Aggressive dog discussion/help? (Mandy-progress and plan update)

fawkese1

you must be doing something crazy wrong...clover has been answering posts for me for the last week.....and he is getting an A in my online spanish class....



Desensitization-was walking near each other-in view, and with people she knew walking the other dog. Also we let her get used to the dogs smell ahead of time-giving her a sniff of the dog's mom/dad first. But that's about it. We can't even use the TV to introduce her to dogs because she mauls the tv when dogs are on it

i'm just throwing my 2 cents in...how far off the path do you go in order to keep her from reacting? does she get corrected for reacting when you do this? what about bringing something yummy with you and slowly feeding it to her as the other dog passes....you've said she's really food motivated...

again, just an idea, but what about taking her within a distance that she is unlikely to encounter a dog, but can definately see them, and giving her yummy stuff...

i was really lucky that clover likes other dogs so much, so far so good (knocks on wood) but he definately was afraid of people...all the counter conditioning i've done with him has involved giving him something really wonderful whenever he was around something that he didn't like...it's like the pavlov's dogs classical conditioning...pairing something good with a stimulus...change the dog's emotional state in association with something "bad"

Brittany

Do you disagree with his method?

Criosphynx

I disagree with using corrections to suppress behavior as a "solution".

Criosphynx

this is the right track, just horendously too much to fast. This should take place in baby steps over weeks or months.
Unfortunately observational learning in dogs is VERY lacking. She will likely learn zip from watching other dogs play. Especially if the other dogs sounds/sight trigger anxiety, which they likely do.

once again dog didn't benefit from this (well mikey did lol)


has see ever been corrected for growling/lunging at other dogs? If so how harsh...be honest


yes yes yes! this


Another thing is I know your into this "praise only" method, but praise is not going to fix this IMO. Neither is correcting the dog. You need to make it worth it to the dog. Even with toys/ food this takes alot of work/time to fix. YOu need to change the underlying emotion with a primary reinforcer IMO

Mikey

LOL I'm not sure what-she can't type either!


You know it's only a couple of feet. She gets food for not looking and automatically ignores them-she ignores anything she doesn't like. If they come to close she does lunge and she's been corrected for that *ducks objects thrown at my head*

That sounds like a good first step


I almost wish we had what you do-because you can tell people what to do, but other dogs I can't control


*smacks self* What would be the baby steps?

That's sooo true-didn't even think about observational learning...just was grasping at straws...duly noted!

She has been. And now that I'm learning how bad corrections are...
We've NEVER harshly corrected any dog, but she's gotten the collar jerk (popped collar hehe) and been told NO (She knows what it means, but being a husky does not give two cents about no) or been told 'bad'. The only physical correction we've ever given is the leash jerk. Mainly verbal corrections.


Not totally into praise only but using it a bit with Mikey
Praise wouldn't work on her for anything-she's never cared LOL Just food -food and food.



Ok sooo stopping all corrections.

What about taking her out on the driveway (handler one) and having Mikey walk by (it's a court so we can circle; handler two) and handler one treats for appropriate (??? Calm??? What am I looking for?) reactions. Would that be a good start?
What do we do if she turns away and ignores Mikey? Is this a good thing (avoidance) or a bad thing? Do we ignore it or encourage her to look?

Criosphynx

sounds like avoidance behavior (fear based btw) a truely dog aggressive dog would be at the end of their leash like a nutso (before lots of training at least)


as you saw in the ecollar study, corrections are associated with the handler, or in this case...the other dog as well. Its very hard for the dog to realize its being corrected for ITS behavior...they just think the last thing they saw makes scary things happen. Thats why their reaction escalates...they are trying harder and harder to make the scary thing leave them alone.

for example in e collars if the dog jumps on a person and you STIM them, they often think that the person made the STIM happen...not the jumping...this is why dogs often will attack whoever is closest to them when they are zapped. Also with correcting aggression you risk the dog turning on you. If you can't bite the one you want, bite the one your with

This actually can/will make modifying this harder because you don't just have a dog thats uncomfortable anymore, you have a dog that is expecting an aversive as well in addition to the discomfort...you may have to do HUNDREDS of P+ reps to counteract one or two nice hard leash pops.


buy this book.
Amazon.com: Control Unleashed - Creating a Focused and Confident Dog: Leslie McDevitt: Books

read it.

seriously tho, start WAAAY small, like a hundred feet away. Also don't make it progressively harder...the dog will pick up on this and hit a plateau. You want easy, harder, easy, harder, hardest, easy, easy etc etc....keep it random so the dog wins alot.

thats what I expected, she is a husky after all...she wants to see "the goods" lol


start farther away...like across the street minimum.


for look at that we reward looks so you can change the underlying emotion about the trigger...then you begin (much later) to reward if the dog looks, then looks BACK at you. Then even later you can fade that to quick glances to the dog not looking at all...at that point its just a game to the dog....but you must change how the dog feels about the trigger first...so you must feed while they are looking at the dog (or mark it and then feed)

that help?

Criosphynx

I've been looking for this all day.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8zyjiA9bD3E

and this one

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EUCl6...eature=related

Mikey

THANK YOU!!

I think I'm buying a junky cam tomorrow-Maybe I'll pop over to mum's and do some of the driveway exercise and film it-so you can see how she is. I quite agree it is fear based agression. She seems to be trying to 'offensively' protect herself...if that makes sense.

OK-homework homework I'm going to see if I can d/l that book so I can start tonight

Would it be messy if we just keep this thread going, and I post about what we're doing, progress, video etc?

Criosphynx

I like adding to threads instead of starting new ones...if I were you i'd add it here

a vid would be awesome.

and your welcome

Mikey

OK sweet-was thinking, no matter if I buy a camera my parents have some so we can take a video
Though it might have to be saturday-tomorrow I have pet therapy (and it gets dark now at five becasue daylight savings has finished) and friday we have to go to the dog park-going to be 14 above and everyone goes on fridays.
So Saturday I'll update