Managing Dog Reactivity

OMG...it's like Veronica waits for the moment when she knows I'm not paying full attention!

LIke in agility class a few weeks ago, I relaxed, took a drink of water, hands no where near my treats or clicker; and one of the other gals walked her dog by close-ish to V. So of course V. takes the opportunity to bark and do her little hop lunge; which isn't really an effort to go anywhere per se; but a very impressive hop up in the air while barking - and of course she pulls on the leash, which shakes my hand and I spill the water all over me.

i watched all your videos. Veronica is so cute and so much attitude:) She is definetly dominate, like you said. I still think she looks DA though maybe not to the extent that you mentioned previously , but its there. Everytime she stands over the other dogs she is showing her dominance and she likes it best when they just say o.k. I don't aggree on everything that your trainer says either. Like when she said she liked it when Veronica was rubbing her face on Brutus she is just showing dominance again and trying to get some kind of reaction.IMO It looks like she has alot of fun at those classes, and Brutus looks like a good teacher. Good luck with her.

 I think Veronica is pushy with the little dog because the little dog is the one always moving away from her. He never goes to her to engage in play, so he's not as big a fan.  I do see a pushy and obnoxious dog though. ;)  I wouldn't let her play with smaller dogs unless you can find one that likes rough play, but then that might escalate into a dangerous situation for the smaller dog just because she is a bigger more powerful dog.

Regarding reactivity, you are making progress and it takes a long time. Every setback increases the amount of time it will take to completely fix and like you said, you may not be able to fix it completely and just have to continue the DS and CC as well as manage as best you can.  I have a little reactive dog and my saving grace is that he only weighs 20 pounds so I can just walk the other way and he has to come with me.  Can you create some kind of game that is just as rewarding for her, so that when you don't have clicker and treats ready, you have something?

Also, keep in mind that teaching a watch me is different than teaching the Look At That game. The WM game is a cue for the dog to look at you and the LAT game is a skill that teaches the dog, see a trigger and look at mom. So it helps to change what that trigger means whereas the WM always has to be cued for it to be followed. The LAT becomes a conditioned response, dog appears, look at mom.  Control Unleashed by Leslie McDevitt is a great book and does a great job of explaining the game.

Karla Welch

i watched all your videos. Veronica is so cute and so much attitude:) She is definetly dominate, like you said. I still think she looks DA though maybe not to the extent that you mentioned previously , but its there. Everytime she stands over the other dogs she is showing her dominance and she likes it best when they just say o.k. I don't aggree on everything that your trainer says either. Like when she said she liked it when Veronica was rubbing her face on Brutus she is just showing dominance again and trying to get some kind of reaction.IMO It looks like she has alot of fun at those classes, and Brutus looks like a good teacher. Good luck with her.

It is probably just a matter of semantics. I think Veronica could easily become DA if over-aroused during rough play; and I think if ever she were attacked by another dog and in an actual dog fight...that would flip her switch and she would "turn on". As it stands, I say she is reactive vs. aggressive because her primary goal is not to hurt the other dog at this point in time. She doesn't even try. She is however pushy, rude and obnoxious and has very limited social skills. Even though she gets along well with her boyfriend Socrates, and they compliment each other's play style. We still don't allow off leash play...just not up for taking a chance. (It was really funny one time when Socrates took on the dominant role and put his head over her shoulder...she didn't do anything, but when he stopped she walked away from him as far as she could get on her leash and laid down facing away from him and refused any further interaction. Play was over, the Diva was miffed. LOL)

 In response to Tashakota; I agree she behaved badly with the little dog. That was during my learning curve of trying to figure her out; and listening to people who should "know better" over my gut instinct. She is no longer allowed to play with dogs off leash, period, nor is she allowed to greet strange dogs. It is strictly working on avoid and ignore, unless it is a situation where the other person knows of her and her issues and we talk and they think their dog will compliment her and they are willing to do the whole wine and dine routine necessary to get Veronica calm enough to interact with another dog; and even then the goal is simply walks together and some on-leash playtime.

I do have Control Unleashed. I am going to have to review my techniques and start going about things in a more planned & organized way.

 First, I have no training in this but the videos w/ the little dog were hard to watch. These just reinforced Veronica's DA-what was the point of that??  A Bichon is not a dominant dog so she is just going to reinforce V.'s big dog attitude-and guess who will pay for that???

 Go w/ pit bull's savvy remark- I'm guessing she saw videos of V and was not just making opinion willy nilly.

The pitbull in last video was, to this untrained eye, not DA. And not all are-I picked up a pit bull left in my neighborhood that was the most submissive and sweet dog I've ever seen-rolled on back when I approached-thought she was a lap dog and totally ignored my 3 little dogs when I brought her inside. I had Shih Tzu, Bichon, and Schnauzer-shih said hello and pit bull just calmly wagged her tail.

I couldn't take her w/ me-div., HOA w/ 3 dog limit, & over 55 community-the old folks would have gone into the vapors. My neighbor was having a large party so I thought, this dog will get herself adopted. Took her down there and folks were "fighting" over who would get her! "I want her-no I want her- -no I WANT HER"!!

5 minutes of meet and greet and sure enough she got herself adopted-

I dog sit so what I do w/ the larger ones that need more exercise than walking on a lease-is run them beside my car going like 2mph- You'll probably will chortle at this but Caeser says exercise, dominate ,then love. Exercise is big key ....as another poster mentioned . But not everyone can skateboard or bicycle run their big dog.

Loved your Basset tribute- my family had a tri color one-this was back when dogs ran freely outside-30 yrs. ago-and Belle the Bassett could chase my car blocks-who would believe those short legs could run that far!! Oh, and when she was a puppy, she'd step on her ears and cry-last little share-she introduced us to "false" pregnancy-She was fixed but decided she was pregnant and spent about a month engorging & crying -until one day crying  just stopped & a few days later nipples returned to normal.

You know I'm suppose to be finishing up CEU's for my LCSW lic. and obviously I'm not-I think I'll blame it on Veronica!!

Alice