My 18-month old English lab Judo is pretty well-behaved much of the time. Not an ounce of true aggression. But when I have to take her by the collar, it freaks her out and she mouths/bites me, desperate to get me to release. She doesn't bite me, but she bends around to get my arm in her mouth and sometimes growls in fear. If she ever did that to someone else, like if she ran to someone's yard and they caught her, that person would think she was trying to bite and be frightened. I rarely take her by the collar to get her to go somewhere, so this doesn't happen often. But occasionally, she just can't be where she wants to be, like if she lies down in the middle of a road, and I have to take over and move her. And sometimes, being silly or stubborn, she tries to play tug with the leash, and I take her by the collar to try to end the leash game. This happened tonight, and it turned from her being silly to her being frantic when I grabbed the collar. We ended up in a 10-second wrestle for control, during which she got tangled and yelped in pain. That ended the tussle and she calmed down. But I felt awful and know there has to be a better way to regain control. I do take her by the collar briefly at other times when she's calm; move it around a bit and give her small treats, trying to desensitize her to being touched there. Any other suggestions? Thanks!
Hi @Aharedog I'm perplexed. Why is your dog resting in the middle of the road? I would not let my dog off lead until I have a rock solid recall. Accordingly there shouldn't be any need to grab her by the collar. And certainly wouldn't allow her to walk around unsupervised, where she can get into other individuals' gardens and sleep on the road. De gustibus non est disputandum. So let me try to provide insight and a solution. I suspect that she doesn't like the tightening around her neck when you want to person-handle her. You indicate you can move the collar around at other times.So it's not touching the collar per se that is the problem. I would buy a short lead, 20 cms long and use that with the collar rather than attempt to wrestle with her. As a result of the traumatic experiences you have sensitsed her to placing your hand under the collar. Avoid doing so, just use another piece of equipment. The short-length lead will be short enough that you can carry it around with you.
Thanks, Michael. I'll try a short lead. That has sort of been my solution: don't try to deal with her collar, use a lead instead. In the future, I'd like for her to be comfortable with both, and I agree that needs to mean no traumatic experiences with me collaring her. To clarify, she has so far never been in a neighbor's garden, etc. I'm just thinking ahead : unanticipated things do happen. And she has laid down in the road on occasion (on leash!) since she was a pup. Usually when there's something she wants to see or visit that I'm not permitting her to do. She goes 'on strike' and lays down. Not as often anymore as she matures, and I've worked on whistle-recall on leash that has helped.
Hi @Aharedog my apologies I misunderstood your preamble. It sounded as if your Lab 'regarded the neigbourhood as her kingdom. Understand the concern about neighbours and your dog. But I would never grab a strange dog by a collar and as soon as I see the anxiety going up in my obedience class I back off and resolve to deal with that dog with some desensitisation training. There is a need for schools to educate the community on what to do and not do with dogs. If she goes on strike you can try to be exciting and engaging rather than pulling her up by the collar. Engage with the dog. Perhaps say Oh oh Ohhhh getting leader. Get her drive up and then you're both off. Occasionally reward with a surprise of the yummiest treat that she enjoys at the moment when she gets up as you walk off. Both of my dogs love Greenies. Have it in your pocket so that it is not a bribe. One of the dangers of obedience classes--I don't know whether you attend an obedience club, but just saying in case you do attend--is that we owners want to do everything in silence with hand signals. And to be sure we do talk at our dogs far too much expecting them to filter out all the fluff. But engagement by geeing up the dog is okay if it motivates the dog so that you can get a win that you can intermittently reward. I agree you can try desensitising later on, but you may have to accept that some dogs just do not like pressure applied to certain areas.
I have a collar reactive dog to a certain family member. It’s not just the collar grabbing. It’s the energy at which you approach which triggers the reaction. Try lures and a loose lead. Avoid grabbing collar on the future. It can set back you counter conditioning.
Michael is right that it sounds like you are far too reliant on physically controlling the dog - instead of using training (treats) to control the dog. I don't know that there are many labradors who wouldn't get up out the road for a piece of frankfurter. It's likely that you would never have developed this fear in your dog, if you had - from the start - used training to ask her to co-operate and respond, instead of forcing her to move where you want her to, using the collar. So - firstly, stop grabbing her collar and start using reinforcement to ask her where to move. Next, you are going to need to desensitise her to having her collar reached for and touched. For this, it would be best to work with a good behaviourist because desensitisation is a bit of an art form and the steps involved are going to vary dependent on how the dog responds. If you let us know where you are based, I can give you some lists of trainers/behaviourists.
Thank you! This is helpful. Judo and I did do basic training for her first year, including some 1-1, and she did well. But I have plenty to learn and she's been particularly slow to leave behind some puppy fears and her mouthiness. I'm in the States: central Pennsylvania.
Take a look at a Karen Pryor certified trainer: https://karenpryoracademy.com/find-a-trainer/#!directory/map Or a Jean Donaldson's Academy graduate: https://academyfordogtrainers.com/find-a-trainer Or a Pet Professional Guild member: https://petprofessionalguild.com/Zip-Code-Search Those would be my recommendations!
