Fearful dog - Behavior problem.. *long*

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wolfgirl889
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Fearful dog - Behavior problem.. *long*

Post by wolfgirl889 »

Hi everyone. I was wondering if maybe you could give me some advice to a big problem I'm currently having with my dog.

I have a 1½ year old White Swiss Shepherd male, that have som really big fear issues towards other dogs and strangers. He has a very strong flight tendency and also - unfortunately - have shown fear based aggression towards other dogs. We are currently seeing a trainer and he has made a lot of progress - as have I - I might add. :) All though one - for me - really big problem remain. And this is where you guys reading this text come in - I hope - to perhaps give me some advice as to how I can deal with the following behavior problem:

Due to his fears he becomes very stressed when meeting strangers on our walks. If we see other dogs, that stress is even worse. Of course I recognize the severity in this and thus have begun to properly re-associate him with people following a very good positive reinforcement metod called BAT* that I've also mixed a bit with other similar techniques to better suit my dog. And I must say it has given us very nice results even in this short period that I've used it, which has only been for a couple of weeks. But a very big problem - as I've said before - still remains, and that is a very straining behavior he has developed to - in his way - cope with his very high stress level that remains. He starts jumping and biting me, he bite my hands and arms leaving bruises and recently even drawing blood - though nothing more severe than a shallow scratch - all while completely shutting of his brain. To put it short, he takes the easy way out.

I know that the only way to truly get rid of this behavior is to continue help him conquer his fears/have him on daily routins/give him lots of mind stimulus/a good amount of exercise/rules to follow/love and understanding etc. That is what I'm giving him and intend to keep giving him, but the fact still remains that this particular behavior is a very big obstacle to attain my goal. And I just can't for the life of me figure out how to break it. It seem as though I've tried everything. I've shrieked to try 'n make him understand it hurts, I've told him No, I've stuffed different rags 'n toys in his mout only to have him spit it out right away, I've turned my back at him, I've tried to "walk away" heck I've even waved a g*d d*mn steak in front of his nose. But nothing has ever worked - not even in a combination - he's totally mind blocked when he go in to this behavior. Of course I've also tried to stop him before he go in to terminator mode, and I always try to keep his stress level as low as possible, but as you might understand it aint always working... and after each episode the next one is even worse and the number keeps increasing. And it's really hurting our relationship with eachother. I really don't know what to do about this, and I could really use a fresh point of view if anyone out there is willing to give it.

I might as well add that this behavior only occur when we are outside on our walks and other activities, and only when he is stressed and also that's not entirely fear based. He does it when he's anticipating something really fun - like when we go for a walk in the woods - and his stress shoot through the roof 'couse of that... as you might understand it's really hard to keep his stress on a manageable level. :roll:

*BAT - stands for Behavior Adjustment Training, and for those who aint familiar with it I can really recommend to take a look
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Nettle
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Re: Fearful dog - Behavior problem.. *long*

Post by Nettle »

If he is reacting, you are too close to the stressor. So keep a good lookout for stressors (you are taller and can see further) and move him away before he reacts. This is critical to de-stressing a fearful dog.

It means your walks won't be straight, won't be where you had planned, may take a while to get where you were going, but it must be done.

We have a ton of threads on reactive dogs - do read through them and see how much progress people like Jacksdad have made :D

I haven't heard of your training plan, and it would be a great help to all of us here if you were to explain what you have been doing. Thank you.
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Sarah83
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Re: Fearful dog - Behavior problem.. *long*

Post by Sarah83 »

I've found the best way to avoid stressers such as people or other dogs is to walk at anti social times. Rupert is horribly reactive to other dogs and desensitizing hasn't worked because in the vast majority of situations I simply can't get far enough away from the other dog for him to be non reactive. Across the road or hiding behind a car doesn't cut it, it's still far too close. It may be that you need to schedule walks for times and places you're unlikely to meet the things that cause him stress for the time being until he's less upset by them. Sadly for Rupert it means he doesn't meet many people but it also means he doesn't see other dogs often and on the rare occasion he does he is less reactive than he would be if he'd been seeing several dogs a day for weeks and his stress levels were already way up.
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Noobs
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Re: Fearful dog - Behavior problem.. *long*

Post by Noobs »

I've heard of BAT and it would be helpful if you tell us what YOU specifically have done in using this program.

The short answer, as a ditto to Nettle, is that if your dog is reacting, you guys are too close. In order for BAT or any other desensitization program to work, you have to be far enough away so that your dog can look at his trigger without reacting. Any reaction means you're too close = dog isn't in a state of mind to learn and owner gets too stressed himself/herself to do any good.

So details about what you've done with regard to BAT please.
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wolfgirl889
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Re: Fearful dog - Behavior problem.. *long*

Post by wolfgirl889 »

First, thanks to everyone for your reply. :)

The things we've done with BAT so far is the most basic stuff, mostly 'couse I just learned of it over the internet. [We don't have trainers teaching the technique where I live yet as far as I know] Simply put it's finding out his "safe" distance - ergo where he doesn't react at all - and all of his triggers etc. After that I've tried as hard as I can to avoid getting to close to other people and dogs on our walks - aka remaining at a distance where he is comfortable, giving him treats when he spots people but don't react/he looks away/licks his lips/sniffs the ground/look at me etc and then we walk in an opposite direction - but because we live in a city there's just no chance I can avoid people completely... Though I haven't thought of walking him in odd hours but that sounds like a pretty good idea to minimize the risk of running into people :)

Regarding our training plan:

First off we're currently working on building up a strong relationship and a good contact between us. To achieve that I've been thaught a fun and easy technique from a trainer: Put bits of sausage in my mout, wait for him to make eye-contact and then spit a pice of sausage out for him to catch. This has proven to be a very successful technique and my dog really finds it fun. :)

Next, I'm working on increasing my skills in reading doggy language to interpret his signals correctly and also on using my body language to communicate with him. I'm also training in maintaining a calm and confident state of mind regardless of how my dogs stress shows itself. Above all I've noticed it is crucial for me to remain calm even when he lash out on me.

And last but not least I make sure he gets enough exercise for both his mind and his body. We're out on walks 3 times a day for at least an hour each time, we've started tracking with him little by little and I'm planing on doing this 'bout 2-3 days a week. Whenever I get a chance, out on walks or at home, I'm teaching him various tricks and balance exercises etc. I'm also thinking on getting a special typ of "big ball" and introduce him to a form of "herding" to make use of his herding tendencies. Of course we're also putting time aside on our walks to relax and be still in various environments.

I'm also planning to arrange BAT based training sessions for him in a near future, when I get a hold on more people who want to help us out.

*Don't know if this is what you meant you wanted to know, if it wasn't please let me know and I'll try 'n explain a bit more. :)
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jacksdad
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Re: Fearful dog - Behavior problem.. *long*

Post by jacksdad »

wolfgirl889 wrote: Though I haven't thought of walking him in odd hours but that sounds like a pretty good idea to minimize the risk of running into people :)
welcome to the midnight/bad weather dog walking club :lol:

In these early stages in addition to distance, completely (if possible) avoiding your dogs triggers makes a difference. it's not forever, so walking at odd hours when there are few to no people or dogs out and about can really help make progress. Ali in "scardy dog" recommends at least a two week break from your dogs fear triggers. before I read scardy dog, the trainer I worked with briefly recommended I give my dog a 1 week break. No dogs. it wasn't easy, but I managed to pull it off. made a huge difference in my dog. I actually started to see what he looked like relaxed. it also allowed him to de stress enough that I could re capture his attention when dogs were out and about and work in the counter conditioning. prior to this I had been beating my head against a wall for about 3 months making no progress.

even today I will still try to give him a no dog walk from time to time to let him have a break from having to deal with things.

Not sure if this is covered in BAT, not familiar with it, but protecting your dog also helps. this isn't as exciting as it sounds...most of the time. little things like putting your self between scary and your dog over time helps too. if you act as a wall then your dog can choose to "hid" behind you and pretend scary isn't there.
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wolfgirl889
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Re: Fearful dog - Behavior problem.. *long*

Post by wolfgirl889 »

jacksdad wrote:welcome to the midnight/bad weather dog walking club :lol:
Hehe, thanks for the welcoming :wink:
In these early stages in addition to distance, completely (if possible) avoiding your dogs triggers makes a difference. it's not forever, so walking at odd hours when there are few to no people or dogs out and about can really help make progress. Ali in "scardy dog" recommends at least a two week break from your dogs fear triggers. before I read scardy dog, the trainer I worked with briefly recommended I give my dog a 1 week break. No dogs. it wasn't easy, but I managed to pull it off. made a huge difference in my dog. I actually started to see what he looked like relaxed. it also allowed him to de stress enough that I could re capture his attention when dogs were out and about and work in the counter conditioning. prior to this I had been beating my head against a wall for about 3 months making no progress.

even today I will still try to give him a no dog walk from time to time to let him have a break from having to deal with things.
Omg, that sounds like a really good idea! :) I will absolutely do that and se if/how it affect his stress level, thanks a lot for the tip. :)
Not sure if this is covered in BAT, not familiar with it, but protecting your dog also helps. this isn't as exciting as it sounds...most of the time. little things like putting your self between scary and your dog over time helps too. if you act as a wall then your dog can choose to "hid" behind you and pretend scary isn't there.
I'm not too sure either, but I'm guessing it should be somewhat involved based on how that training metod is made. I have been made aware of the importance of this earlier through a trainer, though that mostly involved how I could protect him if an ill-mannered loose dog came too close since that is where a big amount of his problems first began, and I try to incorporate that as much as I can when - for example - we end up in a situation where strangers come too close.

Thanks a lot for your post "jacksdad" :)
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emmabeth
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Re: Fearful dog - Behavior problem.. *long*

Post by emmabeth »

All I can really add to the other posts are these thoughts..

1/ Hour long walks - whilst I am sure thats what he needs, I would also suspect that attempting to work and focus on you for an entire hour is extremely hard work and is stressing him a lot. Whilst conventionally I would recommend most dogs get at least an hours exercise a day, when it comes to reactive dogs, the stress levels built up in an hour walk take days to go down again. You will also be struggling to be completely successful in all your training/behaviour mod. work for thewhole hour.

Instead, do you think you could attempt to do more, much much shorter walks? If you set yourself 5 or 10 minute timed sessions where you are working on self control (because much of his problem seems to involve a lack of self control and redirecting frustration and excitement onto you), and focussing on you and avoiding his triggers.....

By this I mean, if say, getting the leash out gets him wound up, well if you are doing that five or ten times a day, and you are NOT going anywhere or even clipping it on until he is calm and self controlled... soon he is going to learn to be self controlled AND the novelty of this particular trigger is reduced. In addition if he is having five or ten 5 minute walks per day, where he is meeting very few or no triggers at all, the process of going for a walk is going to become more calm because it doesnt mean 'omg im going to be out for an hour doing wheeeeeeeeeeeee everything but but oh oh oh meeting people eek argh' etc.

2/ You say you are rewarding when he sees but doesnt react - I would suggest you offer reward regardless of what he is doing, as long as he sees and can take the reward (obviously i dont mean get so close he freaks out, as thats counter productive), but that the reward should be for seeing, and not so much 'for not reacting' because really it is your job to set him up so he doesnt need to react.

If you work on self control as well, then his need to react should reduce anyway and this wont be such an issue.
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wolfgirl889
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Re: Fearful dog - Behavior problem.. *long*

Post by wolfgirl889 »

emmabeth wrote:All I can really add to the other posts are these thoughts..

1/ Hour long walks - whilst I am sure thats what he needs, I would also suspect that attempting to work and focus on you for an entire hour is extremely hard work and is stressing him a lot. Whilst conventionally I would recommend most dogs get at least an hours exercise a day, when it comes to reactive dogs, the stress levels built up in an hour walk take days to go down again. You will also be struggling to be completely successful in all your training/behaviour mod. work for thewhole hour.

Instead, do you think you could attempt to do more, much much shorter walks? If you set yourself 5 or 10 minute timed sessions where you are working on self control (because much of his problem seems to involve a lack of self control and redirecting frustration and excitement onto you), and focussing on you and avoiding his triggers.....

By this I mean, if say, getting the leash out gets him wound up, well if you are doing that five or ten times a day, and you are NOT going anywhere or even clipping it on until he is calm and self controlled... soon he is going to learn to be self controlled AND the novelty of this particular trigger is reduced. In addition if he is having five or ten 5 minute walks per day, where he is meeting very few or no triggers at all, the process of going for a walk is going to become more calm because it doesnt mean 'omg im going to be out for an hour doing wheeeeeeeeeeeee everything but but oh oh oh meeting people eek argh' etc.
You're making a very good point there, I do agree much of his problem involve a lack of self control on his part and I can see that reducing the time on walks and instead schedule more - much shorter - walks could make a great difference. I think a big problem we've had is that I'm not demanding his attention on walks other than when we "run in to people" or his other triggers so I don't think giving me attention is a main reason to his stress mostly because I'm not demanding he look at me all the time, but now that I think about it the fact that I'm only demanding it when we run into triggers may be a reason that I'm having trouble getting him focused on me when the triggers happen to get too close. And also that our "sausage training"/eye contact training is hurled into the shadow because it's mostly on other training sessions I've set aside during the day - just because I thought he can't handle giving me full focus all the time on a regular walk. :roll:

I'll follow your advise and see how he respond, you are certainly right he do need much exercise and if he don't get enough he'll be stressed 'couse of that but dividing the walks up in short but many sessions should do the trick, I hope. :)

I've always been very particular about him not getting anything his way if he can't show self control and a desired behavior when it comes to food, toys, getting the leash on, going out the door, getting a treat, getting patted etc. but I guess - now that I think about it - that I have been way too sloppy when it come to walks. :roll:
2/ You say you are rewarding when he sees but doesnt react - I would suggest you offer reward regardless of what he is doing, as long as he sees and can take the reward (obviously i dont mean get so close he freaks out, as thats counter productive), but that the reward should be for seeing, and not so much 'for not reacting' because really it is your job to set him up so he doesnt need to react.

If you work on self control as well, then his need to react should reduce anyway and this wont be such an issue.
I've always been rewarding him even when he first spots his triggers, though - as I've understood the technique - BAT want the human to reinforce a "calming signal" [couldn't find the right word for it] from the dog after he spots a trigger at a safe distance, this is to teach him/her that instead of reacting in an unwanted way to get what he want - which is to make the trigger go away - he can instead choose a more peacful way to get the same result. Which is also like a "second stage" of the technique, in the beginning you just reward the dog for spotting the trigger - which I still do on occasion. :wink:

To sum it up I now think the main reason he's been lashing out so much lately is because his stress level's been waaaaayy to high that even a strong wind could add to his stress which has made it almost impossible to work with him, he needed a time-out from all that to get his paws back on the ground I guess.

*I really must add that your answers - from all of you - have helped me a lot to get a fresh angle at this and I'm very eager to get to work and of course to see the results later on, thanks a lot. :)
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Nettle
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Re: Fearful dog - Behavior problem.. *long*

Post by Nettle »

Do keep us posted- we are as eager to see your success as you are :) and will help you whenever you feel you need to chat about it. Little steps will reap big rewards.
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Horace's Mum
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Re: Fearful dog - Behavior problem.. *long*

Post by Horace's Mum »

As far as focus on walks is concerned, you don't need him to be focussed all the time - that is a little unfair on him, because he needs time to sniff and chill and pee etc - but you need the ability to get his attention as soon as you need it. If you currently only ask for his attention when something bad is coming than a)he doesn't really know what you expect of him and b)there is a small chance that you become PART of the stress, which may be why he redirects onto you so much.

When you are out walking, don't expect his attention constantly, but practise asking for him to stand/sit/watch me (an incredibly useful command which you can build on from your sausage spitting!) or anything else, maybe just ask him to do close heelwork for a few strides, and reward him for doing these things. Then give him a release command (even just "ok!")so he knows he is free to sniff or whatever. That way when you do ask for his attention because there is a trigger ahead, he is more able to work with you because he know what might be expected of him, which in turn helps to reassure him.

Is there anywhere you could take him to have a little chillout time on a longline, a field or country walk where you are almost certain not to meet anything? It would be good if once or twice a week he could have some free time, and you can work on his recall and building a bond with him with a bit more room.
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wolfgirl889
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Re: Fearful dog - Behavior problem.. *long*

Post by wolfgirl889 »

To Horace's Mum:

Yes I've thought about that too and I've decided to plan our walks as follows:

Now at the beginning I'm gonna set up short - like only a minute or so - sessions where we go outside and train "heel work", then I'm gonna let him sniff around etc for a short period before we go inside again. After a short rest - about the same length of time as we spent outside - we're gonna go outside again and repeat the training, continuing this until he's had about an hour worth of exercise outside or until I see that he's content for the moment. In the beginning I might not even demand he heel everytime we go out again, giving him a chance to rest even further as I know this is gonna be hard work for him. As time goes by and I see he's ready for further progress I'm gonna increase the time I demand his attention, also giving him increased free time between that.

The point of all this is to teach him that I expect him to give me his full attention as soon as I call him to my side, and continue to do so until I give him an "Ok", indicating that he is free to sniff around and walk on a longer leash. Also I'm not only gonna demand his attention when we meet his triggers, but also on other occasions too. Always making sure that he and I find the training to be fun and rewarding. :D

I'm already walking him regularly - at least once or twice a week - in areas where I know it's not a big possibility we run into other dogs or people and where I can have him loose. He's always been very good on walks without a leash attached, he's a very good follower and always keep an eye on me to make sure I don't disappear and he always stays at a good distance, never trotting too far away. On occasions where he's tried to chase after a bird or whatever when he was younger I hid behind a bush or a tree the second he lost contact whit me, realizing he was "alone" he quickly began to search for me and I always gave him treats when he found me. And on occasions where he didn't respond to me calling him too me I ran the opposit direction to get him to come, that really works like a charm. :)

To Nettle:

Yes, I'll do that :)
I've got a really good first impression of this forum I must say. People here seem to have a good attitude towards eachother and that - I've found - is a bit rare these days. :roll:
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