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Great thread! a life less, those videos are awesome. I hope that we can pull off that kind of training with Psyche. I have a question about the best way to utilize time-outs. We try not to do positive punishment with Psyche, but we need a way to teach her that she shouldn't bark when she wants something. We've taught her to use a bell when she wants to go out and to sit when she wants to be pet, but she doesn't always go to those things first. Sometimes, especially when I'm sitting at my desk working, she comes up to me and puts her paws on my armrest. I ignore her because she should sit for attention, but it just escalates to pawing, barking, nipping and mouthing, and jumping on my lap until she finally remembers that she needs to sit or go to the door. All of those things I could ignore (though the trainer said we shouldn't tolerate any nipping or mouthing), but barking means angry neighbors, so we try to put her in a time-out in the bathroom until she calms down. The problem is, I'm not sure she knows why she's getting put in the bathroom. The transition from biting/barking to bathroom may be too long. Sometimes she's more calm after, sometimes she jumps right back into barking at me (which is occasionally deafening for such a little dog). We also give her time-outs in her bed when she barks at people in the hall and this works well, but when she's barking at us, she just continues barking from her bed. I know that more exercise would help and I've been lengthening her walks and outside training sessions. She's a little barky dog (a bitchy one too, she regularly talks back to me) though and we need to nip that in the bud as much as possible and also teach her that her teeth should never be on people, which is why we were trying timeouts when she uses extreme methods to get attention. Any suggestions are welcome!
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Nov 11, 2010 19:05
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a life less posted:I can think of a few things. Thanks for your reply. The timeline goes something like this: I'm sitting working, she comes up and puts her paws on my armrest. I either tell her off or wait for her to correct herself if she's not too hyper. If she sits or downs, I turn and pet her and then get up to see if she wants something in particular. If she starts pawing at me, then I tell her off and sit. If she's in a mood, she'll maybe paw harder or nip or maybe sit and then bark at me. It's at this point that I put her in the bathroom. I try to give her attention whenever she sits for me. If I see her sit, I pet her and then try to figure out what she wants. It's just that sometimes I can't figure out what she wants. She'll ignore her toys (and me) if I try to play until I go back to work and then she's at it again. Typing this out makes it sound a lot like she's just bored, but she does it even when I know she's very sleepy. Time-outs do calm her down temporarily though, so I guess we'll keep at it. I've also been using 'Shhh' as a calming signal for a while now because she barks at things outside a lot. I'm working on reinforcing it more. I have another training question. Psyche is very good at standing up on her hind legs and balancing (she watched for a squirrel standing up for like 30 seconds the other day, it was soooooo cute). I'd like to figure out how to get her to do that on command, but before I do, I'm wondering if that's bad for her legs. It's an unnatural position and she'll small so I don't want to force her to strain herself. She already does plenty of things where she's liable to hurt herself (like falling up stairs and acting like a mountain goat on our furniture).
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Nov 17, 2010 20:33
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Thanks everyone, I'll make that the next trick I teach her. I already hold my hand over her head as the signal for jump, so I'll have to work on a new signal and probably ease her into it. I have another question about treats for training. Psyche will work for kibble (yay!), but I think she's starting to get bored with it on walks. We use turkey hot dogs for her special recall treat and we buy those refrigerated meat logs for her classes, but those aren't really things I want to carry about on her walks everyday. I could suck it up and deal with it, but we also give her things to chew inside (probably too often because she tears through anything in ten minutes or less) and I worry about her weight. Are there brands of kibble that are particularly tasty/smelly that I could buy to use just on walks? Would the flavor difference be big enough that she would care? I don't have a good sense of how many calories a piece of kibble has, but I think it must be a lot smaller than most of the other dried treats I see, like dried liver or whatever. Her current food is Innova.
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Nov 18, 2010 02:07
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Has anyone here ever used a Thundershirt? My trainer just ordered a bunch at wholesale because she's heard good things. So we got one. It's a doggie wrap that supposedly comforts the dog by wrapping them in a reassuring pressure. According to reviews on Amazon, they really work for things like dogs who are afraid of thunderstorms and such. The website claims it can work for any anxiety and can be used in training. I'm skeptical, but we'll try anything to help Psyche learn how to be more calm. If nothing else, we can use it to keep her warmer during the winter. Speaking of training tools, I took her on her first walk with a head collar today. She took it off once, but otherwise did really well! She was a lot less jumpy and barky around things that usually get her going. It only took about 15 minutes for someone to call it a muzzle though. 
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Nov 24, 2010 20:49
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moechae posted:Hey, so I have kind of a specific question. I've got a beagle (Ike) that counter surfs. Really bad. We took him to training classes at Petsmart (they were actually really good, trained us with clickers and everything) and we eventually taught him "off" for when he puts his paws up on/near a counter, and it works just fine in those circumstances. Our counters and one table we eat at are high enough that he can barely get his nose over the edge, so we've also learned not to put any food too near the edge of the counter. We have the same problem except it's not just food. If Psyche is not sleeping or we're not paying attention to her, she's stealing something off of desks, tables, counters...we keep food out of her way, but she'll pretty much take anything. We're working on a solid off and leave it, but our trainer also suggested setting her up. We haven't done it yet, but it seems like an interesting idea. The idea is to leave a trap with something tasty such that when dog snatches it, something safe but loud comes tumbling down. For a kitchen, I imagine a stack of pie tins or something would be perfect. We haven't figured out what to use for carpet yet. The unpleasant experience may make the dog weary of the counters and then combined with the management a life less talked about (don't leave tempting things around!), it may reduce that behavior. But what do I know, my dog just stole my nail file from right next to me.
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Dec 5, 2010 14:56
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Wulfolme posted:This is Lee. We are working on similar things with my dog who is set off by proximity and eye contact, especially in 'her' territory. Giving treats when he sees someone is called counter-conditioning, which you'll see around here a lot. Definitely use a clicker because it is fast and accurate and tells the dog 'treat is on the way!'. Depending on the level of reaction, what we do is, if puppy is sub-threshold, but really upset, we just shove treats in her mouth continuously. If she's just sort of barking and warning things off, then we ask her to sit and then shove treats in her mouth while she's being calm. This is no longer pure counter-conditioning because we've asked her to do something, but it's a good step, especially if your dog is a jumper as well as a barker and growler. Eventually you teach the dog a focus command and then bonus points for looking at you. You can also start training an 'ignore' or 'leave it' command away from other people. We started out with a leave it where she had to leave off a treat or food before she could have it. But now we're also doing ignore where if we tell her to ignore something, she's supposed to forget it exists. We're starting by putting down one of her favorite treats and then asking her to ignoring it. If she looks at us instead of the treat, we reward her with a better treat and she never gets the original treat. The idea is that you should eventually be able to tell the dog to ignore any object, like an upsetting person, and they'll not pay attention to it and look at you for directions instead. It's also good if they like to pick up all the trash the neighbors leave around. 
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Dec 8, 2010 14:40
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^^^^ Good article. Yeah, I wouldn't use anything that I wasn't causing myself and monitoring closely to see the dog's reaction. If my dog showed any 'shut down' behavior or fear of the can, I would give up on the idea. Hell, if I had to use it often, I would give up on the idea and try something else. Rixatrix posted:But then again, you can distract the dog with a hundred other things as well, you don’t need to buy this product for that. We've started using pennies in a can for our dog who has a barking habit. She doesn't bark continuously, she just does alarm barking or barks at us for attention. We tried replacing the behavior, using timeouts, and ignoring it, but it wasn't working, so we added the can. If we can't get her attention from her short (up to 10 minutes) but loud barking fits, we shake it once loudly and then ask for her replacement behavior (laying down quietly). We haven't had to do it much because she's been quieter since we started. It may be coincidence because it's been less than a week, but I think it's worth trying if all other avenues have been exhausted. Kiri koli fucked around with this message at 17:30 on Dec 14, 2010 |
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Dec 14, 2010 17:20
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Levitate posted:How do people usually start getting their dog to ring a bell when they need to go out, and what kind of bell do they use? A desk bell, a string of bells that the dog jingles, etc? We ordered a bell for infants off of amazon. It's big and colorful and plastic (because we weren't sure if she would try to destroy it). Then we saw that the pet store has bells on a strip like sleigh bells and that probably would have worked too. To get her to use it, first we introduced it and because she is typically scared of new things that make noise, we spent time rewarding her for approaching and then nosing it before putting it on the door. When we hung it by the door, we asked her to nose it there by touching it and then giving her a treat when she did. Eventually, she started ringing it herself to go out and if we want to take her out when she hasn't rung it, we just point and she has at it. You just have to be incremental about it. I think introducing it away from the door is good because you get the dog to know that you want them to ring it. If the dog won't ring it by the door, then you can ring it yourself. When the dog does it right, reward! Make sure the bell is rung everytime you go out and make sure that you take the dog out everytime they ring the bell. We haven't had a problem with ringing the bell for fun much, but then my dog seems pretty happy to pee every hour if we'll take her out.
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Dec 14, 2010 19:30
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Levitate posted:Cool, thanks. Even if she would reliably wait by the door, that'd be great, but whatever works. Part of having a puppy I guess. You can also teach her to sit by the door. We taught Psyche to sit whenever she wants us to open a door and so when we go to take her out, she has a spot where she sits to wait for us to open the door. She's too hyper to stay there from when she rings the bell to when we get all our stuff together, so she sits when she sees that we're ready to leave. But every dog is different, so yours might start to connect sitting by the door with going out and stay there longer.
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Dec 14, 2010 23:17
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Does anyone have an opinion on the use of medication to help with training? Psyche has been making a lot of progress in her reactive dog classes. We've been doing basic nosework and she loves it! She gets focused on it and there could be a hundred people in the room and she wouldn't care. She even ignored barking. But she still had two freak outs during the session between games, one that I don't know the cause of and one where the assistant came waaaaaay too close to her when she wasn't looking. Since we're taking a break for the holidays, our trainer suggested we put Psyche on doggie Prozac to give it a chance to start working before her classes start again in January. She says it's worked well with her other clients and that it might help bring Psyche down just enough that her training will be more effective. She also pointed out that Psyche is showing some compulsive behaviors like excitable barking (she barks a lot at things that just excite her without displaying any other fear or aggression), shadow chasing, tail chasing, and I think her need to constantly steal things might be compulsive too. I think we might try it out. We're going to continue her training full force, and if the medication moves her threshold up a bit, I think we might be able to make more progress. I don't think she'll have to be on it forever and if it brings her to a place where we can do more activities I know she'll love quicker, I think that's worth doing. Any thoughts?
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Dec 18, 2010 03:44
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a life less posted:I wish I had more experience in medicating dogs. On one hand, I wouldn't interpret her slow progression as a deficiency on her part (or yours), but as simply part of the CC process -- meds may not be necessary. On the other, if your trainer and vet agree, then I could see it helping. Who's your trainer again? Can I do a quick snoop of his or her website? I'm not interpreting her progression as slow at all...in fact, we started talking about meds because she's progressed so fast in some areas. Because of weather and holidays, Psyche has had something like 8 1-hour classes in the last three months and very little close interaction with other people or dogs outside of that (just things she sees on walks). Despite that, she has shown obvious progression in the areas of being around people and other dogs. It's like she took all of her little-to-moderate anxiety and moved it up to no anxiety, just some warning/excited barking which we are working on replacing with other behaviors. But she still can't be approached because her major triggers are still there. There are a couple of things that will just make her flip her poo poo. Things that can't really be controlled, like in class she'll be fine with people around, but then someone will face her too much and she'll go berserk. It's getting rarer but...it's hard to describe, but I just feel like she's dealing with sub-threshold things so well, but her threshold isn't actually moving any. And meds would help with that and her other compulsive behaviors, like pulling fur off her tail. Does that make sense? Here's our trainer: http://www.petbehaviorconsulting.com/ I really like her, I just wish we could afford to do small sessions more often. I feel like that would be more productive. We have an appointment for Wednesday, so maybe I'll make a new thread after I hear what the vet has to say. Instant Jellyfish posted:I would talk to a veterinary behaviorist before starting a course of meds, rather than just talking to your trainer and vet. I have an appointment for my dog's severe car issues that may require medication because I have tried all of my trainer's suggestions and the vet didn't feel comfortable dealing with behavioral issues. Some meds can actually increase reactivity/impulse control issues so you really need to find someone who knows what they are doing. Its just like people psych issues, you need to see a psychiatrist instead of your general practitioner. I was planning on writing up our visit last week, but it got moved back to the 31st. I tried googling veterinary behaviorist and I'm having a hard time figuring out if it's an official designation with a separate degree and everything. Also, when I try to find one in my area I just get the vet programs at my local universities. My trainer is a Certified Dog Behavior Consultant and the vet she told us to go to lists animal behavior as one of her areas, but she just has the usual DVM. But yeah, I read about the side affects where it can increase problems so I intend to ask about all that and hopefully I can tell if the vet is talking out of her rear end. But I don't know who else I would go to.
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Dec 19, 2010 15:45
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Crooked Booty posted:This is what you want: http://dacvb.org/directory/ Ha, I saw that site and thought it looked shady. Thanks. Just as I expected, the nearest one is 2 and a half hours away. That isn't too bad, but I think we'll talk to the vet first and ask some questions about her qualifications and experience.
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Dec 19, 2010 16:15
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Instant Jellyfish posted:Since there are so few a lot of them are able to do phone consultations or work with your trainer, so don't discount them just because they're far away I'll keep that in mind, but I always squirm a little at the idea of diagnosing a dog over the phone. Everytime I describe Psyche's behavior, I feel like I'm not doing it justice and want to go on for forever just to get every nuance in there. And I don't even really know what I'm talking about! I think I'd definitely trust a vet with behavior experience who has witnessed my dog's body language over someone with a behavior degree that I've just talked to over the phone. I'd even feel weird having the trainer do the talking, though she understands the correct language to use for dog behavior.
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Dec 19, 2010 17:03
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That thing I sent posted:What's the best way to teach my dog to roll over? She's got sit and lay all set, but when it comes to roll over she just stares at me blankly. Unfortunately she's not overly treat motivated so rolling the treat over her nose just gets me a shrug. I've tried patting the area behind her head to see if she'll roll over and see what my hand is doing back there, but she ignores it. When I tried to manually push her over she was having none of it and got up to walk off. There are probably better ways, but I definitely got frustrated trying to figure them out and did the push over method. Of course, you can't actually push the dog over because they'll jump up and be like wtf. So I did it through shaping with a clicker, first having Psyche lay still (and not try to eat me) while I swept my hand toward her, then I pushed her gently until we worked up into a real flop over. And then we just worked on momentum until she accidentally rolled over. It scared the poo poo out of her but I jackpotted it and keep jackpotting it until she got the point. Now I just need to replace my hand sweeping at her with something else because people think I'm pushing her over when I'm not really putting any pressure on. Maybe someone else has a less stupid method though. 
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Jan 1, 2011 02:22
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That thing I sent posted:I'll try the hand sweeping motion, but she's hot a huge fan of the clicker since the one I got at petsmart is so loving loud. It bugs her and she doesn't like to hang around it long enough for me to prime it up with treats...which, again, she's not a huge fan of. She'll take treats but it's like "Eh, thanks I guess" rather than being delighted to get anything. Before you give up on it, I would suggest getting a different clicker (try a pen or the top of a snapple bottle even!) and try different treats. Dogs can be pretty fickle, but treats make training tricks a lot easier so try little cheese cubes or hotdogs or even cheerios. Some dogs are more interested in toys or petting or whatever, you just gotta find what makes her excited and use that as a reward. 
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Jan 1, 2011 16:38
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a life less posted:So, the training goes something like this: We were playing Psyche's favorite game this morning (monkey in the middle) and when she got tired, she took the toy we were throwing around and just laid down and held it in her paws to chew on it. So I went over and took it from her and put it on her back. She tried to get it back without getting up and ended up rolling over. It was adorable.
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Jan 2, 2011 16:40
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Emasculatrix posted:Dogs pee when they're scared or unsure how the situation will play out. He's nervous around you, and is peeing so you'll leave him alone. This is not necessarily true. I do more training with our dog than my husband as well as giving her more attention in general. She behaves a LOT better for him, being calm and laying around for him when he's ignoring her. When I ignore her, she does everything in her power to get my attention and it's worse when he's not home. When we first got her and we were still figuring out all her signs, she had a few accidents in the apartment. Most of the time they were around me. One time I went to the bathroom and she peed just outside because I closed the door. So yes, the dog might be nervous, but he doesn't necessarily want to be left alone. In fact, I would start keeping the dog under constant supervision, tethering the dog to your belt if you have to so he can't go off somewhere and pee. For the crate, first, you need to be using a special cleaner like Nature's Miracle to get rid of the smell that marks the spot as a place the dog should pee. Then I would ask if the crate is too big, but if the dog doesn't mind laying in the pee, that's a problem I'm not sure how to deal with. Maybe move the crate somewhere new and start crate training over again, leaving for short times and feeding inside the crate and such. If you post more about your training techniques, we may be able to help with that as well. Don't be afraid to try different things. The same techniques don't work for every dog. To get my dog to stop demanding my attention by jumping on me and barking, I tried ignoring, I tried time-outs, I tried shaking a can and it turned out that that time-outs/the can helped with barking when she was hyper but for jumping/attention begging, I just had to immediate tell her Off and heavily reinforce sitting quietly for attention and it's finally getting better. So you need to try new things to find what works. Kiri koli fucked around with this message at 04:57 on Jan 3, 2011 |
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Jan 3, 2011 04:55
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Rhymes With Clue posted:Have I set back potty training? Put puppy on a leash and walk him to/around the spot where you want him to go. The patio probably smells like pee, which is encouraging him to go there. It'll wash away eventually, I would imagine.
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Jan 4, 2011 00:45
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a life less posted:It'd probably be more helpful to wash it with some Nature's Miracle. I was going to suggest this, but I couldn't wrap my head around the logistics of washing a whole patio in near freezing conditions. But it's a good idea, especially because once that smell is gone, you can establish a new pee area and the dog will catch on that much quicker. I sympathize with the cold thing. I thought I'd never get used to walking my dog in below freezing weather at 8 in the morning, but we don't have a yard and so I just got a warm jacket and sucked it up. Now I'm actually starting to enjoy it. The puppy's enthusiasm helps. If you and your puppy are cold, get some warmer gear (and a little wrap for puppy!) and think about how much those negative wind chills will make you appreciate those balmy 30 degree days.
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Jan 4, 2011 02:02
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Ridonkulous posted:Would this work for my 7-8 month old puppy who has taken to pooping on the patio? I don't see why not. I've never tried training this because I live in an apartment, but if I wanted to teach my dog to use a certain part of the yard, I would take her out on a leash to the same spot everyday, teach her a potty command, and then make sure she did her business before playing in the rest of the yard. Most dogs are habitual, so as long as the area is big enough (and clean enough), they should stick to it. If they've previously been using the whole yard, it might take longer to train until the smells had been washed away from the rest of the yard. You could try taking some of the poop from the patio and relocating it to the right spot (though you shouldn't need to leave the area dirty once the dog gets it). After my dog was going consistently on command in the right spot, I'd probably still go out with her, but let her loose and then slowly work my way inside. Also, it's probably still a good idea to take your dog for walks and give the potty command in other situations so they know that it's okay to go outside the yard...just not in the part of the yard that isn't the designated area. Of course, praise and treats will help this process along.
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Jan 4, 2011 03:53
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impossimole posted:Cute.  Do you cover the crate ever? I think my dog feels better about her crate when it's covered, it's like her own little world away from the world. She's hyper-vigilant, so we play the radio or white noise for her when we're gone and with the crate covered, she's less worried about her surroundings while we're gone.
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Jan 5, 2011 02:20
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impossimole posted:I've thought about covering, but I'm not sure what to cover the crate with, really. Cloth or towels will get pulled in and shredded. Also, we aren't keeping him in the crate at this point, so I don't know how he will act yet once he's more comfortable in there for any period of time. They sell crate covers that are like giant pads that look like they couldn't get bunched up in between crate bars and chewed on. I've never tried them though, we just used a cheap, huge blanket from Target. It's big enough to pull taunt over the crate and it's light so it won't get hot in there. If you think you'll ever want to cover or use sounds, it'll probably be best to introduce it now instead of after you've started working on keeping him in the crate. I know my dog is calmed by noise and by blocking her view from things that might bother her, but then my dog is kind of crazy so...
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Jan 5, 2011 03:58
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cheese eats mouse posted:Now that I finally am the sole owner of my dog after 6 years I really want to reinforce some commands she has been taught. Right now if I ask her to go "down" she goes through a whole list of actions before she hits down like sitting first and then shake. I know she's confused, but I'm looking for a way to correct this behavior. She's too smart for her own good sometimes. To deal with this, I would use a clicker to mark the right behavior and then use another phrase to mark the wrong behavior. So when my dog does down when I ask for sit (which is frequent), I say 'Too bad!' and she knows that she didn't get a treat because she did the wrong thing. She'll either try again and I'll ask for what I want again. I read about this in the book 'Culture Clash' by Jean Donaldson, which is a great book. To train 'Too bad!', I did the whole training Leave It thing where I just put a piece of food in front of her and then covered it with my hand and said 'Too bad!' if she went for it. It was pretty effective. If the dog already knows Leave It, you can probably do all sort of things. The book had a method of training it, but I forget what it was right now.
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Jan 8, 2011 14:32
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MrFurious posted:Do you have an alternative suggestion? We're kind of at a loss here and I'm worried that this behavior is going to continue to be a problem as she gets older. How is your dog around strangers who aren't paying attention to her? If being around any strangers gets her excited, then a public area like a park is a good idea I think (maybe someone can correct me if they've had a different experience). People at a park won't be as inclined to come up to you without permission like people at a pet store who have pets on the brain. Then you can go to places with increasing density of people until strangers are just background noise. For the actual greeting part, unfortunately the best solution is to round up people you know who you can trust to follow your lead with the dog. Friends, coworkers. You could maybe look for dog classes or meet-ups in your area.
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Jan 8, 2011 17:00
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vstheworld posted:I'm back - we've developed another behavior problem with Hyperion the 1yo untrained Borzoi. On a walk one day we got charged by a huge bulldog. Before this he was just excited to see other dogs and was well socialized. Now he /completely/ freaks out when another dog is in sight. The other day he went after a very calm little dog on a leash and pulled so hard he yanked me off my feet and actually dragged me down the sidewalk. It hurt. The woman walking the little dog had to catch him in a neck hold >< I am not strong enough to hold him back! I know the whole distraction training method, but I can't seem to get him distracted. Any suggestions? And the "safe distance" deal doesn't work either, since it's anywhere in his line of sight. Can you tell us a little more about the freak-outs? I'm assuming that they are more than just excitement, is he growling, showing teeth, hackles raised, that sort of thing? Has he shown any reactivity toward people? If so, then I would definitely suggest that you find a trainer in your area who uses positive reinforcement techniques and see if you can get a consultation. Some trainers even have classes specifically for reactive dogs, though I don't know how common they are. In the meantime, I would do a couple things. First, I would muzzle train. Here is a great video http://www.dogstardaily.com/videos/home/muzzle-training on it. Muzzles have a huge stigma attached to them, but if you want to be absolutely safe in places like the vet, who cares what other people think? If you muzzle train correctly and have the dog wear the muzzle in pleasant situations, then it isn't a punishment for the dog and can go a long way toward helping them. Right now, we are muzzle training Psyche so that she can be safely approached and interacted with by our trainer. Second, train a focus command with your dog. Get the best loving treats ever and work on your dog looking at you despite any distractions you can think of (besides other dogs). Third, if your dog is freaking out at any dog at any distance, I would try to enlist a friend with a dog's help, meet them on a big loving field with some sort of barrier between you and then figure out where your dog's threshold is. At that threshold (if a dog can eat, he's sub-threshold), start popping treats in his mouth. This would be the counter-conditioning and desensitization part. Okay, so 2 and 3 are the bare outline of approaching this and there are tons of other things I could say, but if this is really that serious and you feel out of your depth, finding a trainer is a great way to go. They can guide you through this stuff and also make an accurate diagnosis of your dog. I'll be happy to talk about the techniques we use more, but someone on the internet is no substitute. Oh, also it's pretty obvious that the other dog is responsible for this new behavior, but injuries/sickness can also change a dog's behavior. If you want to take him to the vet, call them and tell them the special circumstances. If he's shown no reactivity toward people, maybe you can arrange a time when there are no other dogs around or come in a back door or something. Edit: Not to make light, but a life less, I love your new avatar.
Kiri koli fucked around with this message at 01:08 on Jan 11, 2011 |
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Jan 11, 2011 01:02
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a life less, that is a really cool article. I love that studies continue to show that dogs are smarter than we think and also that we have historically been underestimating them and misunderstanding them. Hopefully this leads to better dog training and ownership within the public as this knowledge becomes available. Well, I can dream anyway. Also cool that you get to assist in training! I think I'd love to do that someday, but it's appearing to be a long ways off. Instant Jellyfish, I also appreciate your updates and I'm really happy that Major is making progress. I was sort of reluctant to post this because I really don't want my doubts reinforced, but we started Psyche on Prozac a couple of weeks ago. I'm not sure if it's having any affect yet (she's on a very minimal dose), she seems to have mellowed a bit in general but her outbursts at strangers/dogs haven't been affected at all. If anything, she's regressed with respect to dogs because there weren't many around during the holidays and we didn't have classes. Now the trainer is recommending we up the dose and the vet agrees we can do that at four weeks. This is just frustrating because I think that we could help her out with just training, but I don't have the tools. I would need people and their dogs to help me out a couple times a week. One class a week just doesn't seem to be enough. I might be able to find someone when the weather is better (and perhaps someone with a dog), and I just finished my qualifying exam so my semester from hell is over and I'll have more time to work with her...it's just frustrating because I know Psyche is smart and can learn what we need her to learn if she just had the chance. And the Prozac may still end up helping and I don't think it's bad for her...but maybe there's another way we don't know about. Maybe a different trainer would help more. But the problem is is that we need more time, more regular training opportunities, and that means money. Which we really don't have. If we can't afford more sessions with our current trainer, then we won't be able to afford them with anyone else (who isn't a crackpot). Anyway, I'll try to make updates on the Prozac if anyone is interested. It may still turn out to be just what we need to take the edge off and allow us to use training sessions more effectively.
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Jan 14, 2011 01:43
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That thing I sent posted:Alright, so ran into a situation on a walk today that I'm sure I handled badly, and want to know for future reference. I would concentrate on working on the loose leash walking (I think there's a really good guide by a life less somewhere around here) without distractions first and work up through successively bigger distractions. Eventually your dog should follow your lead and walk calmly past distractions like this. But it'll take a while to work up to it. In the meantime, for situations such as this, I would work on ingraining in your dog that when you stop walking, she should sit. You stop, she sits, she gets treat. Over and over. You can make her sit on your side if you want to combine this with heel later on. Sitting is usually something dogs do particularly well, so it's very helpful. Even my dog will automatically sit now most of the time while she's spazzing out at something because I worked on it a lot. You can even work on it inside! If that's not enough, my trainer would probably tell you to teach your dog leave it where you basically block your dog from something they want (you can start with treats you throw on the ground) and when they leave off it, you give them a treat, something different than what they're after. She recommends doing it without words at first so that the dog learns to respond to your body language. I block little things that Psyche is after with my hands or I block her from things she wants to bark at like people by stepping in front of her until she backs off (she usually sits!) and gives me her attention. Your goal is that the dog focuses on you and ignores whatever you don't want them to have forever.
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Jan 18, 2011 02:21
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Not sure if anyone is interested, but we had a good week, so I've decided to write an update of our efforts in training a reactive dog. So as a quick recap, Psyche is both dog and people reactive. I use the word reactive instead of aggressive because some of her reactions show none of the physical signs of aggressiveness, they are more like an over-excited dog who is excessively vocal at certain triggers. Her other reactions do have signs of fear or aggression with pricked ears, growling, etc. Our work in the last months has been eliminating reactions to small stimuli and shifting her aggressive reaction progressively toward her non-aggressive reactions. She has been making slow, but steady progress. About a month ago, we started her on Prozac in the smallest dosage per weight recommended. I was skeptical that it would do anything and was feeling bad about drugging her unnecessarily, but I think now I was just being impatient. In the last week, we have been noticing that she is more relaxed at home, being able to chill out when we aren't directly distracting her from the noisy neighbors. I am able to call her off barking at our hallway much more often than before and her reactions toward people and dogs are lessened as well. We had two sessions with a friend and by the end of the second, she was sitting politely for him to throw her treats right in front of our door, which is 'her' territory and where she is usually the most reactive. The clincher was when we took her to class yesterday and she strolled in past five assistant trainers who were moving around equipment to set up class. Everyone immediately noticed the change and commented on it. Psyche still had some outbursts, but things that would have previously sent her into a barking fit now just produced some uncomfortable growling. At this point the trainer and vet would have us up the dose, but I think I want to wait and see the fully developments of this dose. If we can keep her here and increase her training instead, it will be easier to back her off the drug later. Maybe if she plateaus in a few weeks, we'll go to a medium dose, but no higher. At any rate, it's looking very hopeful that the Prozac will be helpful in the long run. The other thing we started this week was hardcore muzzle training. We acclimatized her to the muzzle over several weeks (I have a great video for this) and then took it with us to class. The trainer started us on a negative reinforcement exercise where, with muzzle on, I picked Psyche up and brought her very close to the trainer. Psyche freaked out when the trainer looked at her (I'm still unclear as to why she was a scared as she was because she has previously gotten this close to our friend, right out of biting distance...probably the muzzle was the added thing that scared her). She was really scared, shaking and everything. As soon as she showed a calming signal like lick lipping, I backed her off, in effect rewarding her for being calm by taking away the scary thing. I think it's a good exercise and we will be continuing it in class and attempting it at home with friends of ours. The only thing that worries me is, at Psyche's outburst, the trainer looked REALLY uncomfortable. I mean, she was looking sick to her stomach. She even gave us a speech about just letting Psyche have her outburst and how that's usually really hard on people to watch. My husband and I are pretty unaffected because, as long as it's helping her in the long run, Psyche can be a little uncomfortable. She was muzzled so everyone was safe and her outburst was short. Total time from outburst to shaking/heavy breathing to lip lick/looking away was less than a minute. I think Psyche understands to a point what the muzzle means and so that scared her, but it was her first experience with it. I think Psyche will do better next time, but I worry that the trainer, being so uncomfortable, might slow things down if Psyche can tell she's uncomfortable. Anyway, progress is progress. It's been about five months since we adopted Psyche and I am completely amazed with how far she has come considering we're averaging less than four 1-hour classes a month due to weather and outside of class we haven't had the tools (people and dogs) to really dig in and work with her. Plus, the last five months were the busiest of my life to date due to my career, so I'm pretty hopeful that the next five months will be even better. Edit: omg, sorry that was so long.
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Jan 22, 2011 17:35
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Instant Jellyfish posted:Thank you so much for the update! I love hearing how other people are working with "challenging" dogs. I was going to comment on your last post but forgot so I'm really glad you stuck with the prozac at a low dose. Just like with people it can take up to a month before you see any difference because it takes a long time for brain chemistry to change. Keep looking for and appreciating the subtle changes. I've found keeping a daily log has really helped me notice how far my dog and I have come. It is really nice to know that there are others out there that are working hard to help their dogs. We have a lot of dogs in our apartment complex and, while I'm sure that most of them have given their owners hell about something at some point, at least they can go out in public without making a scene. Even in our reactive dog class, Psyche was always the worst. We were always the farthest from the group or the ones shut off in a corner. Only in the last few weeks have we been placed near the group and there's one other poor doggie that seems to need a bit more isolation than us now. For the trainer, I don't think it was a bad day because she had the exact same expression on her face the day we had our first consultation. She came to our apartment and we weren't sure if Psyche would react better meeting her up front or put away (I was honestly afraid she would hurt herself in her crate). We opted for up front and gave the trainer treats to throw to her. The trainer didn't throw any treats and just stood there (much closer than I would have suggested) really uncomfortable for a few minutes while Psyche barked at her and then told us to put Psyche away. Luckily Psyche was okay with hearing voices from the next room. She told us during the consultation that Psyche was in some 1% of dogs with serious issues, which I thought was harsh because by all accounts she didn't have these issues with her foster family and it was a new reaction. But anyway, I thought her attitude then was strange and a bit unprofessional. My husband said I was imagining it, but this seems to be that same thing. Maybe she had a bad experience or maybe she's just not good at dealing with this level of reactivity. A lot of the dogs she deals with seem to just have excitement or shyness issues. If we had another option for classes like this, I would probably check it out. As is, if I think it's a problem later, I'm going to ask if one of the assistants might be more comfortable doing the exercises. One of them was just certified as a trainer and it's not like they have to do anything. They just sit there and I handle the dog, at least until Psyche is comfortable to do more.
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Jan 22, 2011 21:42
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Instant Jellyfish posted:When I got Major his foster family said he got along well with other dogs and loved car rides Ugh, I'm so glad you said that about environment. I've always had in the back of my head this fear that it was something we did because for her to go from fine with people and dogs to this just by coming home with us is mindblowing. But thinking about it more, the foster was this isolated place in the middle of nowhere where she had peace and quiet a lot of the time and the fosters were professionals who were able to instantly spot any trouble coming. Our apartment is crowded and loud and she can hear people all the time. We tune it out but it's definitely there. There are lots of other dogs she can only see while one a leash, whereas before she could meet them off-leash. It's a very different environment and unfortunately it traumatized her in a way no one could predict. It's too bad that classes are so far away. Could you arrange for private lessons? I wish we could do private lessons but they're too expensive. Edit: omg, I just reread the original email we were sent regarding Psyche's history for her first family. There is terrible poo poo in there that I totally forgot, like they bought her from a women selling puppies out of a barn who said that the puppies were kept isolated so that they would better 'bond' with the people who bought them. 
Kiri koli fucked around with this message at 15:21 on Jan 23, 2011 |
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Jan 22, 2011 23:35
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. Environment can make such a difference in dog behavior.
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a life less posted:The way you describe your trainer's reactions to your dog's reactivity is kind of confusing. I guess I personally would be pretty uncomfortable with trying to deal with a dog showing signs of aggression. But... I am not marketing my skills in this way... and your trainer is. Oh yeah, absolutely. I'm pretty immune to my dog at this point, but put current me in front of someone else's aggressive dog and I wouldn't be too happy. But I'd like to think if future me becomes a dog trainer who specifically holds reactive dogs classes and then I lead a client I've had for months through a (safe) muzzle training exercise that is practically guaranteed to provoke bad reactions at first...I'd like to think I'd be confident enough to at least hold a good poker face. At the end of the day, I don't really care if the trainer pulls weird faces at me for the whole class as long as we get results. I'm just concerned that, in an exercise that is supposed to show the dog that the thing in front of them isn't a threat, if she's uncomfortable enough for Psyche to pick up on it, that may be a problem. quote:And keeping puppies isolated in a barn? What the christ? You really have to wonder about some people, eh? Unfortunately, I'm more shocked these days when people aren't idiots because it means they applied some critical thinking. There's so much bad information out there... I agree with Rixatrix that I can't imagine using a trainer who didn't explain to me what they're doing. First, I want to know, and second, I think that understanding WHY something works (or doesn't) makes people more adaptable to new situations. Every dog/owner pair is unique and will require custom techniques. Having a trainer point them out is great; having a trainer who points them out AND tells you why so that you can make good decisions for yourself when the trainer is not around is wonderful. I'd be interested in hearing more about Bark Busters as well. If you can't discuss specific things...maybe we can just discuss dog training philosophies in general?
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Jan 24, 2011 15:44
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robayon it sounds like your techniques are very much in line with a lot of what we talk about here, but there are a couple things that you approach from different directions. There are a couple points where I could disagree with your descriptions of things, but I'll just point out one and tell you my experience and then perhaps you can tell me more about your experiences. What really stuck out to me was when you talked about the small dog in the woman's purse who barks/growls/bites and then is sweet talked by its owner. Before Psyche, I too would have seen this as a wimpy, non-response. When we first got Psyche and started dealing with her reactivity issues, I read a lot about fearful behavior in dogs and there was an article (possibly posted on here) that talked about a study done on rats that tested whether being reassured encouraged rats to continue or cease fearful behavior. They found that being reassured actually decreased fearful behavior. This makes a lot of sense to me. So if you were to walk up to my dog and make direct eye contact, she would bark, growl, and lunge at you. From her point of view, she is very scared of you and is trying to get you to leave. Now I could correct her, yell at her, pull on her leash...all of those things will make her more scared. She will associate those bad things with you. On the other hand, if I give her food, pet/hold her, and yes, talk in a happy, high voice, she begins to feel better because those are things she loves and again, she will associate them with you. I've been comforting my dog in situations since we started working with her (as part of counter-conditioning and desensitization) and I think it's really helped. I probably look like an idiot, telling my growling dog that everything is okay, but my goal is to eventually change her attitude. I don't want to correct her out of acting scared, I want her to honest-to-god not be scared. And I think that comforting helps change attitudes rather than reinforcing reactivity. Why would a dog who feels better about something growl more at it*? The woman with the purse like in your example was probably just not good at training/socialization. But the comforting itself is not bad, I think, and can be a good tool for fearful dogs. Sorry that was long and if I misread you! I think it's a interesting topic and not resolved in the training community. I'd also like to hear more about your dog and his dog reactivity and how you dealt with it. As you can tell I have similar problems and am always looking for new things to learn. *Of course, eventually you get to a fine line where your dog may be barking for the helluva it and not really scared anymore. When her body language is no longer scared, I change to rewarding only good behavior.
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Jan 25, 2011 01:20
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robayon posted:More Stuff Ah, gotcha. Then we're on the same page. I have never used a squirt bottle with Psyche, though when she is sub-threshold, I do use techniques to get her attention like waiving a treat in her face or touching her ear. Unfortunately, I don't have dogs available to me to do regular sessions. I'm working on it, but my friends are busy people and it's hard to ask for them to take time to do training with us. Have you ever considered breaking off to do your own thing? What about having a BB franchise keeps you with them instead of being an independent trainer?
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Jan 25, 2011 05:01
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Rixatrix posted:Stuff about Pi I'm sorry to hear about Pi and his eyesight. It sounds like it's been pretty traumatic for him, though dogs are pretty adaptable, so I can hope with time that he'll be okay with it. I'm not sure exactly why you don't trust a headcollar. Are you afraid that he will break it or that he will hurt himself pulling on it? Have you seen the canny collar? It's a headcollar that hooks in the back and seems much stronger than the halti or gentle leader. It didn't stay on my dog's nose, but I think it would be better for larger dogs. The other thing I would suggest is what my trainer has all her reactive dogs learn, which is backaways. You train your dog that when you take a step backward (or a few steps at first), the dog is supposed to come back to you and sit right in front of you. Then the dog is focused on you and, if necessary, you can do an emergency hold on his collar. Unfortunately, the other thing you have to do is try to control your surroundings as much as possible. I only walk Psyche in places were I can see around me and spot trouble coming before her. Then I either move her away or have her sit and behave until it has passed. Obviously, I can't keep her away from everything, but I try not to be surprised. If you can, I would walk the dogs separately for a while so you can concentrate on doing backaways or some other sort of emergency response to situations with the one dog. I definitely wouldn't introduce pain or fear into this situation. Your dog is going through a traumatic adjustment and those things can only prolong it. The best chance, I think, of bringing his old behavior back is to change his attitude with cc and ds. We use a SENSE-sible or SENSE-ation front clip harness. Can't remember which, but one looks more sturdy than the other.
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Jan 25, 2011 14:06
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Rixatrix posted:Thanks so much for your answer and your concern. The reason I haven't been too keen on the Halti head collar we have is that I'm worried Pi'll hurt his neck. He's started to lunge suddenly and with little warning at passing dogs. Before he displayed a very clear sequence of behavior when a dog was approaching and I was able to know exactly what to do and when. Now I have a hard time predicting what will happen, how far out of the way I should get with him and whether or not he's ok with eating treats until the other dog has passed. I'm not sure if he just doesn't notice the other dog until they're quite near, or if he's just changed tactics. We were also worried about Psyche hurting herself by lunging with a head collar on. But we discovered that when she has it on, it really dampens her reactions, so much so that the first dozen or so times she wore it, she was completely different, depressed, subdued, didn't want to move or do anything, etc. We persisted and once we started taking her on walks and distracting her with interesting things, she got over it and now acts normal with it on...except that she doesn't freak out quite as much with it on. Since we started using it, she only lunged hard enough to make me worry once and she really responds better if I have to turn her away from something. That being said, we use a front clip halter for most of her walks and the head collar is mostly for class or when we are letting her meet someone. I think I'm going to use it more on walks in the spring because now the snow is limiting our movements, but I definitely don't want to use it as a crutch all the time. Also, there's no guarantee that Pi will have the same reaction as Psyche to things resting on her nose (muzzles do the same thing). But really, I would just try everything until you see what works. We went through a gentle leader and canny collar before we figured out that the halti worked the best for Psyche because of her nose shape. Also, it wouldn't surprise me if Pi is freaking more because things are sneaking up on him. Psyche clearly reacts the worst when she is surprised and didn't see something coming.
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Jan 25, 2011 14:57
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Gonktastic posted:So I think my newly adopted dog might be dog reactive/agressive but I'm not sure how to comfortably test her boundaries. The woman we adopted her from said she was "great" with other dogs, then admitted during the meeting that our girl gets agressive towards her other dog during feeding time but stressed that it was only around bowls of food. Definitely work on not pulling during walks and getting her to focus on you and remember that it will take some time for your dog to settle in and get over the excitement of a new place. It definitely sounds like the change in location has resulted in reactivity toward dogs, which may or may not be a huge deal. When you say barking and growling is it more excited barking and growling or do you see signs of aggression or fear, such as hackles raised, ears in a strange position (not sure what floppy ears do in these situations), tail tucked, rigidness, etc (someone else can maybe help with signs, I only know them in my dog). If it is the former, then you need to find something that is more exciting than the other dog. All of this will be a lot easier if you have a doggie friend volunteer to stand in the distance and look boring. Then find the treat or toy or game that your dog LOVES. Trust me, it exists. Treats will be the most effective I think so try everything. Then when you find the MOST AWESOME TREAT EVER, show your dog the other dog, find the distance at which your dog will eat, and then proceed to stuff her mouth and see if that helps. Then in later sessions you can try moving a little closer, do parallel walking and all sorts of other exercises that desensitize dogs to other dogs. If you think that your dog is fearful/aggressive, then you have to approach it a little more slowly. If you have a doggie friend, then find a big loving field, preferably with a barrier (a car, a tree, whatever) that you can put between you and the other dog and then try the exercise starting at a great distance. Be aware that an overly fearful dog who reacts in an aggressive manner can possibly redirect onto you and bite you so take it nice and slow and don't stand between your dog and the other dog. Being calm and soothing is definitely the right thing to do. Try not to yank on the leash when other dogs are around and, if you work with a doggie friend, never send the other dog away when your dog is reacting or she will think that her reaction got rid of the big scary thing. Wait until she is calm (even for a split second...it's a good thing to read up on calming signals so you know when your dog is calming down) and then you can give her release by walking away a bit. The rest of this thread talks more about counter-conditioning and desensitization, but if things are bad or escalate and this all seems overwhelming, then please find a local positive reinforcement trainer in your area. Having someone to actually be there and see your dog so that you can customize your training and have a professional point out what's good and what's not is invaluable.
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Jan 25, 2011 19:04
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Gonktastic posted:Thanks so much for that! Honestly I'm not positive if it was more excitement or fear - she's still figuring out how this "play" thing works. Floppy ears seem to just move back further on her head. She's sounds great! I love smart dogs. We didn't have any friends with dogs around either and you can only do so much with strangers (basically watch them from a distance and hope you can get some training in while they're in sight), so we found a trainer and joined her classes so that Psyche could get some constructive time with other dogs and that we could learn what we needed to do. If it's just excitement, then as soon as you find something more exciting to get her attention, you should have no trouble showing her how you want her to act. Front clasp harnesses are pretty great. My dog also pulls at her collar until she's choking herself. Dumb dog. We might move to a back clasp harness someday to teach her not to pull ever, but I doubt we'll ever just have her by the collar again.
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Jan 25, 2011 20:00
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Instant Jellyfish posted:The vet behaviorist sometimes recommended head halters for anxious dogs not to use as a LLWing aid but as a relaxation aid. I guess it puts pressure on certain points that calm some dogs down. She said it doesn't work with every dog but it helps maybe 3-4 dogs a year. Yes, this is what we were told by our trainer as well. This and putting pressure around their middle such as with a thundershirt. The head halter seems to work as a calming aid for Psyche now that she's used to it. It just served to subdue her when we first started though and she hated the gentle leader so much that I almost gave up on it entirely.
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Jan 25, 2011 21:32
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Saveremreve posted:With the discussion about using a clicker vs. marker word etc. how come no one uses whistles like they do with Marine mammals? It seems like it'd be great to keep your hands free and a burst of air can be even faster than a finger press. You can't talk and whistle at the same time. If you only use gesture commands that's fine, but if I tell my dog to sit, she may start sitting before I'm done saying the word and it's good to mark the behavior exactly as it starts to happen rather than after it's done. Edit: I do use whistling to get her attention, but I think it's faster and easier to click than to whistle*. For me anyway. Also, there are some exercises I do where I don't pay attention to the dog, but I click and treat for voluntary behaviors, like if I'm trying to teach her to lay down next me while I'm at my desk working. *Fun exercise: to teach people to use a clicker, they say to watch tv and click for some preselected behavior to improve your accuracy. Try doing this with whistling vs a clicker. I would bet that not only is the clicker easier and more accurate, but whistling will get tiresome and harder with time much faster than clicking. Kiri koli fucked around with this message at 23:01 on Jan 26, 2011 |
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Jan 26, 2011 22:52
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iwik posted:We've had some progress on the muzzle front. We're working on muzzle training as well. Our trainer recommended that we go with a basket muzzle after we bought one of those, so we never used it. How do those muzzles work? Do they keep the dog's mouth closed? Can you feed them with those on?
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Jan 27, 2011 01:35
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