Constructional Aggression Treatment (4iC)

 I've gotten permission to cross-post, so here is the rundown of a 1st CAT session that Pat Miller did with Juniper (dog) and Jolanta (owner):
I've cut out some of the less pertinent details, but it's still quite long...

Our subject dog was Juni, a 6-year-old neutered male Pit Bull mix owned by trainer/CPDT Jolanta Benal. Juni has been dog reactive/aggressive since puppyhood, and several of his littermates also have aggression problems. At least one has been euthanized for aggression....[snipped].

Juni does has a small circle of canine friends he can play with, including 13-year-old Cattle Dog mix Izzy, with whom he lives.

Jolanta has done a considerable amount of work with Juni. They attended our Reactive Rover Camp, and did well, progressing to the point that Juni could parallel walk with other dogs and could control himself, but was not relaxed and friendly with the other dogs. in NYC, Jolanta found it pretty impossible to keep Juni sub-threshold - one of the challenges of ongoing CC&D work with reactivity. She does a pretty good job of keeping him focused on treats when necessary, and he has a very effective "run away" escape behavior.

We started the process on Monday, in the training center. Several various trainers attended one or more of the three-day program.

The first stimulus dog was Amber, a small, mature female Rhodesian Ridgeback [snipped]. Amber was presented at a distance of about 75 feet and Juni immediately erupted, barking and lunging, hackles up. (Jolanta had warned that his threshold distance is "line
of sight," barring any efforts to divert his behavior.) So "just inside the door" was our baseline.

It took several repetitions before Amber was able to enter the room without a Juni eruption, and even then Juni was still pretty tense. We had several reps where Juni would erupt when Amber and Susan turned to leave, and they had to turn around and return to the mark. We looked for and accepted very small signs of relaxation from Juni as the trigger to make the stimulus dog (Amber) - a flick of an ear, blinking, a slight lowering of the head. When we got to "no eruption" we began moving the marker close, one foot at a time.

We worked with Amber as the stimulus dog on Day One. At about 35 feet we began getting attention soliciting affiliative behavior from Juni - soft tail wagging, relaxed body, ears back, squinty eyes. We continues to decrease distance, and at about 10 feet(near the end of the session) we lost the soft behavior - Juni again began growling, barking, and added a snarl (lips curled up). We continue to repeat presentations at that distance until Juni relaxed again, although not to the point of the soft, waggy behavior we had previously.

We worked a total of 3 hours on Day One with two breaks. If I were repeating  this I would back up the marker when we lost the soft behavior rather than trying to work through it at the closer distance.

Day Two, we introduced Willow, an adult spayed female white Shepherd/Collie mix [snipped]. Juni immediately erupted upon presentation at 75-feet. Disappointing - we were hoping to see more of a change in Juni's behavior upon initial presentation. We were, however, able to progress
more quickly - the barking stopped after just a few repetitions, and at the first-hour break we had moved the marker to about 35 feet, and were getting soft, solicitous responses from Juni.

We switched dogs, introducing Bonnie, my 3-year-old Scorgidoodle (Scottie/Corgi/Poodle). Juni had met Bonnie at a Reactive Rover Camp many months prior. There was some barking on the initial presentation at 75 feet, but it was less intense, and we progressed forward rapidly. Between 40 and 10 feet we got very playful behavior from Juni - play bows, full body wags, and Juni offered several "Don't go away" vocalizations on several occasions when Bonnie and I turned to leave. (Significantly different quality of vocalization than his "eruption" barking,) A the end of Day Two we were walking Bonnie and Juni around the training center together, about four feet apart. Juni was relaxed and made several play-bounce moves toward Bonnie. We chose not to let them play, as there is a significant disparity in size and we felt Juni would be too rough
for Bonnie.

Day Three we changed location, and went to the local Outlet Mall - closest approximation to "city" we could come up with in rural Fairplay, MD . We started with Willow again, positioning Juni about 50 feet from the store-corner from which Willow would appear. There were *no* eruptions at all on Day Three, even when Willow [was invited] to leap in the air. (Historically, bouncy behavior was a guaranteed trigger for a Juni eruption) We very quickly progressed from 50 feet to about 10 feet, and then walked to two dogs together along the end of the Mall and in the Mall parking lot, sometimes as close as 3-4 feet apart. Juni was relaxed and unconcerned. To say we were all presently surprised is an understatement.

We returned to the store front area, put Willow away and brought out Missy, my 8-year-old red merle spayed female Australian Shepherd. Juni had never seen Missy, and Missy is naturally bouncy. Again, no eruptions, rapid closure to about 6 feet, then walking together at close distance. We did get one growl and a little tension when Missy was about 15 feet from Juni as we did approaches, but he was relaxed again on the next approach.

We then had Willow return, and worked with the three dogs together, thenadded Lucy, our Cardigan Corgi, and finally added Bonnie to the mix. We finished the morning after 1.5 hours with all five dogs walking around one end of the mall, passing in close quarters, following, appearing unexpectedly around corners. Juni was completely relaxed. We were all pretty excited.

Jolanta commented that she saw numerous relaxed play and affiliative behaviors from Juni that she has *never* seen from him before toward other
dogs.  I was impressed with the process. It was thrilling to see Juni offering clear play behaviors, and being calm, non-reactive and relaxed, not just controlled, in the presence of multiple dogs.  [snipped]...

...I was pleased to see that the procedure was less stressful for both the stimulus dog and the subject dog than I had feared. I wouldn't hesitate to use my three non-reactive dogs again. [snipped]...

BTW, Jolanta reports that upon her return to NYC, Juni initially saw a dog outside the car window and did *not* react - as he normally would have. However, he did growl and bark at several subsequent dogs he saw from the car.

Once home, Jolanta did a set-up CAT protocol with a trainer friend's reactive Yorkshire Terrier. It took 15-20 minutes to get within 6 feet, and Juni offered friendly behavior the entire time. However, just before they started the CAT process with the Yorkie, someone went by with a dog (one Juni doesn't know) and he did growl, hackle, and hit the end of the leash, plus some barking. It was NOT the full-fledged display he gave on first
seeing Willow on Tuesday a.m., but it was certainly not what we saw this morning at the mall.

Jolanta posits that Juni is making a clear differentiation between the presentation of protocol dogs and the appearance of random "real" dogs - and that generalization is still an issue - that he generalized the protocol quite nicely to a new location, but he hasn't yet generalized the protocol to real life - and there's the rub. ...[snipped]
 

And here is a follow-up (from Jolanta):

[snipped]...
We were very quick-and-dirty -- these were complete strangers doing me a favor. I met them and my friend outside their building, explained CAT in the smallest possible nutshell, and set up cues for everyone to use. No video, no markers, no keeping track of the number of trials, no nothing, I'm afraid, because I was just seizing an unexpected opportunity. However, elapsed time for Juni's portion of the festivities was well shy of half an
hour...[snipped], and as you'll see we wound up spending some time on their dog too.

I wanted to vary the CAT procedure where the decoy approaches the trainee directly because Juni has demonstrated that he's wise to that setup and so to generalize I wanted to replicate as closely as I could the experience of walking along and suddenly spotting an unknown dog.

We set up with me walking Juni "nonchalantly" on the other side of the street (2 lanes plus parked cars on each side); there were big gaps between the parked cars, so plenty of opportunity for the dogs to see each other. The drill was that as soon as Juni reacted to the sight of the other dog, her owners would stop dead and stay where they were; when Juni ratcheted down, they would move their dog away. My trainer friend stayed on the decoy's side, so that she could see Juni's face.

Well, it turned out that the decoy dog was intensely reactive herself. In response I did a little bit of winging it, in that some of Juni's
reinforcements consisted of *his* being removed from the other dog. First thing to note, he never blew up at all, even when the decoy was barking and lunging at him. (!)

Within a few trials (I want to say fewer than 10, but I probably tend to undercount trials), he was offering *only* calm, friendly behaviors on sight
of the decoy. His tail was soft, his ears were back, he oriented himself at an angle or sideways to the decoy, his body weight was neither forward nor back, he looked away and sniffed the ground, etc. etc. -- the full complement of appropriate, sociable behaviors that we saw on Wednesday
morning at the mall.

We did not close distance across the street, both because of the other dog's reactivity and because in "real life" I would not close distance in this
situation. Instead, my friend and her clients asked whether we could do the procedure in reverse, with Juni as the decoy. Quite against my better
judgment, I agreed. I couldn't believe Juni would be able to do this, but here were complete strangers doing me a big favor, and I sort of felt as if
I didn't have a leg to stand on, because Juni was doing a letter-perfect imitation of a dog who has never had a moment's trouble with other dogs in
his life.

So I set things up with my friend handling Juni and a dead-on approach from about 200 feet with me stage-managing. To make a long story short, Juni appeared to be channeling some platonic ideal of a neutral, calm, friendly dog. He air sniffed. He ground sniffed. He turned sideways. He blinked. He wagged softly. He looked away. He pinned his ears. At the beginning of the procedure he did show some tension in his tail but the only moment of overt aggression, and it was VERY brief, happened late, when the dogs' eyes met. There was an instant of hard staring, then he dropped his gaze. It was sometimes hard for me to watch the clients' dog because I was so flabbergasted.

Something I think is particularly important to note: Juni did not appear stressed -- it was relaxed, calm body language all the way down the line.

The clients' dog responded with amazing rapidity herself. We R'd head turns, sits, eyeblinks. Over about half an hour we brought the dogs to within 15 feet, then took a parallel walk across the street from each other, at which point we called it quits -- the other dog is even more powerful than Juni and doesn't have well-developed leash manners, so closer than 15 feet we would have been risking contact if there was a lunge on her part. Also, neither dog's history encouraged us to want an actual meeting, and since this was my first stab at conducting the procedure myself I certainly wouldn't have felt right pushing it any further.

The clients said that their dog was offering behaviors they had never seen her offer to another dog, including lip licks, ground sniffs, and turnaways. She even whined after Juni when he was walking away, just as he had done with the decoy dogs when he was the trainee. [snipped].

[snipped]

By the way, we did see four dogs on this morning's walk, with some reaction to one of them (approx 50-lb Lab mix). It's possible that Juni responded to a couple of smaller dogs with a head turn, but this may be wishful thinking on my part. However, when I thought I saw this behavior, I praised him, increased distance from the other dog, and tossed a treat on the ground. It's not CAT, I know, but what the heck, I'm going to throw every reinforcer I can find at anything that looks appropriate in an uncontrolled encounter.

HTH, 4iC
 

Thanks Vinia.  I was writing my posts based on what I recollect from watching the dvd's.  In my first post I automatically wrote "decoy dog" and then when I wrote my subsequent posts, I thought where did I get "decoy dog" from and switched to "demo dog".  In the video they use "decoy dog".

In the first "experience", I felt they did not complete the treatment properly with Juni leaving the end of day one unfinished.  I also thought day 2 should have started with Amber before introducing another dog.

What was left out of the dvd's and these two experiences is when the dog gets a terrible experience with another dog, not barking or lunging from another dog but actual contact.  Jesus say in all of his subjects, the treatment sticks but never mentioned what happens if the dog is presented with a very negative experience, does the dog revert back to its reactive behavior.

FourIsCompany

stardog85

I do think that if not implemented well it does have the potential to make things much worse

 

I agree. I'm so fortunate to have an instructor who is very experienced (along with her dog) in this exercise.

Spiritdogs, can you say some more? Do you have thoughts about my situation? B'asia came to us like she is at 4.5 months old. She raised hell with the other dogs here for the first week. Finally, on an intuitive impulse, I just let her out of her crate and  let her interact directly with the other dogs and we haven't had a problem since. Her breeder did say that there was one dog there that B'asia also raised hell with.

Sorry, should have popped back in sooner.  Busy week:-(

Anyway, when you get a dog at that age, you have lost the optimum socialization window already, so you are pretty much working with what the dog already knows about other dogs.  It's impossible to know what her early experiences might have taught her, but my guess is that she is ok with most dogs, troubled by some, and is possibly an anxious dog in general.  I would say that if she was fine off leash with her "sibs" during that first encounter, that she is reactive or fearful in her nature, and not aggressive.  Reactive dogs will often be reactive when confronted with a new dog that they do not know, but especially if they feel confined by leash, crate, small space, inability to escape.  Some will never accept the new dog nicely, and others will accept the dog once they know one another.  Really, the problem that most of them have is that they never meet new dogs off leash because their behavior on leash (or crated) is so darn scary.  Best defense, for many of these dogs, is a good offense.  Others of them are just frustrated - want to get to the dog to play or investigate. My question is what does B'asia do if she encounters an unknown dog? Is her response different off leash than on?
 

Thanks for your response, SD. And thank you, Vinia for that rundown. Very interesting!

spiritdogs

My question is what does B'asia do if she encounters an unknown dog? Is her response different off leash than on?

She doesn't have that much experience encountering dogs off leash. When I let her off leash at the dog park, she was a bit submissive, but was fine with most of the dogs. Really she didn't seem that interested. There was one dog, however (a nice, fairly well-behaved dog) that she focused in on and would not leave him alone. She chased and barked and really was a jerk to him. I would call her back and get her focused on something else and when I released her, she went right back to Rosco to give him hell. He didn't want to hurt her, but I could tell he was losing his patience (he's a big dobe mix and could have hurt her). So I just put her on leash while Jaia played and she was fine.

I haven't had enough experience with her with other dogs to say if her response is that different off leash than on. Although I suspect she reacts more on-leash. She's more assertive on leash, as if she knows she's protected. Letting her off leash, she isn't quite so certain of her safety and therefore is a little more submissive.

That's my take on her behavior, anyway. Does that tell you anything?

I'm very eager to start this treatment tonight. I've been talking with the trainer via email and I have pretty high hopes. I'll post here afterwards.  

I don't have much time right now, but I wanted to let everyone know that tonight went GREAT! Massive improvements! The little Toller (Sue) we worked with was fantastic and B'asia responded just like the dogs I read about. I'm VERY hopeful about this now.

More later.

Yay!!!! 

Well, when we got there and the instructor observed B'asia's interactions and body language with the other dogs, she was certain that B'asia was NOT at all aggressive and decided to go with a more conventional Patricia McConnell (Cautious Canine) style of desensitization, so we didn't use the CAT technique at all. It just wasn't appropriate for this situation. But it was still VERY successful! I just got a short clip at the beginning of the session and then decided I wanted to watch and participate more so I put the camera away.

B'asia made many approaches to the other dog and they walked in a parallel formation many times, lessening the distance between them. She even made a few inviting signals to Sue. After an hour, B'asia was quite comfortable with Sue (what a sweetie) in her immediate personal space. And B'asia was much more comfortable leaving the park then she had been entering. She took a treat from another instructor that she had refused on the way in.

Sorry to set everyone up and then not follow through on this technique, but I had no way of knowing that it wasn't going to be appropriate for B'asia's problem. I was disappointed at first, but when I saw her responding so positively, I knew the instructor had made the right call.

Here's a short clip of the session. 

FourIsCompany

B'asia made many approaches to the other dog and they walked in a parallel formation many times, lessening the distance between them. She even made a few inviting signals to Sue.

This is how the Treatment protocal ends and is polished for dog to dog aggression.  What was stressed in the video was not to use food as a reward for good behavior.  The reward is the peaceful calm and the social interaction with the other dog.  When working with aggression it was pointed out that you don't introduce an item where one or both dogs may get reactive.  It was also stated that in dog-human aggression, in the polishing stage it would be appropiate to use rewards.

FourIsCompany

Sorry to set everyone up and then not follow through on this technique, but I had no way of knowing that it wasn't going to be appropriate for B'asia's problem. I was disappointed at first, but when I saw her responding so positively, I knew the instructor had made the right call.

I don't think you need to apologise, 4iC- the most important thing is that you use what works best for B'asia. I'm glad that the desensitisation showed such positive results!

FourIsCompany

decided to go with a more conventional Patricia McConnell (Cautious Canine) style of desensitization...

B'asia made many approaches to the other dog and they walked in a parallel formation many times, lessening the distance between them. She even made a few inviting signals to Sue.

This is really cool, isn't it? I wasn't able to see the video (my computer is acting up) but I've done this with leash aggressive dogs, where you walk them together, kind of side by side, and after a while they start to settle down and get comfortable with one another. I don't think it's about desensitization at all, though. I think it taps into a modal-action pattern related to the way wolves move in-synch when they travel together while searching for prey. It's the same principle behind the way military units have their soldiers march together: moving in-synch, side by side, creates feelings of camaraderie.

I got the idea for doing this years ago when I noticed that the dogs who are walked in big groups by NYC dogwalkers are always very relaxed with each other and are often the same way with new dogs they meet on their walks. The bigger the pack, the mellower the dogs. Some of that could be the result of "natural selection," of course; dogs who have aggression problems wouldn't be likely candidates for pack walks. But I've found it works often enough to defuse aggression that it's become a fairly standard part of my training repertoire with leash aggressive dogs.

Anyway, I'm glad B'asia had this positive experience with Sue.

LCK

Lee Charles Kelley

I don't think it's about desensitization at all, though. I think it taps into a modal-action pattern related to the way wolves move in-synch when they travel together while searching for prey.

I share the opinion that a good walk together can give previously antagonistic dogs a feeling of hunting together and actually form a positive bond. I happen to think desensitization ties in with it, though. I think both ideas are contributing to benefit the dogs. JMO.

As to your opinion of CAT, you might be right. Since we didn't have the opportunity to do it, I don't have an opinion. I would have loved to try it, though, under the right circumstances.

DPU, you were right! LOL Your clairvoyant abilities are astounding! Can you tell me, will Jaia and B'asia have positive responses to the current behavioral modification? And more importantly, will I win the lottery? LSTM
 

FourIsCompany

And more importantly, will I win the lottery? LSTM
 

never mind that!

WHAT ARE THE NUMBERS DPU??!!  The numbers, tell me the numbers!!!

Seriously, coming in late IC, but I'm glad B'asia is responding well and I'll be checing back to this thread to see how she gets on.... 

Chuffy

I'm glad B'asia is responding well and I'll be checing back to this thread to see how she gets on.... 

From now on, I'll be posting my dogs' updates in the Jaia and B'asia going to Class thread. This thread is no longer appropriate for my dogs, since they are not actually aggressive and we aren't using this treatment.