Reactive dogs question

We are using various training methods to reduce the reactivity so that we have been able to decrease the distance she will react. Eventually I hope it will go away all together

 I find Kirby to be somewhat unpredictable.  Now when he was at his worst he was very predictable.  See a dog, spazz out in fear related Cujo mode to try and scare the dog away.  Now that I have alleviated most of the fear for him his reactivity is more a default when he gets over stimulated.  This can be hard to judge because we can walk past a number of dogs fine and then other times the cards can fall just right where he falls back into old habits.  His reactivity can also vary depending on the situation.  For instance if he feels really confident the other animal is contained or isn't looking in his direction, he might do his I'm tough bunny hop snark that is all talk.  Sometimes he will even do this when in a loose setting with other dogs especially to larger ones as they run by but if they so much glance in his direction all of a sudden he is sniffing the ground like, what huh I didn't do anything?  Sort of like the little kid that will stick their tongue out at someone only when they think they aren't looking. 

He also can have his I'm so excited I really want to see them reactivity that is often reserved for other little dogs that we get in real close proximity when on walks.  Things can be especially heightened if we are somewhere that makes him nervous like the vets.  He went for a check up a few weeks back, and though he was better than he has ever been at the vet, he still reacted twice at people which normally he never does.  For him the overstimulate happened in the waiting room when other guests walked by us in the seating area.  He was fine when they were standing still, but motion especially as something passes can sometimes get him over aroused.

 Bugsy

corvus

does different things depending on the situation

He never reacted to anything until about 1.5 yrs ago when he got fed up of a particular dog aggressing towards us. If he sees that dog it isn't reacting they both want to fight.

But as you may recall from the post regarding prey/hunt drive he still sometimes reacts to some things (people running with dogs, some dogs that stare or pull towards him are two I can think of) and other times he doesn't (can be same people same dogs). 

I am seeing a pattern of him being more likely to react on the days he is clearly in hunt mode

Gaci's has always been extremely predictable. I knew what triggers she would react to, and I knew at what distance she become uncomfortable to the point of breaching threshold.

Shimmer's, though, was totally unpredictable and is what made it difficult in the beginning. She could see one person and be totally great, and then be afraid of that same person the next day. She would see one dog and totally fly off the handle, and then then next day it would be walking behind her and she didn't care whatsoever.

Dogs who are reactive - low impulse control, easy to arouse, harder to calm down, and hair-trigger responses, don't just get *cured* one day. Some of the traits that make up the dog to result in a reactive outburst are a part of what make that dog who it is. You can definitely modify it, and develop great changes with coping skills, but there are always elements of that dog that remain quirky and that may come out in situations where the dog cannot cope. There are still certain dogs or people in the environment that will startle Shimmer. Not to the extent they once did with a panicked response, but still make her uncomfortable and she may let out a bark or two. It happens, and you just work through it, and continue working to build those skills.

 Are they really "unpredictible" or the handler fails to see the signals a dog is sending before he/she reacts? I think is actually the second one

No, they really are unpredictable Espencer. When you've lived with one, only then will you understand.

There is predictable, and there is unpredictable. I have one of each (well, I have two predictable, but he's the world's best dog. LOL), so I'm confident that they really can be unpredictable.

Kim_MacMillan

No, they really are unpredictable Espencer. When you've lived with one, only then will you understand.

So you are saying that are dogs that before they react their body does not get tense, their ears dont point out towards the objective, the nose points in one direction but the eyes towards another, dont flick their tongues, etc. (while other dogs do one or all of the above).

Are you sure that they are not just too fast to send the signals and those signals dont last enough for the handler to see them?

I would suspect that those signals last less when they find another dog just around the corner vs when the other dog is 100 yards away.

Could you explain why you thought your dog was unpredictible?

In the case of Sheba, there are absolutely NO warning signs.  She can be exposed to the exact same stimulus two days running and react totally differently on each day.  And, again, not the first warning sign.

However, she ONLY does this with me, and when she is alone with me.  Todd can walk her in the midst of strangers with no reaction at all.  Clearly I am the problem with that girl, but, I can walk the whole pack at the same time without the first issue.

corvus

I am curious. Those with reactive dogs, do you find their behaviour to be unpredictable? Will they always react the same way to a trigger and just intensify that behaviour with decreasing distance, or do they do different things depending on the situation?

To me, reactive is a loaded term, it means different things to different people.  For example, in Schutzhund, Nikon is somewhat reactive.  Not enough to be bad, but enough for him to be accurately described as having a "reactive edge".  He does possess a lot of reactive aggression (again, "aggression" is also a loaded term and not necessarily a bad thing here) and with maturity is transitioning from reactive to active.  His reactiveness in this context is extremely predictable, so much so that it is part of the training we do unique to him.  We know what not to do to encourage more active aggression, and when the reactive aggression is appropriate how to encourage and reward it.

espencer

 Are they really "unpredictible" or the handler fails to see the signals a dog is sending before he/she reacts? I think is actually the second one

Depends on the dog.  Most owners who are very savvy will learn to pick up on the dog's signals, or at least recognize with increasing frequency which triggers are most likely to set the dog off.  Others will never see it:-(((  But, there are some breeds which do not signal, and yet can be very reactive, and even aggressive, without much warning.  It's important to realize that, with some dogs, the first signal will be so slight as to go unnoticed, something as simple as a turned whisker.   So, generalizations are not helpful in having people understand how to deal with the phenomenon.  When we use classical conditioning and desensitization, we want to be working under threshold, which is why, in most cases, a trainer or behaviorist will ask at what *distance* the dog usually reacts, as well as to what stimuli.

glenmar

In the case of Sheba, there are absolutely NO warning signs.  She can be exposed to the exact same stimulus two days running and react totally differently on each day.  And, again, not the first warning sign.

However, she ONLY does this with me, and when she is alone with me.  Todd can walk her in the midst of strangers with no reaction at all.  Clearly I am the problem with that girl, but, I can walk the whole pack at the same time without the first issue.

That honestly sounds more like guarding you as a resource than reactivity.  The clue was that she might think that *you* are the "anointed one."

Gee, ain't that just grand?  LOL!

I've already told Todd that when we get to the campground, I will walk ALL the dogs in the morning, but I will NOT walk Sheba.

espencer

Could you explain why you thought your dog was unpredictible?

I did explain why she was unpredictable, above. Please re-read it.

She is of course now very predictable, and she doesn't react in that manner anymore. But when she was reactive, and before she learned the skills she needed, you could not predict her behaviour in any circumstance, as you never knew quite how she would react. It depended as much on her mood, and the weather I'm sure, as it did on the actual stimulus. Because the problem wasn't just *that dog* or *that person*, it was *that person/dog/object in that circumstance at that very moment in time*.  The next day she would happily greet that person because *something* in the environment was different.

I had to watch her in the beginning like a hawk by every person, every dog, every stroller, to look for those *first signs* that I am quite aware of finding, but that sometimes showed themselves clearly, and sometimes honestly did not. It was 0-90 in 0.25 seconds in those moments - there was no tension, no perked ears, no stiffness, no breathing changes, not even a flicked eyebrow. It just happened. Which is what made her unpredictable.

Contrast that to Gaci, who was extremely predictable, and we could go on a long walk in public at ease because I knew just what to expect, and in what circumstances things happened, so that we could either avoid it or work through it, depending on what our goals were that day. Rarely did we find ourselves in an out-of-control situation, because she was predictable - I knew exactly what to expect. Shimmer was unpredictable, as every day was different, and the same day was different from one situation to the next. I could not guess ahead of time what dogs/people/strollers/bikes would stress her out before we went on a walk with Shimmer, whereas I knew before I even got out of the car what would affect Gaci's stress levels. That is the difference between predictable and unpredictable.

Sorry espencer, I should have clarified. By "unpredictable" I really meant difficult to predict. I understand that when you live with an animal they tend to be predictable, but I was assuming that some would be more predictable than others, as Kim has shown.

And by "reactive" I mean sensitive to stimuli and tending towards high arousal and over-reacting. In the literature about dog personalities it is usually referred to as "neuroticism" or "emotional instability" and seems to be associated with cautious animals, but I wonder if that is really the case. I've been doing a lot of reading on coping styles and personalities in dogs and am trying to get an idea of how they fit together. I am thinking that they are maybe independent. A reactive dog could have a proactive coping style or a reactive coping style or something in between? It's a bit of an unconventional thought, seeing as they call it a reactive coping style because it's descriptive.

It also seems to me that reactivity tends to be more common in dogs that are quite drivey and seem to live life at a higher level of arousal than other dogs. Is that the same thing as emotional instability? And if reactive coping styles are characterised by greater flexibility, and proactive coping styles by inflexibility, then are we seeing in reactive dogs that are very predictable a neurotic dog with a proactive coping style, and in reactive dogs that are unpredictable a neurotic dog with a reactive coping style? Or are the predictable reactive dogs not truly reactive? Or did they just learn to react in a particular way because once it worked and so stick to it like glue?