Dont give up on defaults!

In order to build a strong stable nervous system you need to expose your dog to all sorts of experiences at a very young age, before four to six months old. Neither one of my dogs were socialized properly as puppies and as a result, are afraid of most things new or foreign. Exposing them to new situations is difficult and often unpredictable because of their lack of experience with common stimulus. Introducing a puppy to new things is fun, but introducing an anxious one and a half year old, or adult dog, to something new and exciting is not only difficult, but scary for both parties. I have done a lot of reading on desensitization and in the beginning of training Holly and Miko, I figured I would slowly and systematically expose my dogs to the things they were unfamiliar with, thus desensitizing them to their triggers. Little did I know that between the two of them, they are reactive to pretty much everything that moves and makes noise. On a daily basis they react to dogs, men, cats, birds, bikes, skateboards, motorcycles, trucks, lawn mowers, hair driers, vacuum cleaners and anything on wheels, including wheelchairs. Taking the two of them for a walk is hard work and I found it wasnt enjoyable for me. To turn things around I needed to work on a few basic foundation behaviors and bring some stability into our lives.

The behaviors that I now work on daily are COME, LOOK, TOUCH (or targeting) , DOWN, SIT, QUIET (or settle), as well as HEEL. I practice some of these commands in the house, looking out the window, in the back yard as people and dogs go by, as well as on our low stress walks. I can now walk both dogs, side by side, in a heel position, sitting on each corner in a controlled fashion. They dont pull me (very often) and walk on a loose leash (unless a dog or the mailman goes by). That might sound like an easy feat to some, but to owners of fear aggressive dogs, it can be a long road to enjoying a walk with "mans best friend". In fact, most people with fear aggressive dogs walk them at odd hours, when no distractions are present and a when they can avoid situations that leave them and their dogs rattled. I dont ever expect my dogs to be perfectly behaved or "off leash", but I do plan to enjoy the time I spend walking them. The foundation to successful rehabilitation of a fear aggressive dog is developing strong default behaviors, like the ones I have listed below, which can be taught through LOTS of repetition and LOTS of patience. Keep at them and DON"T GIVE UP on your dog!

COME: This is the most important command to work on. It can be used to pull a dog out of a dangerous situation. For fear aggressive dogs, a strong come default will save you much grief and could save you from unfortunate incidents, especially when you see something potentially scary and can avoid it by calling your dog to safety. I practice treating for COME every day so that when I need it, my dogs have an automatic and solid response to it and know it means good things to will follow.

LOOK: Most problems in training begin because the dog doesnt understand what the handler wants from it, or it is simply too distracted. The first step in communicating what you want from your dog is to get the dogs attention. Many times other distractions overshadow the handlers commands because the dog isnt paying attention to him or her. LOOK is an easy way to teach your dog to give you its focus. A strong look default will assure that you can get and keep your dogs attention when you most need it. Another form of "look" is name recognition. When you call your dogs name, you need it to look at you!

TOUCH: Teaching your dog to touch your hand or a target stick reliably, on command, is a good way to redirect it from a potentially reactive situation. Practice this command when there are no distractions and you can eventually use it to bridge many behaviors that will come in handy in the future. I use it to redirect my dogs after an outburst. I want to treat them for returning to calm behavior, but need something to separate the incident. By asking them to target my hand, it prevents me from accidentally reinforcing barking or lunging, because I need to treat them for ceasing the aggression and move on.

DOWN: As hard as it is to teach, an emergency down command can save your dogs life. It begins with practicing basic down commands in playtime, progressing to using a stern voice "DOWN" followed by praise and play. The point is to develop a strong and fast reaction to your voice...especially your panic voice. I do "downs" throughout the day in different tones of voice...even yelling it from a distance. It isnt abusive to bark a command at your dog in emergencies. They bark all the time! By practicing the word DOWN in a loud voice, you can be sure it will work when it really counts. (Dont give up on this one!)

SIT: If you can get your dog to sit, it cant jump or lung. (It is particularly useful for dogs who jump up). I use this for Holly when I position her facing away from her triggers. Sometimes I will go as far as holding her between my legs in a sit, so she cant look at the scary thing as it passes. It is always better to lure the dog away from the trigger, but in some cases, this is not possible and a strong sit will give me time to get my knees ready to block Holly from aggressing. I often put myself between the scary thing and the dog to physically block the reaction as well as visually block the stimulus.

QUIET: This is something I practice in the window of my living room for an hour or more a day. It can also be given as a "settle" or any word you prefer to use as a command. My dogs love to look out at the coming and goings of the neighbourhood. I keep a clicker handy and an ear cocked to ward off any window antics and to award any good behavior. I use the clicker as a marker for good quiet responses and as an interruptor of bad behavior (click and treat before they can start barking), as well as, as bridge to reward (to buy me a couple seconds of time to get the treat out). The trick is to award the calm quiet actions and redirect the barking into calm quiet behaviors, like sit or touch.

HEEL: Not to be confused with "walking on a loose leash"! My dogs must heel a block to earn a block of loose leash sniffing. It teaches them that they can have access to a good sniff, while working on a strong heel. The HEEL command is necessary in getting them through any social situation, be it walking down the sidewalk with men approaching, or allowing a cyclist to pass. This also allows me to walk calmly on the other side of the road, while a dog passes. Admittedly, I cross the street if I see a dog approaching (unless I am walking just one dog or the other). Together, two 65lb dogs can easily pull me off my feet. Miko wants to play and Holly wants to fight. I need a reliable heel to keep things under control.

ON and OFF game: Although this isnt a default exercise, it is a method of strengthening behaviors by adding distractions in a controlled way. I play with my dogs in the yard and get them really excited, (game ON) then ask them to quickly turn it OFF. I ask for a default behavior like sit, or down and make them settle down for treats. This is for practice in controlling their emotions and energy levels. By teaching them to turn their energy ON and OFF, I prepare them for settling down when they are over excited. It also allows me to figure out how quickly and under what circumstances I can expect them to settle down.

PRE-MACK Theory: This is a method of teaching more than a behavior. It works on the premise that you get your dog to perform a default in order to gain access to something or the freedom to do something. It is sometimes called the Grandmother Rule: "eat your veggies first!" I use it to strengthen desired behaviors by rewarding them with something the dogs really want, like sniffing when we are on a walk. In allowing the dogs a controlled amount of what they desire, it makes the desire to sniff less novel. They know that they will be allowed to sniff to their hearts content, as long as they heel for a block or even just as we cross a busy street. This can be applied to so many thing and is a great way to teach a default.

After months of training, unfortunately, Miko is still afraid of strange men and Holly is still afraid of other dogs. However, they are improving and learning to calm down on command. Instead of flooding them with their triggers while out and about (as I had done in the past with poor results). I now work on them at home and around my house without distractions, to build foundation behaviors which are incompatible with fear and aggression. I map out areas that are less stressful for the dogs. I keep the routes to low level exposures to their triggers. This way I can work on building up their threshold or tolerance to stimulus, rather than bulldozing through their fears in hopes of overcoming them. I concentrate on teaching them good behaviors and building the attention span, that they need to possess in order to feel more confident and calm in the face of perceived danger. I realized, not only had my dogs not been exposed to many types of things, people and stimulus, they had not been taught basic good manners and proper coping mechanisms. Before I could teach them to not react, I had to teach them what to do in place of reacting. I cant convince them not to be afraid of scary men and approaching dogs, but I can teach them to do something other than aggress.

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Dont Give Up Dog Training!

It takes time and commitment to condition a dog, let alone counter condition a damaged dog. I found with my two rescues that there were many contributors to their issues. I had to tackle each problem separately, yet all together because many of their triggers and habits re-enforced the others. Although, some of it was basic diet, training and exercise related; I found that most of their problems were related to anxiety. I needed a trainer to help me re-frame things and to assist me in finding the motivations and methods that worked on each individual dog and help me get them on the road to recovery.

Finding your dogs triggers is easy and obvious, but finding how to redirect their energy into something positive is a challenge. A professional dog trainer can help you set up an outline and schedule to follow. The right trainer can set you up with a program that will help you and your dog attain success. Dogs generalize, they dont treat experiences separately like we humans do. They have defaults that they fall into, some good, some bad. For my two dogs, Holly and Miko, anxiety, especially fear anxiety, sent them into a frenzy of lunging, barking and display behaviors that seemed aggressive and dangerous. I had to tell myself "these are only behaviors". These outbursts have to be taken seriously, in order to avoid a bite situation, but behaviors can be modified. Dont give up!

To understand behavior modification use the analogy of dieting:

Lets say you start a diet and you weigh yourself everyday. The first week, you are also exercising and dishearteningly, you actually gain weight...muscle weighs more than fat. (You are progressing, but arent seeing the results.) The experienced personal trainer knows that to obtain positive lasting weightloss, you need to change a number of things in your lifestyle. Some of these things are going to take a while to manifest. Unfortunately, many people want fast results and give up. They give up on their diet and exercise plan, returning to their old ways, only to suffer the same old plight. Much the same, people give up on their dog and go back to the methods that were not working because they didnt get the results they were looking for fast enough. This leads us back to the same problems, which often get even worse. So dont measure your success daily, gage it by how quickly your dog recovers from situations and how much less they react. One big success is learning to read your dog and prevent situations from repeating themselves. Keep a journal and weigh in weekly, even monthly.

I had to slowly expose my dogs, bit by bit, to their triggers, in a safe and controlled way, not avoid them, to raise their threshold for the things that scared them. This meant setting up a program of desensitization. Ironically, I found that when I started out on my program with Holly and Miko their issues actually got worse! I wanted to give up! Then I read something about response perseverance. Often behaviors get worse before they get better (like the weight gain when you start building muscle from working out). The dog will often get frustrated by being redirected constantly and cling even stronger to old behaviors. Through much reading and studying I learned that the aggression will decrease eventually if you stay consistent. I kept up clicking and treating and redirecting their anxiety in hopes that it would eventually lead to results.

The approach that I had initially (and mistakenly) taken with Holly was correction and punishment (which has been proven to actually increase anxiety and lead to increased reactivity!) The problem was that punishment for growling and lunging made Holly, my dog aggressive dog, believe that I was upset at her BECAUSE the other dog was approaching. She became louder and more aggressive in her displays of grandeur. She became even more anxiety ridden when she spotted an approaching dog, now reacting from greater distances. Perhaps because she thought I was going to get mad if the dog got close. On the other hand it may have just been because I was setting a bad example and losing my cool. More importantly, punishment is dangerous because it feels good for the punisher!

(Read the entry below on leash aggression)

Eventually, I became better at handling their outbursts. As I became calmer, the dogs became easier to control. It wasnt so much that they werent reacting, but they were recovering faster. Eventually, I was able to get them to do other things in place of aggressing. It sounds simple, but even getting Holly and Miko to take a treat rather than bark and lunge was not possible in the beginning. Think of it this way, when you are scared, the last thing you want to do is have a snack! After five months of counter conditioning, which in this case was linking a marker (a click or phrase) to good behavior (calmly enjoying a treat or receiving a lot of praise) I can now get them to focus on me...not always without growling and barking, but at least without lunging. I can now get them to preform simple default behaviors, like sit or turn around and heel or touch my hand. This is the beginning of recovery. This is the beginning of success!!!!

(If you arent familiar with clicker training visit: http://www.clickertrain.com/whatis.html )

The key to success is to be a good handler. Dont set your dog up to fail by forcing them to face their fears too quickly or at too close a proximity. Work your dog below its threshold, that is the distance from its trigger that it requires before it gets too worked up. Eventually, you can get closer to the scary thing by creating positive associations with the trigger. Keep calm and remember to forgive! Dogs are so forgiving of us, we owe them the same. Be a generous and positive leader, rewarding all good behavior. Lead by example! For instance, my friend says hello to everyone who passes her when she is walking her dog. It makes the approaching person relax and tells the dog that you are happy to see this person or approaching animal. I try to warn people (in a cheery voice) that my dog isnt friendly, or doesnt like other dogs. This allows the other person an opportunity to keep their distance. I also move off the sidewalk and allow people the space that makes them comfortable. Being a good handler is about respect, for the dog, for others and for yourself.

Finally, I cant stress the importance of reading books and gathering information from trainers. Not everyone can afford a personal trainer, but in the long run, you can save time and money by finding someone that has experience with the issues you face. Aggression is a symptom of underlying problems. You need to treat the real problem in order to see a decline in aggression. (I have discovered that my dogs dont sleep enough. That is something I never would have considered had my trainer, Sarah from Rocket Dog, not pointed it out. They only sleep eight to ten hours because they are anxious all the time. Most dogs need 16-18 hours of sleep.) It could be your dog has a lot of energy and needs more things to do and more exercise to tire it out. It could be that there are things you havent considered that will aid in your dogs recovery and make your training go much smoother and faster. Reading about basic dog behavior and fear aggression, I realized my dogs are not beyond repair. I started this blog in hopes to share my experiences with others, as so many people have shared with me.

Growly Dog Reading List:
(from Rocket Dog trainer and founder, Sarah Giammarino)

Brenda Aloff. "Aggression in Dogs: Practical Management, Prevention and Behaviour Modification". Aloff describes theory and practical information. She details both how to avoid aggression and how to deal with it when it occurs. This book is rated highly by many trainers.

Brenda Aloff. "Canine Body Language".
A picture book on dog body language. You must own this book if you want to rehabilitate your dog aggressive dog!

Emma Parsons. Click to Calm: "Healing the Aggressive Dog".
Parson’s describes the rehabilitation of her dog reactive Golden Retriever. Full of how-tos and practical instructions.

Pamela Dennison. "How to Right a Dog Gone Wrong".
Great idea book on controlling your dog. It really is a roadmap for re-training aggressive dogs in a pet-dog environment.

Jean Donaldson. "The Culture Clash".
Although not very well organized as a reference book and seems presumptuous about the state of knowledge that most dog owners actually have, it is a good starting point to the study of behaviourism. Many people read this book again and again.

Patricia B. McConnell, Karen B. London. "Feisty Fido". Help for the Leash Aggressive Dog.
(Booklet 56 pgs) A starter package for dealing with on leash aggression using positive-based training techniques. No resocializing socializing discussed, but great for new students!

Karen Pryor. "Don’t Shoot the Dog!"
The grand-mother of dog training. Pryor’s book details theory into practice (human, dog, exotic animal behaviour). Recommended by veterinary behaviorists and trainers alike. This is not a “how-to” book, but a “why-to” book.

Stanley Coren. "How Dog’s Think".
Discover how your dog is viewing the world! Great book on the five senses and types of learning dog’s experience.

Leslie McDevitt. "Control Unleashed: Creating a Focused and Confident Dog". Great for people who have a reactive dog yet want to compete in dog sports. This book is changing the landscape of rehabilitating dog reactive dogs and dogs with general anxiety.

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Give challenges to your dog

Dog training can be very intimidating to someone that has never done it before. There is a lot of information out there and sorting through it all can seem difficult. These are just some tips to help you start out with dog training the right way.

Give challenges to your dog on a regular basis. Test what he knows by giving commands, even if you are sure that he has the skill mastered.

 When you are working on crate training with your dog or puppy small steps is what works best for them to get used to it. When they seem comfortable in it with the door open, try shutting the gate and feed them treats through the wires. At first, leave the dog enclosed in the crate for only short periods of time, such as 10 seconds, and then gradually increase the duration. If the puppy gets too upset then you increased the time too much, too fast.

 As with most things, and this goes with dog training as well, dont ever give up. Your dog will not remember his training if you are not there to constantly remind him of what you expect. In the same way that nourishing your dog with food and a safe place to live is a daily commitment, so is teaching and encouraging good behavior.

 You always want to make certain your dog has good leash manners. This helps keep both you and your dog safe when going on walks.

 Dont use doggy treats as your sole positive reinforcement mechanism. Giving treats to dogs in order to teach them new behavior is quite effective. Having said that, carrying treats on you 24/7 is not very likely. Try patting your dog on the back and giving him an "enthusiastic, that a boy."

 If you want to be successful in house training an animal, make sure that you stick to a strict schedule for feeding times and elimination times. This gives both you and the dog a heads up as to when they need to go outside, and you can make sure that happens before they make a mess indoors. Having a regular schedule will help your dog know that a potty break will be coming, and he will hold learn to hold his bathroom urges until that time.

 Giving your dog the favorite treat can assist you in training your dog. By giving your dog this food, they will want to follow whatever you teach them. Make sure you pay attention to how he responds when you offer him this reward.

 Before you train your puppy, teach him his name and bond with him. Repeat the name as much as possible, and reward your puppy when he responds. You should make sure your puppy learns their name and knows to respond to it. Its important that the time spent with your puppy is quality time. Spend your time playing with your puppy. This way he will get to know you quicker and will begin to trust you faster. A puppy that trusts you will respond better your training.

 When possible, puppy training is the most effective form of dog training. This is not a hard and fast rule, but young dogs do respond better to training. When you train your dog as a puppy, he will be a well-behaved dog throughout his life.

 Any behavioral issues that suddenly occur should be checked by a vet to make sure there are no health conditions causing it. Certain health conditions, or even pain, can completely change an animals demeanor. It could even be to the point that the dog may become more aggressive and lash out at people. This behavior is an indicator to humans that there is something wrong.

 Not everyone has what it takes to train their dog, sometimes a professional is needed. You may hit a snag in your training and a professional can help get you back on track. Professional trainers can instruct you on how to improve your training methods, and get both you and your pet back on track.

 A consistent schedule of feeding and potty-time is very important when house training your dog. By establishing a regular potty-time every day, you will get your dog in the habit of doing his business at the same time daily. Sticking to a schedule will teach your dog how to control himself until his next scheduled potty break.

 Using a crate is an effective way to house train your dog. For crate training to be effective, you must make sure to let the dog out frequently. Dogs who are crate trained are often the best trained, having less accidents.

 If you prepare your dog for veterinary exams, it will help both you and your dog. Gently place your hands over its body, acknowledging your dog when he responds positively. Prepare your dog to accept someone handling his paws or looking at his teeth. Ask your friends to help out, as well.

 Over-training your puppy will expose it to too much at once, rendering the training less effective. Brief, simple, positive training sessions are well-suited to the limited supply of energy and attention a pup has to work with. If you try to do too much, the puppy will probably not remember much except that it was an unpleasant experience, and that will make it more difficult when the time comes for the next training session.

 Use your dogs name when you can, as it will help to get your dog to pay attention. By using it as much as possible during the first weeks you own him, your puppy will learn that this sound is in reference to him. Choose a short name that is easily recognizable from other words.

 If your dog suffers from separation anxiety, you should encourage him to have connections with others. The dog must develop relationships with others in order to diffuse its unhealthy fixation with you.

 Behavior problems that suddenly occur with no reason may indicate a medical problem that needs to be evaluated by a veterinarian. Your dog might be acting out because he is suffering. This behavior may be his way of telling you that there is something wrong with him.

 You can prevent your dog from destroying your home by keeping it outdoors when you are away from the house. When this isnt possible, you want to provide things that both appeal to your dog and that are okay for the dog to chew on. Establishing acceptable chews toys is also about keeping those things you do not want your dog to chew up behind closed doors or well out out of reach.

 Dog training is mostly about being consistent with your pooch and setting the rules of your relationship. Once those are set, youll find you both enjoy your time together even more! Keep in mind that you must continually reinforce your dogs training lessons. Provide refresher courses when needed and continue to correct bad behavior. Once your dog gets the training basics under his collar, you will not be limited in what you can achieve together..

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