great and is not worth the potential consequences.  Take your puppy or dog to group training, find a trainer who holds socialization classes, or find some friends or family with a nice balanced dog. However, getting your puppy or dog around other dogs is not the only component to socialization. Most behavioural issues come from fear, lack of confidence, lack of trust in handler, and not learning to follow. More important than letting your dog play with other dogs, is to expose them to as many positive experiences as possible in a variety of different ways. If you want to ensure you have a confident and happy dog who can go places with you then you need to take your dog to different places, let them explore different sounds and smells, touch and feel all kinds of surfaces. Here are some examples of what you can do:

  • Take your dog to different dog friendly stores (most banks, Lowes, TSC, Rona, and many more).
  • Using a long line (or off leash if your dog has a solid recall), allow your dog explore parks, trails, fields etc.
  • Find any unique surface and encourage your dog to explore it (bridges, jungle gyms, tarps etc).

The benefits of giving your dog plenty of exposure to these different situations will in turn produce a confident dog who can handle most of what life throws it’s way. If you only take your dog to the dog park for socialization, you can expect the one time you decide to bring your dog into a new situation he will be anxious, misbehaved, and it will not be enjoyable for either of you.Puppy socialization

If you need help socializing your puppy or dog please contact us for a FREE evaluation at 905-869-1170!

Happy Training
Katherine Vooys
Canines In Balance
Hamilton, Ontario

puppy socialization

Puppy socialization

New Year! New Dog!

Puppy Training BurlingtonHappy New Year! Have you thought about your New Year’s Resolutions yet? Maybe your dog needs a resolution too? Pulling on leash? Jumping on guests? Excessive barking? Begging at the table? Not listening? If this sounds a little too familiar then it might just be time to make a joint resolution with your dog. While we hope training becomes an all year thing for you and your dog, why not take this opportunity to start the year off right? We have a variety of options when it comes to training to suit the needs of everyone. Whether you are looking for group class, private one on one training, or want us to do the training for you at Day School, we’ve got the solution to help you get your dog’s issues under control. Our gentle and effective training methods actually work! Just check out what our clients have to say here!

Not sure you want to commit to training just yet? Here are some FREE easy dog training tips to get you started on your own!

Adult Group Dog Training & Group Puppy Training

We now have two locations for Adult Group Dog Training and Group Puppy Training classes to serve you better! DogDen in Burlington on Monday and Wednesdays, and Temple of the Dog in Beamsville on Tuesdays and Saturdays.

Puppy training Burlington Puppy training Burlington

 

We’d love to hear about your dog training goals! Contact us to reserve your spot in group class or to book a FREE evaluation for private training!

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