any suggestions? LouDog is almost 2, and has started jumping and growling/barking at bypassers. His tail is wagging sometimes and I don’t think he’s angry at all but he looks angry and people get scared. He’s almost 50kilos so we have a hard time when he gets like this. He doesn’t pay attention to us or treats or commands or anything else when he’s in that zone. We have tried putting our knees around him and calmly holding under his chest, or grabbing his upper neck fur, or commands or yelling or reprimanded but nothing helps. What do we do??? It’s just me and two kids and there are no available courses until after new year
This behaviour is normally associated with fear. Read up about the "Look at That!" method by Leslie McDevitt, explained in Control Unleashed. Yelling at him won't help and will just make it worse, so please stop doing that. Grabbing his fur will hurt, and will make it worse. Holding him with your knees will probably make him feel like he can't escape, so could make it worse. When he's in this state, it's not surprising he can't listen to you or take treats; think about whether you'd like to have a hotdog or how you'd respond to being told to sit down when you're wound up to the same sort of state as he is. The right approach is to change his response so he can remain relaxed when he sees other people and that needs a structured approach. PS, 50kg is huge - are you sure he's not overweight?
I wouldn't put him in a situation where he can jump or growl/bark at people, he sounds highly stressed. Make sure to walk him in areas where you can easily manoeuvre him so that he doesn't have to directly pass someone. Eg, cross the street, or if you're in an open area, walk him in a wide curve around people. If you find he's barking, you're too close for his comfort level. He needs to slowly learn through positive reinforcement that people aren't a threat to him, and to learn how to be calm around people (the LAT training that snowbunny mentioned). His brain is still quite juvenile, despite his size. My lab is 1.5 and still a big baby in a lot of ways
Yes we’ve checked with the vet, and he is all muscle- no extra fat- so we can’t diet him and he obviously has more strength than I do. I was told at a training course to do the holding him with my knees but I see how that could be wrong if he’s afraid- although he doesn’t seem afford anything... he’s very alpha and very very stubborn but perhaps it is fear since most people are walking around with hoods and big scarves now that winter is here. The Look at that you mention- is that on this website?? I have used calm voice and words too but it doesn’t seem to do anything- he doesn’t seem to even notice we are there.
Yes he’s still a young puppy I think just that his strength makes me forget that. We live in a suburb area where people often are out walking- no sidewalks- should we go to the other side when we see people coming our way?? Or turn? But if he doesn’t want to turn I honestly don’t manage to get him with me. He’s great with other dogs, even at a dog park where he hasn’t met any previously, and he also never bothered anyone so this just started happening- we do off leash hikes often but we rarely see other people when doing so- I choose to go when we won’t meet others as his recall isn’t always perfect. Could this be why he also barks like mad when kids come to play with my kids? Even if they’re young??
Dogs that are truly confident don't make scenes. They don't try and push their weight around. They don't get into scraps and altercations. They are simply quiet and assured. It's when dogs are fearful that they start to demonstrate these behaviours of posturing and what used to be called "being the alpha" (although that's hugely outdated these days). "Look At That" is talked about at length on the forum. I'm a bit busy to search right now, but hopefully someone else will help you out with that. You can also look for videos on YouTube. Donna Hill has a useful one. The crux is you have to work at a distance he is comfortable with. By the time he's reacting, you're way too close. Get distance and practice from where he can engage.
Thank you so much. Something must have changed- he was calm and quiet always - but not on the walks around the blocks anymore- he’s never ever tried to bite or even get up to anyone/any dog but he’s on his hind legs freaking out. I’ll definitely try this
With the kids it could be frustration - wanting to play and greet new people but being prevented, hard to say without actually seeing it. I would cross the road to avoid directly passing people until he can pass them calmly. No point putting him in a situation he finds hard to handle and then trying to get him to behave calmly when he's already over threshold. With the LAT game, in your case you can direct his attention to the distraction (people), then when he looks back at you, treat him. You have to give him plenty of room to work with though so that he is able to work with you. If you can't get his attention, then you are too close to the distraction. The idea is that he eventually learns to give you attention when he sees the thing that used to distract him. For the times when you can't avoid someone - One method of stopping jumping is to stand on the lead. With the lead attached to the front of his body (so not on the back of the harness), you can drop the length of the lead on the ground and stand on it (while still holding the end of the lead), thus preventing him from being able to jump up. I'm not sure what kind of harness you use, but you can get ones that attach front and back, and double ended leads. This allows you to have the lead attached to both front and back, so should you need to, you can quickly unhook the back attachment to give yourself a long length of lead to work with. I'd practice this at home as your emergency move in case you can't avoid people for whatever reason. But try to give yourself as much room as possible, for example going up into someone's driveway. Here is the video I think snowbunny is referring to (you don't have to use a clicker if you don't want to, you can use a word to mark it, for example "yes").
Thanks so much. I’ll try all this- I always thought he was overly confident maybe not- it’s just me and my two kids maybe he’s gotten protective.
This might also help. We did a lot of this with Vanilla, where now we can walk past birds, off leash with a distance of about 1m and no reaction from her. Dogs about 10m off leash and about 1m on leash. Calm as anything. It did take us about 3months to get to this point. Hope the picture helps, but reading up about it is better as it gives the full picture/explanation
Fantastic!! Thank you!! I guess then a very delicious treat is in order as well for the clicks- my dog licks his lips/yawns in some training with me I had no idea that was a stress signal
Turid Rugaas has some excellent information about stress signals (or what she calls "calming signals"). Here's more information: http://en.turid-rugaas.no/calming-signals---the-art-of-survival.html
