Jubilee has made great progress meeting other dogs and people. She usually will walk quietly by or greet another dog politely, but once in a while she will loose her mind. Today we were on a narrow path and met a woman and her pointer. The woman sat her dog and said to go by because her dog was possessive. We started by and Jubilee started lunging and barking in excitement. She wanted to stop and play. She doesn’t always get to meet and greet. I had a hard time getting her past x treats, etc didn’t work. I felt bad because she was lunging on her collar. (She’s usually great loose leash walking and she shuts down when I put a harness on her). I was just wondering if any of you had anything that worked when your dog goes “over the threshold “?
The thing about positive reinforcement training is nothing you do now has an impact now - it only has an impact on future behaviour. That's why (sometimes) people struggle with it because on the other hand, punishment often has an immediate effect in shutting down the dog, or changing the dog's emotional state. This is one of the things you have to accept about positive reinforcement training, and it makes the journey easier if you do. Don't beat yourself up because your dog NOW misbehaves - but concentrate on what you do now that will change how your dog behaves in the future. If your dog really is over threshold, there is nothing you can do in terms of training because your dog isn't able to learn. All you can do is manage, you can't train. If your dog isn't completely over threshold, you could reinforce anything you do get - any glance in your direction, or even a period of less craziness (that's where I had to start with one of mine), or anything that suggests your dog is giving you any attention. But if not, all you can do is manage it as best you can and move on.
Thank you, Julie. Her reaction surprised me and I felt that there must be something I could have done -we’ve had such good communication lately. She did recover quickly and was back to her relaxed self for the rest of her walk.
I have a lead reactive dog, so I feel your pain! Sometimes it's excitement/frustration, other times it's less friendly than that What I've been doing recently is practicing a U-turn. I do this most walks. To start off with, this means putting some treats in my right hand and, in a very low distraction environment, putting that hand in front of the dog's nose while I slide my left hand down the lead to make it short for more control, and lure the dog round 180 degrees. I chirpily say "this way!" as I do it. After a few goes, you can delay the treats and not use the lure - the cue that you're going to turn will be you sliding your hand down the lead and the "this way!". Then you can treat after a pace or two walking in the other direction. Shadow absolutely loves to play this, and gets all bouncy. So far, I've only had to use it for real on one occasion, when we came across some off-lead spaniels. I had only started training it that same day, but he took to it so well it was hugely effective. Since then, I've practiced it a lot. Ideally, you'd proof this just as you do everything else, in increasingly difficult situations. The bonus with it is, when you have an over-friendly or reactive dog, it's instinctive to get a short grip on the lead when you see another dog, and this can turn into a "there's trouble/excitement ahead" cue to the dog, so they go onto high alert. By practicing this manoeuvre, the tightened lead actually becomes a cue to turn away, which is far more appropriate and useful. Of course you want to practice calmness around other dogs, but sometimes life happens, dogs appear without the warning you'd like and you just need to manage the situation.
Absolutely! If you see something unsavoury on the road that you know your dog would love to eat, getting away from a dangerous situation... all sorts!
