I know there are a couple of other threads on LAT but I didn't want to hijack them Lucky was completely obsessed with other dogs when I adopted him. Off lead he would run away to search for dogs, even if there were none nearby. If he saw a dog he would get to the end of the lead and then lunge and bark out of frustration. I used the Look at That game and now he volunteers eye contact 90% of the time. But, he can't disengage by himself if the other dog is walking towards him. He doesn't lunge but just waits for them to approach. We usually stand still and play the game but I want to work on moving away from other dogs. The problem is that even though he stays calm, he still wants to meet the other dog and staying in one place has been rewarded as sometimes the other dog comes over and he gets to meet them. So, he won't move away until it's clear that the dog isn't coming over to him. It's hardest if the dog is walking behind us, as he wants to wait for the dog to catch up and won't keep walking. I'm not sure if it's best to make it part of the LAT game, so we walk away but he can still keep looking back at the other dog and gets rewards for making eye contact with me. Then maybe he'll stop looking at the dog and just focus on me after he works out the game. Or, if I should try to stop him looking at the dog by streaming treats to keep him moving away or ask him to heel and reward frequently to begin with. The chain of behaviour he has learnt is "look at dog, look at person, until dog has gone" but I want to change it to "look at dog, look at person, walk away from dog". I also need to try and stop him being rewarded for waiting for other dogs... but this is hard because off lead dogs often come up to us, or more annoyingly owners bring their on lead dogs up to us. Any advice would be really appreciated!!
I think you have come such a long way with your dog, if I remember he was adopted at about 7 months old. So it's safe to assume he missed out on some socialisation opportunities as a younger pup. In my mind, what I think is happening, reading your post, is a bit of "what happens next, oh, I just wait here and the dogs come to me, yayy!!" Because that is largely what's happening. So, what I would do, is add a game in at this point which is" lets turn around and go the opposite way as it's great fun to do that!" I think you are doing great with LAT, make sure though you manage the distance as much as possible, although it is tough unless you are in a set- up. I hear what you say regarding off lead dogs coming up, so annoying when you are training. There are different ways of the turnabout game, but basically the objective is to get your dog on cue, to turn quickly and move in a different direction. This youtube I found quite useful
Thanks @Beanwood - this is a great idea! I've been so focused on trying to reward calmness that I didn't think about adding something fun as a way to move away. You're right about his thought processes I think! Occasionally he will carry on looking at me when the other dog comes up, but usually he doesn't. I think he behaves like an untrained friendly dog now, rather than a lunging, barking lunatic!! Here there are strict rules about where dogs can be off lead, so we always train in places where dogs are supposed to be on the lead, which makes it a bit easier. But of course not everyone bothers. I'm not sure how much contact he had with other dogs before. All I know is that they found him and his sister when they were about 6 weeks old, but his sister didn't survive. So, from around 6 weeks he had no mother or littermates. Then he lived with a family in Greece until he was 7 months, then a charity flew him to Germany.
Thank you for asking this @lucky_dog . I am wanting to start training the LAT game with Harley. She is an only dog and also gets very excited when she sees other dogs and we have reinforced that behaviour at puppy class because she continued into the second stage with most of the puppies from her socialisation class so they are always playing. And we have allowed it. So when we take her out she is so happy to see other dogs, not to the level that you are describing but still a challenge for us as novice dog owners. Thanks for the info Beanwood.
@Harley Quinn I'm sure you will find it useful! I think it's great for friendly dogs because it rewards them for making the choice themselves. I've found it's helped off lead too. Lucky will meet another dog, have a quick play, then comes back to check in with me again. I don't need to use recall all the time because he remembers that if he disengages from the other dog by himself, he gets a nice reward for it, and then he can choose to go back to the dog if he wants to, or we leave together and do something fun. His problem now isn't leaving the other dog, it's that he wants to say hi. I think some dogs do just grow out of wanting to play all the time, but for others associating other dogs with excitable play becomes a problem. One thing I've found helps is going for off lead walks with other dogs, rather than just standing still in one place while the dogs play. It has helped Lucky to learn that dogs aren't just exciting toys.
If you have a dog that is standing still and waiting for other dogs to approach this would be ringing a bit of an alarm bell for me. Yes, you may think your dog is the most sociable dog ever. Sure, he has always been desperate to say hi to other dogs....but the thing is these frustrated greeters can be just as prone to developing fear around other dogs as nervous dogs. So I'd say that if you have got to the stage where he is not going mad to meet other dogs, you should relax a bit. Let him meet other dogs and if he chooses to disengage, reward that like crazy.
Thanks for your reply @JulieT Developing aggression isn't a problem for Lucky - I've had him for 2 years now so know him very well. I think that these are dogs where the owners never work on reducing the frustration, so it gets worse until they start to aggress - sometimes towards the owners or towards the other dog if they finally get to them. The waiting for other dogs has just been reinforced by the look at that game. Where he gets a reward for looking calmly at the other dog, which was then built up to getting reinforced for looking at me. So, he's doing exactly what I've trained him to do! He gets plenty of opportunity to meet other dogs off lead. But, on lead, if there's a dog 10m behind us, we can't just stand around waiting for it to catch up! And, in some situations, it isn't fair on the other dog/owner. So, I need to work on training him to move away.
Yes, well, fair enough about you knowing your dog. I doubt your conclusion though from what you've said (rather than seeing your dog as you can, of course). Dogs change over time, as they get older their emotions to other dogs change and if you have trained (inadvertently) a calm look, the dog should turn to you for a reward. He should not fixate so you can't cue him to turn away. If he can't turn away, then it's not a trained response. If it were, he would turn on your cue. Have you got the book 'controlled unleashed'? It is well worth a read. It is not the point of the LAT game to train a dog to look. The point of the LAT game is the dog returns to you.
