Over-eager

Hi Corvus

I guess that Kivi is telling you in his very clearest way what he wants; and you need to use that rather than fight it or even dull the excitement. 

I teach voluntary watch. I am really not at all into cues for watching me. I teach it in a free shaping way, with clicks and rewards for watching. Basically in USA terms, i just hang with them and click every time that they look at me. Another pretty reasonable video for this is Chris Bach's. I don't like to cue it at all, the nearest i get is in the trial ring where i have taught that rewards happen if my dogs look at me when the judge starts to talk. It is  pretty cute trick. You can use this skill right up to heeling your dogs in very close proximity to other dogs. Off course the reward for this is to release them to these dogs often enough that they give it a shot.I use the same "trick" for recalls. If you come quickly, then it is off to the dogs for you!!

Sometimes, if you develop play skills with your dogs and learn to hype them right, other dogs can almost seem a little well boring. Of course attention can be a return cue for you to pull out a toy and play like mad.

I would personally not ask for a drop in arousal by a sit, but if the focus wasn't happening , i would turn away, and have another go. Keep the movement get the focus. You have the movement , the other dog probably doesn't.

If you get the attention you will be amazed at how much energy dogs can use on a focus on you.It has worked really well on my dogs and a few other peoples dogs. The focus must be highly operant. Remember that there is another drive other than prey drive and flight/fight drive. It is highly useful namely Pack drive. In affective Neuro science terms a total lack of PANIC emotion.

One day when i get up the courage, i will post a video of Luci working so that you can get an idea of what happens.  I might even put in the corny bit of her heeling between very large dogs and just focusing on me. I guess that i would also have to show her being a real dog being highly social so that you might believe that she is "not just a poodle".....you know any "easy" dog to train :))

Nikon gets super hyped over his training ball, which is good, so now I use this for more control work.  I toss the ball and his excitement starts to build, but instead of trying to heel toward the ball and asking for sits, I turn him and heel him away from the ball, do some quick obedience, then release him to claim the reward (he always remembers exactly where it was thrown!).  Of course you can't release a dog to run to another dog but if there is some other reward or object that excites him you could work the same way, to generalize the obedience and control. 

I talked about this in another thread but I am now a firm believe that I build control first and then use it in context with other dogs, I don't use other dogs as distractions while I'm still building the control.  I've found that there is too much at stake (maybe more for us since my dog is not simply curious and friendly but will be aggressive) and there are too many factors for me to maintain complete control when other dogs and owners are present.

Last night we had a chance to proof all the obedience and control work we've done.  I met my trainer at a pet store where I used to take Nikon as a puppy but have not taken him in months because of his reactivity.  The employees though I had yet another dog but I said nope, this is the furry black puppy that used to come in.  The only barking he did the entire time was at me (and it was justified because I rev him up a bit to get a solid prancy heel - we have a little game where I hide the ball in my armpit and say "where's that ball? where's that ball?" which is his cue to get in drive, he barks at my face a few times and we are off).  He was totally indifferent towards my trainer's dog, who used to excite him and cause him to have wild barking fits.

Again, it may be different for me because of the aggression factor but I want my dog to see other dogs as neutral, something that is just there like a picture on a wall or a tree stump in the ground, hence I do not use moving toward the dog as a reward for focus and control.  All rewards come from *me*.  Does that make sense?  I'm not sure I'm explaining it well...

 I've been almost having an identical problem with Kirby. I've worked hard to turn him from the reactive beast he used to be, but the sight of another dog still seems like crack for him.  He doesn't lunge or snarl like he used to since he is no longer fearful, but as we get within 5 feet or so he will start leaning hard into his harness and occasionally let out a little excited whiny grunt or lift his paws and do his excited flail in their direction.  People on bikes, ducks, joggers, little screaming kids, are all eh.  Another dog and he goes into super focus mode.  Like Liesje my goal is ultimately for the other dogs to be neutral.  It would be my dream for them to become background scenery or nothing more exciting than passing a human.  I have found any sort of greetings on leash to be largely impractical.  First off Kirby doesn't even really want to greet them generally as much as he seems to think he wants to greet them.  Sometimes I think it is more he is getting pleasure out of the excitement and leaning into the leash.  Like at the dog park who will choose racing the fence with a dog outside rather than actively engaging any of the dogs on the same side.

I have chosen to go more the route of when Kirby is on leash he is working and that isn't the time to meet and greet.  Currently I have been reworking on strengthening his focus on me with using a new command and restarting from scratch.  At this point everything has been free shaping with the clicker.  He used to have a pretty good watch me but I got sloppy over time with it and it turned into a try to watch my hand to see when/if it is going to produce food versus a focused stare on my face.

In the meantime I have recently found a bit of a training crutch while out on walks.  I will do the old trick where you loop the loose part of the leash across the dogs chest so he is walking into that.  For Kirby it takes out the pleasure of pulling so it has stopped reinforcing the pleasure of leaning into his leash while passing dogs on our walks.

 Thanks guys, you've given me a bit to think about.

I don't really want Kivi to be neutral towards other dogs. He is a social butterfly and always has been and I don't really want to change that. I just want to reign it in a bit. This morning he played up for a full block because he saw his friend Angus, who actually hates him, but was about the first dog he got to meet out of his yard and he seems to think Angus is one of his many BFFs. But then he walked right past two dogs on the same footpath, just touching noses with one (who turned out to be frightened of him) and mostly ignoring the second one. It seems distance is the thing that gets him going. When the dog is on the same footpath heading his way, he knows he'll get to walk past it and he's nice and calm. When the dog is on the other side of the road, or on the footpath ahead or behind and walking the same direction, he gets all stupid about it. I guess he knows he probably won't get to talk to it and feels frustrated about it.

Realising that, it seems a bit unfair of me to expect him to be as calm about seeing a dog he won't get to talk to as seeing a dog he will at least get to walk past. He gets the same way about cats. He so badly wants to see if they are friendly, but he never gets to, so he acts up about it. Perhaps what I should be doing instead of reigning him in is giving him something to do with his frustration (other than turning to Erik and rolling him). At the dog park I always take a long plaited rope of fleece, and when he wants to play too rough with a smaller dog or a dog that doesn't want to play with him comes by, I get him chasing the rope and he's right. 

The only problem with this is will it help us achieve our long-term aim of shaping him up for a decent therapy dog? 

I think one of the biggest problems people create in their dog-social dogs is that they end up creating a dog that thinks it is his or her god-given right to meet and greet every dog on the planet. The mere sight of another dog puts them into arousal and they pull, bark, whine, to get over to the other dog. It realistically is something that tends to be reinforced from puppyhood, because dogs need to be socialized. Well, they do need socialization, but they don't need a dog who believes as an adult that every dog is for the greeting! Do you stop every pedestrian on a walk to shake hands with them?

All dogs need to learn that just because another dog is around, it  doesn't mean you have to greet, or even sniff. I actually learned the benefits of this through working with special needs dogs, and took it over to work with my dog-social boy, so that I can take him on walks in the city and he only stops to greet those dogs which I let him stop to greet, and he walks right on past the others.

You might benefit from looking into an exercise called Look At That from Control Unleashed. It's a fun, easy, and really great exercise that involves rewarding the dog for looking at the thing you ultimately want it to ignore later on. It's really neat, because it's actually part classical conditioning even though you are operantly rewarding a behaviour. If you can't find the exercise let me know and I'll find it for you.

All rewards come from *me*.

A simple, but indispensable tenet of dog training:-)  Convince your dog of this, and you are way more than halfway there...  If the environment becomes more rewarding than you, you're in trouble.  That's why people who tell me that it's dumb to use food are on the wrong track.  It's not dumb to use ANY reinforcement that the dog perceives as way cool.  And, pair that with "it always comes from me" and you can get a dog that instantly looks to the handler for reward, companionship, guidance.  It doesn't matter if it's a ball in your armpit (Liesje, you must have big armpits lol) or a frisbee folded in your back pocket, or a piece of chicken in your bait bag.  It's the act of convincing the dog that YOU are the bearer of all his resources that makes him regard you as a leader.

I always aim to set my dogs up to win so if they are that focused on a distraction I won't fight for their attention by giving them a command I know there is a high likelihood they won't obey, or will break before I give the ok.

If it were me, and Kivi was straining on the leash to get to another dog and I was struggling to get any focus on me I would turn around and walk away until he calmed down, then ask for focus. It's all about their critical distance IMO and working on decreasing the distance it takes for the other dog to 'trigger' him into an aroused/excited state.

If my dog carried on for an entire block because it was so excited about meeting it's friend, there is no way I'd reward them by allowing them to interact with that dog. My dogs know that they can only meet dogs when they are calm and behaving themselves. If they play up, they can't greet the other dog.

Liesje

Again, it may be different for me because of the aggression factor but I want my dog to see other dogs as neutral, something that is just there like a picture on a wall or a tree stump in the ground, hence I do not use moving toward the dog as a reward for focus and control.  All rewards come from *me*.  Does that make sense?  I'm not sure I'm explaining it well...

Makes sense to me. I totally agree and aim for a similar thing with my dogs.

spiritdogs

All rewards come from *me*.

A simple, but indispensable tenet of dog training:-)  Convince your dog of this, and you are way more than halfway there...  If the environment becomes more rewarding than you, you're in trouble. 

Yep, this is why proofing Coke has been a total failure.  Still haven't found something that is more motivating and rewarding that the environment (freedom, squirrels, another dog....).  With him, "setting the dog up for success" has to be taken to a whole different level, since he is so much more affected by his environment than a dog like Nikon, who would rather have a ball in his mouth than breathe.

Liesje

Yep, this is why proofing Coke has been a total failure.  Still haven't found something that is more motivating and rewarding that the environment (freedom, squirrels, another dog....).  With him, "setting the dog up for success" has to be taken to a whole different level, since he is so much more affected by his environment than a dog like Nikon, who would rather have a ball in his mouth than breathe.

I own a scent hound who is quite a drivey dog and I know exactly what you mean by the above. There's nothing like training a dog who only has to set paw out of the house before getting instantly distracted and switching into that highly aroused state so easily. We're getting there though.

Living with terriers, I think I've become the queen of pick thy battles, and controlling the reinforcers, and knowing when you can't control certain reinforcers. However, having said that, I've found with dogs who are really stinulated by the environment, Premack works wonders!! I taught a lot of Gaci's focus with that - you watch me, you get what you want. Watching me increases. Watch me - go sniff. Watch me - go sniff. Watch me once more - go for a run in the field.

Some things never become 100%, though, and you aim for the highest reliability you can, and you just keep working on it.

 The problem is not so much that he doesn't listen to me as that he's anticipating the release. I guess this is premack, because if he sits nicely he gets to greet the dog, but the problem is he sits nicely enough, waits to be told he can go, then rushes to claim his reward.

I have never allowed him to greet every dog he sees. I'm inclined to think that some of this is just his age, as he's still a bit of a kid in his head. Dogs I've lived with before have all gone through the same thing and just got over it as they got older, but given Kivi is far more social than any dog I've lived with before, I don't want to just assume he'll get better with age. 

To reiterate, saying you can't go meet that dog when you're acting up has been the rule for his whole life and it's kind of become the problem. Well, there are two problems now that I think about it. On the one hand, he knows when he's not going to get to meet the dog and that's when he behaves the worst. He'll dance around and whine and jump up and down and so forth. He will sit when I ask, but is not interested in going anywhere but across the road to the other dog.

On the other hand he'll sit lovely and polite when I ask him to in order to get to meet the doggy, but when I release him he's more excited than ever because he's about to get to meet the doggy. Now, I haven't exclusively asked for sits when I intend to reward them with canine greetings. Sometimes I ask for sits and he has to make do with food rewards because we're just not greeting every dog we see and never have. I don't think this makes much of an impact on him. He gets rewarded with greeting the dog often enough that now he's like "Sit.... wait for it.... wait for it... YAY! Let's go meet the dog!" and plows off. My heel command is strong enough to combat this sometimes, but the more excited he gets the less likely it is to work, so I'm effectively shooting myself in the foot by creating more excitement than I can handle.

Oh, maybe I can start leaning on the heel instead of the sit. I wonder if that would work.

I'll look up the "Look at that" game, anyway. Thanks Kim.

Corvus, when he's in the sit, how focused is he on you, and how focused is he on the other dog? Could you ask him to heel (or walk away) from the other dog while still maintaining focus on you and not the other dog?

Liesje

spiritdogs

All rewards come from *me*.

A simple, but indispensable tenet of dog training:-)  Convince your dog of this, and you are way more than halfway there...  If the environment becomes more rewarding than you, you're in trouble. 

 

Yep, this is why proofing Coke has been a total failure.  Still haven't found something that is more motivating and rewarding that the environment (freedom, squirrels, another dog....).  With him, "setting the dog up for success" has to be taken to a whole different level, since he is so much more affected by his environment than a dog like Nikon, who would rather have a ball in his mouth than breathe.

Well, as a hound owner, I can tell you that the environment of scent is verrrry rewarding.  So, part of the process is to get the dog to "ask permission" by making the desired behavior the "ask" with the reward being the environment.  So, "sit/stay" for a millisecond, wait for the release, and you get to sniff the gopher hole.  Gradually the amount of time the dog has to "sit/stay" is lengthened and the duration becomes easier because the dog "gets" that the reward of sniffing is eventually coming - all he has to do is "ask".  When I say that I start off with a millisecond, I'm not kidding - with some dogs, you are simply releasing them with a signal even though they were about to release themselves lol - and you are doing it because it tells them that you were going to release them - it *was* really the human's idea.  Too many times, people are concerned about getting more duration than the dog can give and aren't willing to go through the process at the dog's speed.  You can build a very strong behavior from tiny increments, so long as you have the right sequence and the dog gets convinced;-)