www.careforreactivedogs.com I was looking through Eileen Anderson's blogs, which Pippa had linked to on the thread 'Is praise equivalent to negative reinforcement' , and found a link to the web site CARE for reactive dogs. CARE stands for Counter conditioning And +Reinforcement are Essential for reactive dogs. This training guide for reactive dogs is set out in three phases and each phase is split into four sections. It is easy to follow,its relatively short and concise and I think explains really well how to train and desensitise a reactive dog. It is very similar to BAT and the work I've been doing with Scott and Scout so I can, very happily, honestly say it works. My dogs have gone from barking at strangers just walking towards us to voluntarily approaching strangers, sniffing them and even licking them :. A stranger touching them is still work in progress but one day I now believe we can get there (maybe). ;D It doesn't matter what the dogs reactivity is, fear, nervous aggression, over excitement, counter conditioning, keeping the dog below threshold and training an alternative behaviour does work. Oh and you need to chuck in a bit of patience as well.
Re: Help for Reactive Dogs You've done brilliantly and on the back of your success I have suggested to a couple of people round our way that they look into BAT
Re: Help for Reactive Dogs Jen you kept me going too and have helped me so much with advice,tips and reading recommendations. And you've done a marvelous job with your 2 boys x I'll definately look this up thankyou x
Re: Help for Reactive Dogs Thanks for the link to the article Jen, its most interesting for me re Millie and am pleased that its working a treat . Millies treat is her tennis ball , it never comes into the house or garden, it stays in my pocket and she knows its there She has tried so hard bless her and now will look to my pocket when other dogs are approaching her and this is the only time she gets the ball , whereupon she will blank other dogs completely rather than her previous habit of running to other dogs , its been the most fantastic tool
Re: Help for Reactive Dogs Millie is a very good example of how well counter conditioning works Kate. She is certainly hooked on that tennis ball. It's amazing really how it works when you think about it. Millie now totally associates seeing another dog with getting her beloved tennis ball which is much more important than running to another dog. If anybody needs proof this training works they need look no further than your little Millie. ;D
Re: Help for Reactive Dogs Rourke is the same. He suddenly appears jumping up at the dummy bag and I look up and round the corner is another dog, person, horse.
Re: Help for Reactive Dogs My understanding is classical conditioning is how a dog learns a particular behaviour by responding to a cue or trigger. For example my dogs bark at strangers that is a conditioned behaviour. Counter conditioning is changing a dogs response to a particular cue or trigger. Millie used to run to other dogs when she saw them. That was a conditioned behaviour. By using a tennis ball to change Millie's emotional response to the trigger of seeing a dog by associating it with the pleasure of getting the tennis ball Kate has used counter conditioning. I'm assuming Rourke had a similar behaviour pattern and Stacia has used dummies to alter his association.
Re: Help for Reactive Dogs I ask because if these examples were successful counter conditioned responses wouldn't the emotional response have changed, and the dogs wouldn't look to a substitute - the ball or dummy bag? Like bell rings, dog looks for food? Instead the appearance of the previous feared stimulus would generate the feeling of pleasure?
Re: Help for Reactive Dogs [quote author=Jen link=topic=8779.msg124431#msg124431 date=1416147270] www.careforreactivedogs.com It doesn't matter what the dogs reactivity is, fear, nervous aggression, over excitement, counter conditioning, keeping the dog below threshold and training an alternative behaviour does work. Oh and you need to chuck in a bit of patience as well. [/quote] This is very interesting, Casper will just bomb over to other dogs, no pause for thought, just gone! Benson I now can 50% of the time distract him enough to recall back, work in progress but definitely getting there. I hadn't considered using this technique before. Casper is definitely starting to respond to a fur dummy so that might be an option. I need to do something as he goes full tilt like a bat out of hell and that I appreciate that can be intimidating..
Re: Help for Reactive Dogs I think I see your point Julie. ??? It is very difficult to change a conditioned behaviour. It takes a lot longer than to train a conditioned behaviour if that makes sense. When Charlie retrieves a dummy for you does he expect a c&t ? If he doesn't get his c&t he knows he hasn't done it quite right which is how you improve his retrieve. When Millie sees another dog she now expects a tennis ball rather than running to the dog. With time the tennis ball won't be needed just like with time Charlie won't need a c&t to carry out a perfect retrieve and delivery to hand of a dummy. I didn't actually say they were successful counter conditioned responses I said it was a good example of how well counter conditioning works. When the tennis ball isn't needed then it will be a successful counter conditioned response. Although I would say the emotional response has already changed.
Re: Help for Reactive Dogs I wasn't being critical of the result - regardless of how it has been achieved, Millie looking for her tennis ball instead of running to another dog is a fabulous thing, it's just a matter of interest whether it's counter conditioning or classical conditioning, and interesting to understand it. Maybe it's more interesting to use Charlie as an example - because the counter conditiong would be the opposite way round (so an extreme example that couldn't be achieved with a tennis ball). Charlie is not frightenined of other dogs - they generate a "great! let's play!" response in him. if I produced a tennis ball when he saw another dog, I wouldn't change his reaction to the dog, I would just (classically) condition him to look for his tennis ball when he saw another dog. This would be a pretty impermanent thing, I think. He'd hang around for his tennis ball for a bit - maybe I could make that long enough to be practically useful though - then he'd leg it to the other dog if it didn't appear. If I reward him with his tennis ball for staying with me when he saw another dog, I would be using (operant) conditioning to increase the likelihood he would stay with me when he saw another dog. If I wanted to counter condition Charlie's emotional response to other dogs, so change that response from pleasure to fear, I'd need him to associate the other dog with a bad consequence - and I'd aim for the sight of the other dog to generate his fear. I can see how it's a bit difficult to separate out the process of classical conditioning from counter conditioning, but perhaps it is right to say it counter conditioning if the stimulus (the other dog) generates the changed emotion? So I'd be successfully (in my mad experiment) in counter conditioning if when I wasn't there to generate the negative consequence Charlie still had a fear response to other dogs?
Re: Help for Reactive Dogs I think we run the risk of over thinking at times , all I know is that recently , Millie has become a lot more sociable with other dogs . This morning for example , she walked beautifully with me and Sam plus an assortment of other dogs , she didn't have her ball because she no longer " needs " to have it all the time in order to interact rather than react and this, for me is a joy . I doubt I would have been able to get her to this level of relaxation without teaching her via a distraction , I`m not saying that we have won the war yet but certainly won the battle
Re: Help for Reactive Dogs I'm sure Millie is a delight and a credit to you. [quote author=kateincornwall link=topic=8779.msg126944#msg126944 date=1417086973] I think we run the risk of over thinking at times [/quote] I don't think that. I think try to figuring things out so I reach a basic level of understanding of how dogs learn is both interesting and likely to be helpful in my dog training. .
Re: Help for Reactive Dogs [quote author=JulieT link=topic=8779.msg126938#msg126938 date=1417083499] If I wanted to counter condition Charlie's emotional response to other dogs, so change that response from pleasure to fear, I'd need him to associate the other dog with a bad consequence - and I'd aim for the sight of the other dog to generate his fear. [/quote] Exactly However if you were able to change Charlie's excited reaction at seeing another dog to a calm reaction so instead of feeling worked up and excited he feels calm, is that not changing the emotional response and therefore counter conditioning but still with a positive emotion ? I guess it all starts with classical conditioning getting the dog to look at the ball on cue. The cue being the trigger another dog. You can then use that to change the emotional response as the dog begins to associate the trigger/cue with the happy feeling of getting a ball rather than the nervous feeling it had before. Thinking about it in its simplist form you could say counter conditioning is classical conditioning its just the opposite of the conditioning that's been done. eg My dogs are conditioned to bark at strangers I'm trying to condition them to do the opposite. I agree it's a fine line. ???
Re: Help for Reactive Dogs In a nutshell Jen , re the dog becoming in a happy frame of mind rather than an anxious/scared one and so is more able to handle the worries , this is exactly what has happened with Millie .No doubt we shall have set backs , I`m not confident/daft enough to say that she is 100% fixed, but so far so good so feeling very positive
Re: Help for Reactive Dogs [quote author=kateincornwall link=topic=8779.msg126944#msg126944 date=1417086973] I think we run the risk of over thinking at times [/quote] Couldn't agree more Kate, too much uneccessary wordy training and over analysis of everything dogs do. We have used Jen's BAT tips with Charlie with great effect, he doesn't always look for a treat but he is fed treats when he meets dogs on or off lead and he is much better at meeting & greeting and not as anxious even walking past other dogs as if they aren't there . Off lead he can happily be in a group of 7 dogs and not bat an eyelid. Like you Kate, we have still got a long way to go but success is success I also think that you don't always have go totally by the book, one size doesn't necessarily fit all but as long as the end result is where you want to be with your dog I don't think that's wrong. I think Jen's BAT tips contains some of the easiest and most constructive training on the forum and we wouldn't have come as far without it. Jen always words her advice and tips clearly and thoughtfully Thanks Jen I can tell you were a School Teacher and I bet a really good one xxx
Re: Help for Reactive Dogs Thank you Helen thats really lovely of you. I'm just glad it's of help in some way. Not sure I'm keen on the idea that you can tell I was a teacher though
Re: Help for Reactive Dogs I like talking about the science, theory and principles behind things. But I appreciate that it is deadly tedious to others. There are two types of conditioning: - Classical conditioning (making a simple association between A and B) - Operant conditioning (where outcomes are contingent on a type of behaviour...A leads to B only if I do C) Counter conditioning IS classical conditioning. It's not a different type of conditioning. In counter conditioning, initially... A thing, other dog, vacuum, fireworks elicits fear Whenever the thing appears, dog gets a treat Treat is nice, treat elicits happiness Over time, the dog learns that the thing (dog, vacuum, fireworks) predicts a treat. The emotional response to the treat is transferred to the thing. Now the original response to the thing has been counter conditioned - through a process of classical conditioning or simple association.
