Even the gentle Holly gets upset when dogs run up to her. Usually she just looks uncomfortable and backs towards me, but if the dog is persistent she has been known to growl. Most of the time we're on country walks so she's off lead so the decision to drop the lead has already been made. I try to position myself between the dogs and move her away from the other dog while offering choice advice to the other dog's owner.
I think that's part of it, if you walk your dog in London, then it's much easier if you concentrate on your dog not reacting to what's around it - you just have to keep rewarding no reaction, or looking away, or focus on you. If I thought it was 'ok' for my dog to react to all the horrible rude dogs we meet, instead of having the ambition that he should not react, we'd be in a worse place, I think.
I have the ambition that my dogs should not react unfortunately I've got a very long way to go to achieve it.
The other reason I hate it ("it" being "your dog did X, Y, Z so my dog is perfectly entitled to bite your dog's head off") is that the first time I took Charlie on a holiday there were two reactive dogs there, and the owners made endless excuses "your dog is staring at mine", "your dog is bouncy", "your dog is a Labrador", "my dog has a bit of fish and your dog took a step in her direction". Blah Blah. I mildly expressed the concern that my dog was pretty normal and well socialised, really...but felt guilty at the endless 'faults' my dog perhaps had....then, one of those dogs turned Charlie on his back and had his teeth at his throat when Charlie had his back to it sniffing a fern! Now, whenever people say stuff like that I'm afraid I'm very much "your reactive dog is your problem, keep it under control". Since I think that, I don't make excuses for my dog being reactive for run of the mill, everyday events, but concentrate on him not.
I'm unsure whether Shadow is being protective or possessive. It doesn't make a huge amount of difference in the long run - I don't like this behaviour and so want to stop it, but it's something I wonder. I'm actually more inclined to think it's possessiveness. I don't know why - he's not a dog that guards food, toys etc, but it's something I feel. In any event, I think viewing it as possessiveness makes it far harder to justify it and so gives a bigger motivation to fix. As is Willow - far better than her brother! It's not as if she even shows any interest in the other dogs unless pushed into it, either. Daft boy.
I really wouldn't worry about Benson's reaction or whether he was ir wasn't protecting Bramble. The fact is that two dogs came charging at him and ignored his warning. They then charged him again later at which time he was firmer in his telling off to which the other dogs responded by running off. Benson did what any dog is entitled to do when other dogs confront/charge into them, with no manners and fail to respond to body language etc. You never know it might even help these dogs next time when approaching another dog.
What is this "a dog is entitled to do" thing? I find it an incredible point of view, sorry! A police horse (most of us would agree ) would be perfectly "entitled" to kick the objectionable rioting human's face in - but they don't. Because they are trained not to! Surely we should be concentrating on training our dogs not to react when faced with objectionable behaviour?
I don't find that an incredible point of view at all, how can you expect a dog not to react when pushed, they are animals just as you can only be pushed so far in certain situations Obviously we all work as hard as we can to make sure these reactions are infrequent but you can't always retrain nature.
Er.....training? It's nature that your dog grabs at food, pushes through a door, is a general hooligan to get what it is rewarding. All of these things are just 'nature'. If you adopt the point of view that a dog is 'entitled' to react to X, Y and Z then that's what you get. Indeed, you may even encourage it, by giving off body language etc. that approves of your dog giving another dog 'a good telling off'. If you adopt the point of view that you should aim to train so your dog does not react to X, Y and Z then that's what you'll get - if you train for it, of course.
That's exactly what I said. BUT just as humans are all different and react to different situations some calmly and others not so calmly. David is FAR calmer and easier going than I am so we tolerate different things in different ways. You cannot possibly train for every eventuality we just try and train at all times but sometimes maybe it's just not enough. It is nature that some dogs will tolerate some behaviours and some won't, that is nature. David and I train our backsides off with Charlie in all aspects of his life but you cannot train for everything especially a dog giving a warning which ALL dogs do trained or untrained and so they should or they may just attack instead.
But you don't say "oh, it's in Charlie's nature to chase birds the length of the county for hours coming back whenever he feels like". Although that is very much in his nature! You say "no, that's unacceptable (although perhaps understandable) and I'm going to work to stop him doing that". I just don't see why we shouldn't "work to stop him doing that" in terms of being reactive to other dogs - no matter what they are doing. Of course we'll all have failures. But adopting the mindset "that's ok" "that's nature" means we make no effort.
It is in Charlie's nature to chase birds but yes we have trained like lunatics to reduce this but will we ever stop him probably not because it is in his nature and that's a powerful force. We work and work and work and work but I do believe in nature, Jack Russells will kill rats you can't train them not to no matter how hard you try. We will never stop training Charlie and we always make a 100% effort in doing so. I personally think that dogs will warn another dog if they are put in a particular situation just like a child will towards another child that might be doing something they don't like, just like you and I would towards someone doing something we don't like because it's nature even though we might try really hard not to sometimes we do.
Sure, we all have our failures in training dogs, no dog is perfect. I certainly have my fair share of failures. But it's a point of view, it's your starting point - are you trying to train your dog not to do X (or rather do Y instead of X), or are you sitting back, doing nothing, thinking "that's just nature taking its course"?
Absolutely not but some people do nothing and so they may have worse behaved dogs than those of us that do train but even so dogs will behave in a certain way when cornered despite our training because they are not perfect and neither are we, nature sometimes takes over I totally agree with your point of view and there's absolutely NO sitting back here doing nothing that's for sure, we have spent more time training Charlie than we have our 4 children one of whom has Autism It's absolutely relentless and tiring with our Charlie but we know we can't train for everything or we wouldn't have any life left and there's precious little of it left as it is . I guess it's just about doing your very, very best with what you have and if we had had our Charlie from an 8 week old puppy we wouldn't have to do all the training we do because he wouldn't have been allowed to chase bloody birds in the first place
Yes, absolutely - I have endless patience and tolerance for people with poorly behaved dogs, but where the owners seem to be doing their very best, and making an effort to train but perhaps have a failure. And I want my dog, who I have had since an 8 week old puppy and has no excuses (well, apart from more of his life shut in a crate than he has had freedom) to not react, to be equally tolerant, and to turn away from poor behaviour.
There may come a day when Charlie isn't tolerant of bad behaviour and does react and that won't because of your training but because he may well be put in a situation that threatens him so he feels he has no choice. Hattie is the most tolerant dog I think I have ever met, she has tolerated a couple of horrid dogs that have attacked her dragging her to the ground causing slight injury to her and she still gives off calm body language when we meet them but that's just in her nature I haven't trained for this, only in as much as when we do meet these particular dogs I keep her focused on me and treat her so that she associates them with something nice
Of course. I don't have to wait for that day - it has already happened. That's not my point. My point is that I don't think "oh, Charlie was perfectly entitled to do that" so "that's ok then". Instead I think "what should I do in my training to make it less likely that my dog does that again".
Yes I TOTALLY agree with you and that's what I do and one day my Charlie will be the 'perfect' dog, hoping my ever increasing pile of dog books help too!, hmm … got a long time to wait!
However, if some dogs continued to harass Charlie, would you expect him to sit back and be attacked? I think a quick warning from one dog to another dog is acceptable and can defuse a potential fight. Though, as you so rightly say, we should train our dogs to be polite which I am sure most of us do, but there will be a situation when I would expect my dog to defend himself and not lie back and be bitten. Not that this has happened - yet!
