# Leash reactivity STILL, what am I doing wrong???



## Carriesue

NOTE: the leash reactivity is ONLY towards dogs 

My boy will soon be 11 months old and is still intact. Right now I am just beyond frustrated with this issue... It started when he was almost 6 months old, I enrolled him in a group class maybe a week and a half after it began. We did a lot of positive reinforcement CU type stuff, he did fine in class with the other dogs though occasionally barked at the over rambunctious young dobie male but it was only because they wanted to play. His barking back then seemed to be frustration at wanting to play with the other dog, off leash he is totally fine with dogs... wonderful with them, in fact. Overall though with the positive training I saw little results, now it seems to be morphing into a whole other monster... My herding instructor said it looks like a bit of uncertainty/possibly lack of confidence plus protectiveness.

Recently I have been using a prong though haven't ever given much of a correction with it, it just helps to keep him from going into that state and lunging... A harness or martingale collar just doesn't give me as much control over him. I use treats too to distract him and reward him, it works but if I did not have both those things he would still be on the end of his leash lunging and barking. We are going back to group training next week.

I am just getting so much conflicting information... Treat, treat, treat from the positive camp and correction, correction, correction from the people I train with who are admittedly more old school. I have tried the whole being at a distance and working our way closer CU stuff, it's just not always realistic in the real world... I can't control where every dog is and where they're going plus I live in a very crowded area. Can leash reactivity towards dogs be caused by not enough exercise and/or mental activity... Could it just be a sign I need to up these things? Which I have no issue doing, just everything else I'm doing doesn't seem to be working. 

This dog is giving me grey hairs.  :help:


----------



## Cschmidt88

Could you give more of an explanation of what you're doing with positive reinforcement? There's many different reward-based ways to go about training reactivity, some having more success than others.

But with my girl, Alice, who is dog-reactive definitely has a harder time if she was not exercised or worked mentally prior. 


Another thing, how long have you been working on it? Is it possible that you might be focusing on the bad and not noticing the little improvements or expecting too much too soon? (I'm bad at this myself)

There will be bad days before things get good. Just like humans, dogs don't always have good days and that will sometimes reflect in their behavior. Obviously more so with a reactive dog. If you have one or two bad days, don't feel discouraged. 


But just from my personal experience with my boy when he was having dog-reactivity issues, the prong only made it worse for him. If he lunged or pulled towards another dog it would only amp him up and at times turned the reactivity to aggression. 

As said though, that is personal experience. 

I would see about possibly getting private lessons from a trainer who can go out and accompany you in these real-life situations.


----------



## Carriesue

Well for Ollie the prong actually seems to keep him from getting ramped up, I'm able to keep enough control over him to where he doesn't try and lunge though I am open to not using it again. I've used a sensation harness and right now he has a freedom no pull harness and he acts much, much worse on a harness... He seems to know the difference if he's not wearing the prong and I have a much harder time keeping him from barking and lunging on a harness.

As far as positive stuff, I've tried being at a distance and marking and rewarding for not barking, moving closer and turning around and walking away if he starts getting amped up. Now we have made success as far as his threshold distances, the dogs have to be pretty darn close for him to react now, I'd say maybe 8 feet away... Beyond that he ignores them for the most part. His biggest issue is a dog walking head on at us, if the dog is right behind us he will want to look but he will not react.

I have also stopped all off leash play with dogs just in case it was contributing or was the main factor, that is the mega frustrating part is he is SO good with dogs off leash though from what I've read of feisty fido that is common. We have been working on it for 6 months... If we're around dogs for a period of time like a group class he will calm down within maybe 10 minutes and ignore them... He will usually not react if he's been worn out too like after herding training... So wish I could afford to do it everyday!!


----------



## Cschmidt88

I'll try to remember to post something longer tomorrow. I'm afraid it never ends well if I try to write something long and thought out so late at night, lol.


Have you ever tried using a low-medium value treat during most of the walk, then when you see another dog approaching head on, whip out something that's very high value to him? 


I'm also curious if premack might help. Like, when you do allow dog-dog interactions have him do some behaviors and then give him a release cue like "Go say hi!". So he learns that he can interact through you.


----------



## doggiedad

how often are you interacting with other dogs? i made sure my dog was around
a lot of dogs. i had play dates at our house, i went to play dates, played
with neighborhood dogs, pet store meetings puppy class. when he was 6 months old
i started going to the dog park. around the same time i find a place in the woods
where people gather with their dogs twice a day. when my dog was around other
dogs i took sometime out for training.


----------



## Cheerful1

Cschmidt88 said:


> Have you ever tried using a low-medium value treat during most of the walk, then when you see another dog approaching head on, whip out something that's very high value to him?
> QUOTE]
> 
> I'd be curious about this also.


----------



## llombardo

doggiedad said:


> how often are you interacting with other dogs? i made sure my dog was around
> a lot of dogs. i had play dates at our house, i went to play dates, played
> with neighborhood dogs, pet store meetings puppy class. when he was 6 months old
> i started going to the dog park. around the same time i find a place in the woods
> where people gather with their dogs twice a day. when my dog was around other
> dogs i took sometime out for training.


This is a good point, but a whole different ball game when a dog is almost a year and almost full grown. Unlike the OP, mine probably had almost zero interaction with other dogs. Mine is rude when he meets them..that is problem number one because that is a fight waiting to happen and I can't put my dog or another dog in that situation. To the OP, I have found that I have to completely mix up the way we train..positive, correction, distractions..anything that will work. I have found there is not one way to do it.


----------



## MilesNY

My boy got leash reactive around 6 months too. He was just being a punk, I did two things. For the first few months whenever we had to walk into class or see other dogs I played tug with him. He wouldn't let the tug go so it was a "puppy pacifier" then around 8 months I started corrections. I gave a firm leave it command or fuss and if he ignored me got corrected for it. Now he has pretty much grown out of it completely. If he is thinking about posturing and then firing off a firm leave it will work. The hardest ones are out of control dogs (little yappers) coming at us, but if I put him in fuss we can walk by those controlled too. 
I think positive training is great if the dog is doing it out if true aggression or fear, but Dante is fine with other dogs so I knew it was just punky frustration teenage behavior that needed to stop. 


Sent from Petguide.com Free App


----------



## andreaB

I'm working on leash reactivity too. My boy got really bad last winter when he was 15 months old. I have private trainer with 8 gsd and every training they are in the room with us, behind a fence. After 3 months of training he is getting better in the classroom but still reacts outside with a strange dog. What is getting better is to get him under control. I do use prong to, does work great for us. I w do it pretty much same us MilesNY positivetraining and correction, not for reactivity but for disobeying heel command. By know I made a peace with knowledge this is going to take time and patience. Not much help just wanted to share my experience.


----------



## Blanketback

I also started bringing a tug on our walks when I knew we'd see other dogs, right around the same age, lol. Now the frisbee (actually, it's a 'chewber') is what I use as a distraction. It works amazingly: although he loves interacting with other dogs, he absolutely adores his chewber and will ignore everything around him when he sees it.


----------



## Gretchen

Your dog is at the age when this behavior really amps up, at least mine did.I felt like I had the perfect pup until 10-11 months old. Molly was on a prong since she was about 5 months old until she was about 2 yrs old. We live in a densely populated area too, so I know how important it is to have a dog that can walk nicely.

Here's what I think happened to Molly, maybe our experience will help you. At training all the dogs wore prongs and the facility allowed no interactions between dogs. So I think part of the leash reactivity was being pulled back when she or other dogs got close, could have made a negative association. The training center had a lot of energy, it was fun, but also got some dogs a bit over stimulated. So I think the fear of her reactivity made me unconsciously pull back on the leash during walks, again giving her a negative association. To top this off our trainers and breeder said she is a very strong willed dog, likes to be the dominant dog and is very large for a female and at this age still immature. 

So what I tried to do was not pull on the prong but only use a pop/correction for "leave it" when passing a dog or cat. Once heel and leave it was understood, then I started using treats when walking. When we'd start approaching a dog or human on the sidewalk, I'd say in a nice voice leave it or "nice" a give a treat, as we got closer I'd stil talk and give treat putting myself between the dog and Molly and walk with a wide arc around them. After we'd pass I'd give another treat and praise. Then i would do this without the wide arc around the person or dog, then I put Molly in the left heel position seeing if she could be next to the person of dog instead of me. I took off the prong and did this without the prong and all went well. I feel like it was about 4 months of this type of walking before I took off the prong. Now that Molly is mature (3 yrs old) she is very social and friendly - it does get better! Recently we went on a walk and met a deaf dog, a lame Lab in a wagon and Molly was very gentle with them, then met two other no disabled dogs and a brief play periods with each one.


----------



## natalie559

MilesNY said:


> My boy got leash reactive around 6 months too. He was just being a punk, I did two things. For the first few months whenever we had to walk into class or see other dogs I played tug with him. He wouldn't let the tug go so it was a "puppy pacifier" then around 8 months I started corrections. *I gave a firm leave it command or fuss and if he ignored me got corrected for it.* Now he has pretty much grown out of it completely. If he is thinking about posturing and then firing off a firm leave it will work. The hardest ones are out of control dogs (little yappers) coming at us, but if I put him in fuss we can walk by those controlled too.
> *I think positive training is great if the dog is doing it out if true aggression or fear, but Dante is fine with other dogs so I knew it was just punky frustration teenage behavior that needed to stop. *


This is a good post- esp the part I bolded- thank you for sharing. So you don't correct the barking but the ignoring of the command which when he's corrected and obeying the command stops the barking. How old is your dog now as you said he's at this point he's grown out of it?


----------



## Carriesue

MilesNY said:


> My boy got leash reactive around 6 months too. He was just being a punk, I did two things. For the first few months whenever we had to walk into class or see other dogs I played tug with him. He wouldn't let the tug go so it was a "puppy pacifier" then around 8 months I started corrections. I gave a firm leave it command or fuss and if he ignored me got corrected for it. Now he has pretty much grown out of it completely. If he is thinking about posturing and then firing off a firm leave it will work. The hardest ones are out of control dogs (little yappers) coming at us, but if I put him in fuss we can walk by those controlled too.
> I think positive training is great if the dog is doing it out if true aggression or fear, but Dante is fine with other dogs so I knew it was just punky frustration teenage behavior that needed to stop.
> 
> 
> Sent from Petguide.com Free App


This is pretty much exactly what my herding instructor said that he's being a teenage arse and you need to correct him for it... He actually saw it happen first hand one day after training when an off leash Border Collie came running up to us. And like you said he is not actually aggressive, if we happen to get surprised by a dog coming nose to nose with us *coughflexicough* all he wants to do is play... He's never shown an ounce of aggression(off leash) to any dog, his only issue off leash is being an obnoxious greeter and wanting to meet every dog there ever was.

We are still working on our leave it and look command... He knows leave it but when he's amped up or in drive like when we're doing tug or the flirt pole it's just like in one ear out the other... Same for look. I guess I need to step up my game and be firmer with him.

But who can resist that face 

Untitled (2013-07-15 05:23:27) by Carriesue82, on Flickr

He does also know focused heeling so I have been using that to distract him too when a dogs approaching us... The technique that works best for us right now for an oncoming dog is I will bring him to my side opposite the dog, if he's focusing on the dog I will tell him to leave it and put slight tension on the prong if he's still focusing. He won't get amped up at all doing this... If they are little white yappy dogs he will whine but that's usually the extent of it.


----------



## Carriesue

natalie559 said:


> This is a good post- esp the part I bolded- thank you for sharing. So you don't correct the barking but the ignoring of the command which when he's corrected and obeying the command stops the barking. How old is your dog now as you said he's at this point he's grown out of it?


That makes sense!


----------



## Carriesue

Blanketback said:


> I also started bringing a tug on our walks when I knew we'd see other dogs, right around the same age, lol. Now the frisbee (actually, it's a 'chewber') is what I use as a distraction. It works amazingly: although he loves interacting with other dogs, he absolutely adores his chewber and will ignore everything around him when he sees it.


I will try this though he has to be worked up in prey mode i.e flirt pole to actually care about his tug but couldn't hurt to try. The only thing he seems to find more valuable then a dog is sheep but I might get weird looks bringing one along on our walks.


----------



## Blanketback

How about a small sheepskin tug? Expensive but worth it, lol. My boy will ignore the whole world around him for his flirt pole, his chewber, and his water toy - which is the sad remains of a chuck-it boomerang. Otherwise, the other dog wins his interest. But with one of those 3 toys, I'm ahead lol.


----------



## natalie559

Carriesue said:


> The technique that works best for us right now for an oncoming dog is I will bring him to my side opposite the dog, if he's focusing on the dog I will tell him to leave it *and put slight tension on the prong* if he's still focusing. He won't get amped up at all doing this... If they are little white yappy dogs he will whine but that's usually the extent of it.


Ask your trainer or maybe another poster has more experience, but I would think you would not want to put continuous pressure on the prong- either it's a pop type correction or nothing as the pressure may be wrong timing and the association of dogs=uncomfortable might happen.

His picture is stunning, love his pigment


----------



## mego

natalie559 said:


> Ask your trainer or maybe another poster has more experience, but I would think you would not want to put continuous pressure on the prong- either it's a pop type correction or nothing as the pressure may be wrong timing and the association of dogs=uncomfortable might happen.
> 
> His picture is stunning, love his pigment


I agree.
Hard pop, sometimes multiple if it does not get his attention.

I think Ollie is pretty too, but you know that  (still wanna see him stacked!)


----------



## MilesNY

Pops on a prong can load dogs, pressure can work (ie dominant dog collars) for getting a quite behavior. Pressure is released as soon as the behavior stops. Depends on the dog for what works when. 

As for Dante, he is 3 now. I would say I had pretty good control over his reaction from about a year on and about 2.5 years he stopped even reacting to dogs in general with no commands from me. It really seems to be a maturity thing. I never let his reactions stop us from doing classes or anything. If he acted up he got corrected but in general he learned to focus on work and ignore the other dogs. 


Sent from Petguide.com Free App


----------



## Kaimeju

llombardo said:


> This is a good point, but a whole different ball game when a dog is almost a year and almost full grown. Unlike the OP, mine probably had almost zero interaction with other dogs. Mine is rude when he meets them..that is problem number one because that is a fight waiting to happen and I can't put my dog or another dog in that situation. To the OP, I have found that I have to completely mix up the way we train..positive, correction, distractions..anything that will work. I have found there is not one way to do it.


Agree with this. The rude behavior can escalate very quickly. I also started with positive and added a prong collar when things weren't working out. There is no one trainer I've talked to whose advice I can follow to the letter. They are all different and you can learn something from each. I do find that teaching a nearly perfect informal heel and u-turn with the prong has helped a lot. It gives her something to focus on. BAT for reactivity has been a huge help when we have time to do it. Just be patient and keep working where your dog is at on that particular day. It will be frustrating but given enough time you should slowly start to see the good moments outweigh the bad.


Sent from Petguide.com Free App


----------



## MadLab

I find the best collar is a tight collar placed right under the dogs chin to give total control over the dogs head so a flick side ways has most effect. 

You mentioned not letting the dog interact with other dogs at all. To me, this will increase the dogs desire to meet other dogs while on leash. A dog (males esp) wants to meet and greet and this is done by posturing a bit and sniffing each other. If dogs are let do this they will rarely fight but if they are held back they will strive to meet and if aggression gets them there they will use it.

I look at it like, the dog is striving to get away from you. The leash is becoming a barrier between you and your dog while it should be a bridge. I was through it too. Getting frustrated is pointless and counter productive. 

Over time it gets better. You will find a way that works. I believe the greater control you gain off leash then the better you become at controlling the dog in any situation.


----------



## Carriesue

Thanks everyone so much for the input! I think for now I'm going to work on a solid leave it and focus as they are not fully distraction proof right now... That's a major part where I've failed, slacking off in that department.

I've done a lot of searching in cities around me for parks(dogs aren't allowed in public parks here in Carlsbad) and I've found a few that seem like they could be really great for practicing this stuff. There are several people parks that also have fenced in dog areas in them... I figure with something like this I can better control our distance staying on the other side of the fence and could be a good place to practice leave its and 'look' under distractions.

We are also going back to some GSD only classes run by a couple who also help run a local IPO club... There's usually 15-20+ dogs in these classes split up between beginner and advanced. They really know GSD's, all different lines so even though we won't get a lot of one on one attention I think being around dogs leashed and having to focus on me doing OB work will only be a positive thing!

2.5 years?! :crazy::help:

He's a pain in the butt but he's so worth it :wub:


----------



## Carriesue

Also I have not tried using low-medium treats then high ones when we see a dog but I will try this too.  And now that he's bigger and acting a fool we don't really get people coming up to us for meet and greets on leash... Seems a lot of people out here are small dog owners.


----------



## llombardo

Some things I have learned from the multiple trainers that I have met with Midnite that work are...the U turn, when a dog is coming, tell your dog in a very excited voice and make the u turn. Hunting...when you see a dog coming, take a handful of treats and toss them away from the dog that is coming, so that your dog goes into hunt mode and is looking for the food. A firm no works well sometimes. The person walking the reactive dog staying calm goes a long way. The gentle leader also works well for us. Getting their attention before they see the dog is wonderful, but that can't be done all the time. I gave up on putting mine in a sit and keeping him focused on me, I'm definitely not as interesting as the dog that is coming, but hopefully that changes when we start going to class full time. Carry a favorite toy, a squeaky one works well. Making different noises that they haven't heard gets there attention. High value treats I have used would be turkey, hot dogs, bison, and venison. Thats all I've got


----------



## vwitt

My girl was like this as well. I know the feeling! I used the prong for a while and although it helped I think eventually she acclimated to the pops and it lost its effect. I actually had the best luck on the gentle leader bc I could easily turn her head up at me to "look" when dogs were passing, then treat.She was a little bit fearful and was not socialized properly as a puppy, sounds like you have a better foundation in that department.

I will also repeat the patience mantra. It actually sounds like you have made some progress so give yourself and your boy credit for that 


Sent from Petguide.com Free App


----------



## llombardo

vwitt said:


> My girl was like this as well. I know the feeling! I used the prong for a while and although it helped I think eventually she acclimated to the pops and it lost its effect. I actually had the best luck on the gentle leader bc I could easily turn her head up at me to "look" when dogs were passing, then treat.She was a little bit fearful and was not socialized properly as a puppy, sounds like you have a better foundation in that department.
> 
> I will also repeat the patience mantra. It actually sounds like you have made some progress so give yourself and your boy credit for that
> 
> 
> Sent from Petguide.com Free App


I think a big plus to the gentle leader is that that nervousness the person has doesn't go down the leash.


----------



## Carriesue

I have a gentle leader, he just hate hate hates it but I could try and get him used to it again, I do like the control over the head it offers and it doesn't have as negative a stigma attached to it.


----------



## dioworld

I would recommend not to use gentle leader or any head collar, especially with our high prey drive breed. do a research on internet and you'll see why. My dog hates it and it can easily hurt their neck.. Imagine you put one on your dog, holding one way. suddenly your dog sees something before you realize, lunges 80lb mass at full speed at the other direction(my dog did this to me, he absolutely hates it), it does hurt them. These kind of collar only makes the owner feel better


----------



## Arlene/Archer

dioworld said:


> I would recommend not to use gentle leader or any head collar, especially with our high prey drive breed. do a research on internet and you'll see why. My dog hates it and it can easily hurt their neck.. Imagine you put one on your dog, holding one way. suddenly your dog sees something before you realize, lunges 80lb mass at full speed at the other direction(my dog did this to me, he absolutely hates it), it does hurt them. These kind of collar only makes the owner feel better


 I use a halti when I'm walking my male GSD around the city and it's fantastic. He's safe in traffic and doesn't pull or drag me anywhere- for that they're incredibly useful. You obviously don't use a halti on the end of an extension lead where a dog might gather 'full speed' and a dog should be trained how to wear one accordingly (for example Archer -if he wants to change sides- crosses behind me so that the lead is always on my side).
I also use a brace for running and a flat collar for hikes and parkland walks. A halti is an excellent tool to have and has nothing at all to do with making me 'feel better'.


----------



## Cschmidt88

dioworld said:


> I would recommend not to use gentle leader or any head collar, especially with our high prey drive breed. do a research on internet and you'll see why. My dog hates it and it can easily hurt their neck.. Imagine you put one on your dog, holding one way. suddenly your dog sees something before you realize, lunges 80lb mass at full speed at the other direction(my dog did this to me, he absolutely hates it), it does hurt them. These kind of collar only makes the owner feel better



Only if you use it improperly. I use one for my dog-reactive girl, she's an APBT with very intense prey drive. I have a leash with clips on both ends (Euro style) one end is clipped to the Halti, the other to the collar. For safety and other reasons. And a dog should be kept on a short leash when on a halti, short enough that they will be unable "lunge at full speed". 


I actually dislike Gentle Leaders though, I simply am not a fan of the very thin design. I like Haltis better due to the padding and the fact that it also attacks to the collar for added safety. 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1wakterNyUg


I've not had to do this myself, but Sophia Yin uses them for emergency situations in a manner such as this
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EUCl6ndLN7Q


----------



## Carriesue

Thanks for the links, they were very helpful! Though Ollie's reactivity is nowhere near that bad... Actually today we were at the vet sitting in the waiting area and two dogs came within a couple feet of him. He was in a sit watching them, I told him to leave it and was praising him the whole time and he didn't even attempt to react but he was very focused on them.

I wish I knew someone with a stable dog I could work with like that(regarding the second video) but its really tough to do those exercises on your own but I can definitely apply some of those techniques if we get in a situation where he is wanting to react.


----------



## llombardo

Carriesue said:


> I wish I knew someone with a stable dog I could work with like that(regarding the second video) but its really tough to do those exercises on your own but I can definitely apply some of those techniques if we get in a situation where he is wanting to react.


I got really lucky with this. The new trainer has a dog like this and will be using that said dog to help me with Midnite. As soon as I get settled in from moving, we will be meeting her.


----------



## vwitt

A good place to practice is a Petsmart parking lot/exterior. People always going in and out with dogs. You can start off far away and work your way closer to the entrance as his threshold improves. It's not as good as a friend with a dog, but it's a predictable enough situation to work with. Dog parks are good too but sometimes the dogs going in or out are more amped or the owners have them off leash. Also if you drain some of his energy before training that will help. After a good game of fetch my girl was way less jumpy when dogs were around and had more "wins" so she was able to learn the desired behavior.


Sent from Petguide.com Free App


----------



## andreaB

I wish I knew someone with a stable dog I could work with like that(regarding the second video) but its really tough to do those exercises on your own but I can definitely apply some of those techniques if we get in a situation where he is wanting to react.[/QUOTE

That was one of the reason I went to trainer. Working around stable dogs really helps too.


----------



## dioworld

Good article for those who like head collars....not! [Archive] - Dog Chat


----------



## dioworld

Cschmidt88 said:


> Only if you use it improperly. I use one for my dog-reactive girl, she's an APBT with very intense prey drive. I have a leash with clips on both ends (Euro style) one end is clipped to the Halti, the other to the collar. For safety and other reasons. And a dog should be kept on a short leash when on a halti, short enough that they will be unable "lunge at full speed".
> 
> 
> I actually dislike Gentle Leaders though, I simply am not a fan of the very thin design. I like Haltis better due to the padding and the fact that it also attacks to the collar for added safety.
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1wakterNyUg
> 
> 
> I've not had to do this myself, but Sophia Yin uses them for emergency situations in a manner such as this
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EUCl6ndLN7Q



Good that your dog and you have success with the head collar.
Lof of people have success with no problem with it, and some of us do. 
just like many people have success with prong and some feel the other way.


----------



## llombardo

dioworld said:


> Good article for those who like head collars....not! [Archive] - Dog Chat


Any collar not used the right way can cause damage. The gentle leader is the only thing that I find that works. There is no jerking or pulling. Now put a choke collar or a prong on him and everything is getting pulled...my arm, his neck, etc. I also used it on my golden when he was training, with no problems.


----------



## Cschmidt88

dioworld said:


> Good article for those who like head collars....not! [Archive] - Dog Chat


All of that suggests improper use of the halti. You don't just slap it on. It took about a week and half of desensitizing before my girl was ready to wear it out in the real world. She never pawed or bucked or scratched herself because she was set up for success in it.


----------



## Arlene/Archer

Cschmidt88 said:


> All of that suggests improper use of the halti. You don't just slap it on. It took about a week and half of desensitizing before my girl was ready to wear it out in the real world. She never pawed or bucked or scratched herself because she was set up for success in it.


Exactly this, you train your dog to wear one. Archer is so relaxed about his he doesn't even notice he's wearing it. I'm sure I could I could find plenty of articles about the damage porngs/chokes/flat collars do if I needed to do so ( I don't).


----------



## Baillif

First off, are you calling it leash reactivity because he wouldn't be reactive to the dog in that way if he was off leash? If so then it is largely your fault for the dogs reaction because you are either sending bad vibes down the leash at him and causing him to behave like that, or you pronged him for wanting to meet other dogs without him understanding why and caused him to associate the prong pop with seeing other dogs and that's the reason hes stressed out around them.

I've known people who have created issues for themselves with leash reactivity because they have a dog that pulls towards another dog just outta curiosity or wanting to meet up, and because they want to stop the pulling they slap an E collar or prong collar on the dog and give him a pop when he pulls without any kind of groundwork in making the dog understand why it was happening in the first place. The dog doesn't understand why this happened and associates it with the presence of the dog, so he does the dog-logical thing and wants to drive the other dog away to avoid the correction and it turns what was just pulling into full on aggressiveness or anxiety.

If this is not the case it is just dog reactivity not leash reactivity, but in any case... 

When I work with a dog that has dog reactivity issues I take a page out of the Cesar Millan book. Say what you will about the guy, he is very good at one thing in particular. He catches the dog at a lower state of arousal as it is about to ramp up to reacting badly towards the presence of another dog and corrects it then. He doesn't wait till the dog is stark raving mad.

It's like trying to get a kid to not jump off the roof of the house. Are you going to correct him in midair as hes coming off the house or are you going to correct him when he is putting the ladder against the house and about to climb up? 

If you wait till the dog is flipping out you were too late with the correction, and your only alternative at that point is to give a hard correction to snap the dog out of it, and even then if your dog doesn't know *exactly* why he's receiving this correction you just make things worse. He might redirect aggression and come up the leash at you, or it might just make his anxiety around dogs worse. 

A dog doesn't really learn **** when it is super excited or fearful or anxious. It's like trying to teach calculus to someone who is afraid of heights and hanging over the edge of a building. You shouldn't be surprised when he acts like he can't hear you when you start shouting commands when he's in this state because he probably can't. His higher thought processes shut down in high states of arousal and all his attention is focused on his target. He can hear you physically, but his brain isn't registering anything but the threat. For all intents and purposes he can't hear you. This happens to humans too, and for those of you who have been in combat you can readily attest to this.

You have to stop the dog at a lower state of arousal and most times this can be accomplished with a flat collar. You stop them when they start to fixate on another dog in the distance. There are other signs too that you should be stopping them at like the quiet alert bark before the crazy storm, or licking of the lips or raising of the hackles. Very few dogs just explode without warning, they almost always build up to it. Stop it early or you have failed. 

You can do this by the look command like someone was doing earlier (you can bet your ass that person doesn't wait till the dog is barking) or you can just give him a flat collar pop with just a touch of intensity and tell him no and then redirect his attention back towards you and following you in another direction. If you start the leashpop at the very beginning of the behavior you block the mind from that reaction by disagreeing with it, but then you need to immediately tell the mind what to do or it will just reset and go on with what it was going to do. If you don't do this the dog will take advantage of the gap in leadership to handle things how he wants. 

The person who was pronging for disobedience to the look command had a dog that knew exactly why he was being pronged. He was pronged for blowing off a command from his pack leader. The looking broke his fixation on the target and stopped the process of the dog ramping up towards crazy. This is why it worked for them.

As an aside. What really needs to be preached far and wide is this. If you don't know exactly how to use a prong collar or an e collar and all the ins and outs of those tools then you don't have any business putting them on the dog. They are not some magical silver bullet. Nine times out of ten people will just create more problems for themselves using these tools without the knowledge of how.


----------



## Carriesue

Your post shows that you didn't actually read my original post at all. And if you've read any of Patricia McConnell's book she states that dogs being reactive on leash but not off is actually quite common. His leash reactivity started long before I ever even purchased a prong and I never sent 'bad vibes down the leash' when this behavior started.

I've only heavily relied on positive reinforcement training with this dog and like I said in my original post I've never given him a harsh or 'pop' correction with the prong, I also know that it's useless correcting them when they're already going off. Have I made mistakes? Definitely but I am not yanking him around on the prong.

I have a game plan now and we are already working and back on track working on better focus(I got sidetracked and was working on obedience I needed for herding rather than focusing on nipping this in the bud). I'll post updates on our progress!


----------



## andreaB

Carriesue said:


> Your post shows that you didn't actually read my original post at all. And if you've read any of Patricia McConnell's book she states that dogs being reactive on leash but not off is actually quite common. His leash reactivity started long before I ever even purchased a prong and I never sent 'bad vibes down the leash' when this behavior started.
> 
> I've only heavily relied on positive reinforcement training with this dog and like I said in my original post I've never given him a harsh or 'pop' correction with the prong, I also know that it's useless correcting them when they're already going off. Have I made mistakes? Definitely but I am not yanking him around on the prong.
> 
> I have a game plan now and we are already working and back on track working on better focus(I got sidetracked and was working on obedience I needed for herding rather than focusing on nipping this in the bud). I'll post updates on our progress!


Same here I got prong after it started just to get better control of my dog. I just did not know how to control him, he is really powerful. And I also do not correct for reactivity. I this point I think going back to flat collar since he responds to leave it command way better. But still I feel I have more control of him on prong in case he go crazy.


----------



## andreaB

Carriesue did you see the tread I made last month in Training section about training methods for reactive dog?


----------



## Carriesue

andreaB said:


> Carriesue did you see the tread I made last month in Training section about training methods for reactive dog?


I did not, I will go look for it!

And btw I would LOVE to go to a private trainer, they're just ridiculously priced here and right now I just can't justify it since his case is not severe.

We still go out all the time and the dogs have to be pretty darn close for him to react but he only reacts to maybe 1 out of 10 dogs we run into, the rest of the time I am able to keep him from going into that amped up state. Just a few weeks ago we were at a dog friendly restaurant and had two dogs about five feet away from us, Ollie was very relaxed(laying down), never attempted to bark... The only thing he did was sit up and watch one of the dogs when he and his owners were leaving. I just need to work on getting him to focus on me instead of doing that.

His reactivity is not crazy lunging and barking at every dog we see and we have made a lot of progress because that's how it used to be. It's just I want him to be a good ambassador of the breed like he is with people and just want to be able to have a relaxing walk with him without having to worry.


----------



## Carriesue

Little bit of a progress report... We've mostly had some great success! We've been able to walk at this nature trail which has always been his worst place to react without much incidence, the only issue was a little yappy dog barking at him and he started to object but I was able to quickly get him under control.

Yesterday we went to my local GSD club training... Now this part has me a little stumped. So we stopped at a pet shop to pick up some treats before going to training, this shop is TINY like maybe the size of a big kitchen. There was one dog in the store(French bulldog) and Ollie saw it before I did and he lost his mind barking -sigh- I pulled him away to calm him down, once he did I brought him to where he could see the dog and made him do some behaviors while treating him... It worked but it was very hard to get his focus off the dog.

After, we went to training and there were probably 20+ GSD's there... Did Ollie bark or even attempt to react? NOPE. He was perfectly behaved the whole time. Ok well I couldn't get him to focus heel because he was too distracted by the dogs and wanting to sniff the ground. Focus has been a HUGE issue for us because he's just not that food or toy motivated with distractions around. I did though get some really nice focus work out of him with the look command even with a wiggly puppy next to him before he just lost the ability to concentrate.

So what I don't get is why did he react to the bulldog but not react in any way at training? Even during an exercise of having a line of dogs walk by us, he watched but no hackles, no nothing just sat there calm as can be.  :help:


----------



## Carriesue

:bump:


----------



## Gharrissc

Carriesue said:


> Actually today we were at the vet sitting in the waiting area and two dogs came within a couple feet of him. He was in a sit watching them, *I told him to leave it and was praising him the whole time and he didn't even attempt to react but he was very focused on them.*


It's good that he didn't react to the dogs in the vet's office, but to me having a dog focus on another dog after I tell them to leave it, means that they haven't really left it. I hope that makes sense. If I tell my dogs to leave another dog, I mean stop looking at it and focus on me or something else. That may be the perfectionist in me, but that's usually how I handle it.


----------



## andreaB

Carriesue said:


> Little bit of a progress report... We've mostly had some great success! We've been able to walk at this nature trail which has always been his worst place to react without much incidence, the only issue was a little yappy dog barking at him and he started to object but I was able to quickly get him under control.
> 
> Yesterday we went to my local GSD club training... Now this part has me a little stumped. So we stopped at a pet shop to pick up some treats before going to training, this shop is TINY like maybe the size of a big kitchen. There was one dog in the store(French bulldog) and Ollie saw it before I did and he lost his mind barking -sigh- I pulled him away to calm him down, once he did I brought him to where he could see the dog and made him do some behaviors while treating him... It worked but it was very hard to get his focus off the dog.
> 
> After, we went to training and there were probably 20+ GSD's there... Did Ollie bark or even attempt to react? NOPE. He was perfectly behaved the whole time. Ok well I couldn't get him to focus heel because he was too distracted by the dogs and wanting to sniff the ground. Focus has been a HUGE issue for us because he's just not that food or toy motivated with distractions around. I did though get some really nice focus work out of him with the look command even with a wiggly puppy next to him before he just lost the ability to concentrate.
> 
> So what I don't get is why did he react to the bulldog but not react in any way at training? Even during an exercise of having a line of dogs walk by us, he watched but no hackles, no nothing just sat there calm as can be.  :help:


I don't have any good answer but my boy is going same thing. I still don't completely understand when he will react to others dogs. Won't share the rules


----------

