When I am walking Finn and we encounter other dogs Finn starts barking and snarling at them. When I see a dog approaching I give Finn a distraction by holding a piece of reward he can't resist and he walks very gently alongside me. He doesn't even bother to look at the other dog. When I don't he start barking and snarling and behaves very badly. Doesn't listen at all. Is it the right thing to do to distract him or do I have to do something else?
I think you are doing the right thing by distracting , and it is obviously working because his behaviour is better when distracted . What might also help, is if you could maybe walk with someone who has a calm placid dog who doesn't react . Finn will almost certainly pick up the non reactions from the other dog and so learn from it . The other thing worth mentioning , is to make sure that you keep relaxed too , Finn will pick up on your anxieties so keep everything relaxed , no tension , and you will get there, well done so far in coping with it the right way x
Does this happen off lead or on lead or both? Has this always bee his reaction or did something happen to set him off? Barking is one thing, snarling is something else, and to me is a ramped up reaction that seems a bit over the top. Have you mentioned this to the vet? How is he there (at the vet's) with other dogs around? Doing the distraction training is fine, but the idea is to get to the place where he sees the appearance of another dog as a positive as it means nummy treats and so your dog therefore does not exhibit the nasty behaviour. Being happy when he sees another dog becomes his ingrained reaction as opposed to what he is doing now. But it might not be a bad idea to get a behaviourist to assess what is going on. Fear aggression and aggression have different causes and it's helpful to understand the deeper cause (other than the simple appearance of another dog) in order to help him past the behaviour.
I wouldn't distract, I'd use "Look At That!" to counter-condition him. If you rely on distracting him, then the onus is always on you to spot the other dog first, plus you're only putting a band-aid over the issue, not working towards changing his emotional response. There's lots of information about LAT on the forum and elsewhere online (as well as in the book, Control Unleashed), so give it a search.
It happens on both occasions, off and on lead. It happens also to dogs he already played with. He encounters them this way and after a sniff he starts to play when off lead. Yes the vet knows this, can't find anything wrong with him. At the vets he starts barking when other dogs are around. When I have to wait a little longer he is fine after giving him his treat and let him lay down. He likes to go to the vet. They know his behavior and I try to get the appointment to be the first she is seeing, just because of his behavior. You are so right about the thing he must going to see the other dog is a happy thing and that is exactly why I posed this question. Because now I have to see the other dog first and distract him. He has always been like this....he had a nasty start in life, and a nasty encounter with a Great Dane.
I tried to distract him by "look at that", but he is so tense that he won't be distracted by my voice alone, i have to do better.... The band-aid thing is exactly how I feel about it! I can't change it and I think it is going to worsen.... I certainly will search the forum and have a search and read.
No, "Look At That" starts with you not saying anything at all, other than using your event marker (which is either your marker word, or a clicker, which is probably more effective in this scenario, if he's clicker trained, as the sound cuts through the butterflies better). If he doesn't respond to the marker and turn to you for a treat, then you're too close and need to back away from the other dog. The idea isn't that you're trying to distract him. It's that he learns that, when he sees something he would normally react to, he turns to you for a treat. Not to doggedly ignore the other thing, but to have associated it with good things coming from you. So, the first step is, at a distance he can cope with, you wait for him to see the dog, click and treat. Repeat this lots of times - looking at the dog earns him a click and a treat. This needs to be looking without reacting. If he's reacting, you're too close, so move away and start again. Once he has the idea that looking at the dog earns him a C&T, you can start decreasing that distance. As always, if he starts to struggle, move farther away again. What you're after is a conditioned emotional response, whereby Finn sees the dog and immediately turns to you for his treat. When you think he understands the game (would be willing to bet £100 on it), you can start delaying your click, so that he doesn't wait for the click to turn to you. Instead of look at dog -> click -> look at you -> treat, it becomes look at dog -> look at you -> click -> treat. And, in time, once he understands that game, you can drop the click and just give him the treat. The next step would be, if you wish, to add a verbal cue. This is useful if you have seen a potential trigger and you want to pre-warn him. You'd take it back to the first flow of actions, to make it clear again. So, you'd say, "Look at that!", he looks, you click, he turns to you, you treat. LAT -> Finn looks at dog -> click -> look at you -> treat And then, once he's reliably looking for something when you say "Look at that!", you can again move and then drop the click. As always, as you make one thing harder, make everything else easier. Out of the three training variables of Distance, Distraction, Duration, you'll be mainly focussing on the first two, so, if you make the distance more challenging (eg closer), make the distraction less difficult (eg the other dog standing calmly instead of moving around). If the distraction is greater (other dog playing, or staring directly at Finn), then the distance must be increased. I hope that all makes sense.
@Anne123 as a trainer I have to second @Lisa and would recommend that you make an appointment with a good behaviourist or trainer so that Finn'so behaviour can be assessed and an appropriate behaviour modification programme put in place. With the best will in world it is not possible for anyone, even the best trained and experienced, to say what the cause of the behaviour is and the best treatment. Barking and snarling can have several causes and without both hearing the tone of the bark and growl and seeing the body language it just isn't possible to give a cause and therefore the best training methods.
