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Hey, welcome the Canine Master Radio show on pet Life Radio and I'm your host, Chris Abank. How are you guys today? I have joining me my director of training at dog Smart, the Canine Center in Fairfield County, Jamie Kelsey. Jamie, Hey, how are you today?
Good?
Hi, everyone's so happy to be here.
Well, today we're going to talk about, Jamie, what to do when I have all things reactive when it comes to my dog and my dog being on a leash. I think this is a great subject matter to cover because so many people are dealing with this kind of situation every single day. I mean, Jamie, don't you hear about our client's always dealing with this.
Absolutely, It's a top training priority for our clients and even in our canine facility. In our lobby, when clients enter with their dogs, sometimes before we even say hello, we say don't let your dogs meet on leash or keep your dogs close to you because we know in that you know, type of close proximity to other dogs. When dogs are on leash, we can see some leash reactivity when we don't see it when they're off leash, playing on the play floor.
Yeah, and that comes down to you know, all dogs have fight or flight, right, So when a dog is on a leash, we're eliminating what we're eliminating flight. And when a dog is off fleash, the dog has the ability to back away, to look away, So we get a lot of false body posture readings coming out of the dog when it's on a leash. A couple of things that I always mentioned. When a dog is on a leash, generally they're out in front, which is the wrong place for them to be. We're going to get
to that today, Jamie. Right, But being on leash, when I have I have a dog that's on a leash and he's pulling on that leash, he's leaning forward, and he's leaning forward against the leash, pulling on that leash. But what am I reading as another dog, I'm seeing this body pressure of leaning forward. Well, when I see body pressure of a human leaning forward or a dog leaning forward, that's dominance. It reads as hey, I'm about
to kick your butt. So having a dog on a leash can really make your dog appear to be more dominant or threatening. And of course, if I'm scared and I don't have the ability to run away or back away. You're giving me a cornered response, which is also that cornered response which I want to talk about so much. That cornered response is responsible for a lot of the aggression and a lot of the barking coming out of the dog.
Yes, and you know you're talking about a dominant stance, but most of the times what that is is reflective of the dog's fear because, like you said, fight or flight. When a dog is uncertain of an interaction and you remove a defense option of flight, well what's left is fight. And so dogs will present us that even though it's based in fear.
Yeah.
Yeah, And so this is where we see that Gosh, the dog is fine with everybody outside when he's off leash, but as soon as I put him on a leash, he gets very reactive. And again we see dogs sometimes even it leads to aggression. So where one dog is fine off leash, and then he's on a leash and he appears aggressive, but then if it's pushed, the aggression
comes out. And that's where dogs will either bite another dog or attack another dog, or even possibly a human or even a child, an adult or a child so we really need to make sure that when a dog is on a leash, there's a couple of rules that we want to adhere to. And if we adhere to these rules, rarely do we have issues. But if we don't, it happens a lot.
Chris, can we start maybe just with a little bit of a review of the best tools when you're leashwalking your dog.
Yeah, yeah, so that's a great place to start.
Like, no retractable leash.
So retractable leashes, you really don't have a lot of control. I am not a big fan of retractable leashes, unless, of course I'm going on a road trip and I'm stopping at rest stops and i need my dog to go to the bathroom very quickly and feel that freedom. But retractable leashes, the owner has a lot of risk
either to themselves as to the other dog. Right, we see that where a dog will go to the end of the retractable leash and they'll knock the owner over, or the retractable leash wraps around a finger and does severe damage to a finger or our leg. But a retractable leash, also you don't have the control that you have with a six foot leash. Now, we like to use leather leashes. Leather leashes give you an amazing amount of grip, but there are some types of rubber leashes
that do also have grip. But a nylon leash can be very slippery. So like to walk our dog on a six foot leather leash, size appropriately in width for the dog that we're walking. That's important. The next best thing is what are we walking the dog on? Now, this can really vary depending on the dog's temperament. We prefer either a no pull hardest Jamie. Which which kind of brands are we looking at?
For Nople Herny we is a freedom Nople harness. We really like that. What's really important is that it clips in the front. It's almost like power steering. When you clip the harness on the back, you think, yes, it redistributes the weight, so the dog isn't pulling on their neck. But what happens is it turns them into a sled dog. So it gives them the upper hand and the strength
to pull you. When the clip is in the front, if they pull, they're going to get redirected and so and also some of these brands have a clip both in the front and the back.
Yeah, So basically the Noble Harness is a really good option. The other option is something like the Gentle Leader or the Halty by my friend rodih your Mugfort in England with the Company of Animals they make the Halty, which is also very good. The thing about these leashes is are these kind of head collars. They're almost like a horse halter. Where the head goes, the body will follow. So these can be fine, except it takes sometimes a little bit of adjustment for the dog to get used to.
And so you know, what we tell people to do is to actually don't start out just putting it on your dog and walking outside, but actually put it on your dog, give them some great treats when it's on, and then take it off, wait for a little bit, maybe wait for a minute, then put it back on and give them great treats and let them get used to the feeling of this halter and pressure, yeah, we
call it all. And the way it works is that when you pull on the Halty or the general Leader, what happens is you're putting pressure around the muzzle and around the back of the head, at the top of the back of the head. So these are two very controlling parts of the dog. Again, some dogs really really have issues with this. The other thing that you can use is just a flat collar. Flat collars can be a little bit harder. I think that you will find
that with a flat collar. You need to make sure that you are able to control the dog with a flat collar on it, and if you aren't, then that flat collar is probably not the one to use. I would then go back to a harness.
Chris.
One thing I want to say about the flat collar that's so important is you need to make sure that it's snug enough. If it's looser than two fingertips, the dogs can Houdini their head out of it. And if you've got a dog who's being reactive and barking and they slip that collar, that's not a good situation. So make sure your dog's collar is snug. Chris Alway says, two fingertips under the collar.
Yep, thanks Jamie for reminding me of that. That is important, making sure it's snug enough. And a lot of people think, oh my gosh, well I can put my whole hand in it, and if your own hands is in it, it's too loose. So the other collars that we can talk about, but I'm not big fans of. One is a chain choke collar. I'm not a fan of that at all. It can collapse the trachea. They are abusive. I don't see the need for one of these. And you're training the dog. They say it's the sound of
a chain and the link. That's a lot of hogwash. It's actually it's a pop on the leash that inflicts a little bit of pain onto the dog. There is another collar that we sometimes will re recommend, but rarely again, and that is the prong collar. But I wouldn't recommend you using a prong collar unless you're working with a trainer that really knows what they're doing and is not an abusive trainer, because they can be really used in
an abusive way. So my best bets for teaching a dog to walk nicely on a leash is either a head halter or even a harness. And the other resort is a flat collar and the six foot leash, and the six foot leather leash is a great, great thing to start with. All right, I tell you what I think what we should do before we start getting into the techniques than how to get our dogs to be non reacted. I think we should take a small break, hear some words from our sponsors, and we'll be right back.
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Hey, welcome back. It's Chris thank from KNI Master. All right, Jamie, so let's take a look. Let's delve a little bit deeper here.
Let's look at some of the causes.
Yeah, some of the causes. Well, when a dog is on a leash and he is walking down and you walk up to another dog on a leash with a human attached, and that dog is out in front of you, pass what we'll call the body plane, you know, pass your knee out in front, and he's walking up to this other dog in this person. What is happening is you're putting that dog in the decision making process is
this dog friendly or foe? And what happens when you do that is you're putting all the pressure on that dog to make a decision on how to read the situation and how to react. And that right there is the cause of many men, many dogs getting aggressive and becoming reactive on leash. You're putting the dog in the
decision making process of determining whose friend or foe. So where do dogs naturally want to go if they have a strong leader, and we're going to go back to this leader, because if I'm the leader, and I'm the human leader, then I determine who's friendly our foe. I determine who's dangerous and what we're going to do. So if a dog is out in front of you, you are acting sort of as its subordinate. And when I say subordinate, you're not taking the lead, you're not taking charge.
They're letting the dog make that determination. And a fearful dog which many, many, many dogs have a little bit of fear in them, and they're cornered and they're on a leash, are going to become reactive. So how do I get rid of this?
Chris? Doesn't some of this mindset start inside the home before we try to transfer it outside into justs.
That's a great point, Jamie. A lot of how a dog determines its role within the pack, within the family pack is that started in the home, and that brings me to what we should be doing. We should start this in the home. But let me back up a little bit. If you're in front when it comes to meeting another dog in a human on a leash, if the dog is behind you and he's let's say he's an arms distance behind you, are a good eighteen inches behind your rear end, he's accepted that you are in front.
What happens is your dog will be non reactive. It is impossible for a dog to be reactive if he's behind you. I'm just going to repeat that again. I'd never see it not happen. It is impossible for a dog to become reactive if he is behind you and you are taking over the greeting. So where do we practice this. What Jamie Jovis said is exactly right. We practice this in the house, all right, Jane, and give us some examples of what we do in the house.
In the house is making sure that your dog, we like to call it accountable. It's positive, it's loving, but it's accountable. It's making sure that you're answering the door first, you're not tasking your dog with being the gatekeeper to greeting guests. That you're giving your dog little commands, little jobs throughout the day, Sit down, go to your bed, so your dog knows they're accountable. Many people say, oh,
my dog's perfect at home. It's once I get outside the house, and so that's when you have to do the work. But if being accountable to you is a novel idea, it's going to be very hard to teach in a distracted environment. So I'll even work with clients and will leash walk around the house. We'll walk around the house and we'll practice the position. We'll practice the leash and the collar and the harness and make sure that the owner feels empowered and in control so that
we're not learning outside. We're just transferring. And that can be very helpful.
Yeah. I think that's all important stuff. And that is exactly the kinds of stuff that we start off doing when we we are starting off. So when we start off, we start off inside the house. So a couple of just techniques. I'm walking through a doorway or a threshold, and as I'm walking through the threshold, the dog tries to race through the door in front of me, and if I allow him to do so, I just voted him and as the leader. Now a lot of people say, oh, sit,
I don't want you to say sit. No commands in that situation. Use body pressure. Body pressure your own to your own dog can be very very useful. So if I'm walking through a doorway and the dog is accompanying me in let's say I'm going from the donner room to the kitchen where all the food is, and the dog tries to shoot through that doorway and he tries
to race through in front of me. I'm going to actually give a guttural tone and then I'm going to turn and face the dog with body pressure, so sort of leaning forward into the dog a little bit, and then if I have to, I'll use my legs to shove him, not kick him folks to shove him behind me going through the doorways. Same things with going upstairs and downstairs. Again, if the dog tries to pass me going up the stairs and I let him do so, I just voted him in as being the leader in
my territory. So again up and downstairs, he must be behind you going up and downstairs through all doorways. Sometimes it is very helpful if I have a dog guy just can't catch in time to take about a six
foot leash, nylon leash. I'm gonna say nylon because they're cheap, and I'm gonna cut off the loop and I'm gonna attach it to the dog's collar, flat collar, and then I'm going to tie that to my belt or even hold that as I wander around, so that at least I have some control if the dog wants to try to pass me going through doorways upstairs and downstairs. You know, one more thing I just want to let you know is if I going outside and my dog races out the door and I allow him to do so, you know,
insides one territory outsides anotherbody races into the new territory. Again, I'm teaching him that he goes first. He makes the decisions. Your dog must be behind you, behind you, behind you, behind you, and then we start to see the dog becoming non reactive, and then when we take that outside it becomes much easier inside.
First, I want to add one thing, and you let me know if this is on point. Again, we're focusing on cause, not correction. When guests come to our home and we allow our dogs to jump on them or be the first greet they start to feel that they're the representative of the pack and they're the greeter and people are coming and people walk in and oh my god, what a cute dog. So they may start to anticipate when they see neighbors or strangers on the street that
that's going to be the same type of interaction. So I coach clients when people come over, don't let them interact with your dog. Don't make it like they're there to see your dog. Take the pressure off of your dog so they feel you have control of those interactions, and then that can transfer into the greetings outside.
Yeah, I think it's very very good advice.
You know.
One of the things I will do is when clients we had recently a dog named Cassius, large great Dane and he was becoming reactive. The owners were having some real problems and he actually became aggressive when greeting people. And you know, the interesting thing is is that we started doing some exercises at the door where we taught the dog through using a lot of body pressure that when a stranger comes to the house, there to basically
keep the dog away from the stranger. So we took some blue painter's tape and we made a box around the front door and I rang the doorbell. The dog didn't know me at this point, and when the dog came racing up barking, barking, barking, they took their body turned, flipped faced the dog and literally shoved the dog out of the box using their body pressure and their legs as well. And they were able to do this. And now the dog literally when the doorbell rings, he waits
patiently for the stranger to come in. And it really took away all the reactivity of that dog with strangers.
Example.
So teaching that first that you are in charge as the leader of your family pack, and that you're in charge of the interactions within the space that carries through to you're in charge of the interactions outside of the space. All right, now, I know that you, Jamie, have some
questions and some examples of some of our customers. But what I'd like to do is take a small break and we can hear some words from our sponsors and we will come right back at you guys with some really good examples of how to fix these reactive dog situations. We'll be right back.
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All right, welcome. I'm here with Jamie Kelsey, the director of dog training at dog on Smart, and we're here talking about reactive dogs and reactive dogs on leash. Jamie, you have heard from some of our uh some of our clients and some of the listeners. Give me some flavor of what you're hearing out there and maybe maybe we can address some of.
These Yeah, so I think you know just understanding why the dog's behavior is so different on leash than off leash, and we see it every day, and when they come into the lobby before they go into the playcare, the dogs may have hackles up and there may be growling on leash, and then they get into the group and they're off leash and they're totally fine in their best friends. And so really explain that dynamic to clients so they
can understand it within family dogs and neighborhood dogs. I have, you know, I printed a bunch of training in crees and we can read some of them and I'm sure they apply to many and coach for the techniques. I'll read one here. Callie is very nervous on leash. She wags her tail so maybe a bit conflicted. She wags her tail like she wants to say hi, but then she gets loaded the ground, barks and lunges if they attempt to come near her. She's also reactive to dogs
in her neighborhood on leash. There are dogs that are barking at her first, but now the response is that she is reactive every time she sees them. This is not sustainable and I'd really like to find a place where we can walk in my neighborhood without her barking and lunging, and can be comfortable until we pass. She is extremely social with dogs and other humans off the leash. But this is a behavior on leash that I need some guidance with.
Yeah, so you know that is so typical of what we hear often some people need to understand. You know that when a dog is on leash, we talked about false body language, the dog is not able to retreat, The dog is not able to do maybe go into a play posture because he's pulling on the leash and he can't get into that position. And then of course they're also feeling very cornered, and as soon as we take them off leash, they have the ability if a dog.
You know, all dogs have fight or flight, right, and they all have different degrees of fight or flight. So a very confident dog is going to have a higher fight than flight, and a fearful dog is going to have a higher flight than fight. And a conflicted dog is gonna be right there in the middle saying should I fight SHEDD run? Should fight Cheddar run? But when a conflicted dog, which she just described this dog CALLI
sounds a little conflicted. Is on a leash, we're taking away the ability to flee, and then we build fight. So many dogs, many many, many dogs will become more aggressive on leash than off leash, and as soon as you take them off leash, they're fire. So what do we do with those dogs that are aggressive on leash? Well, remember when I said to you that a dog that's behind you cannot be aggressive. So we teach the dogs to walk behind us. Now you'll say, oh my god,
that's crazy. You know I can't get my dog to even walk next to me. Well, you can't get your dog to walk next to you because your dog is trying to be in front of you and the relationship is broken. So some of the things that you can do is, again you start out at home, getting the dog, you go behind you, behind you, behind you. You also then start working with the dog in a non distraction area, maybe your backyard, put a leash on them, and you know,
you can use things like a clicker. Everybody uses a clicker these days, it seems, but not all people do. A click is just a Marxi behavior as correct. It says, yes, a treat is coming, and what you're doing is correct. It's like a picture of exactly that moment and says now a treat it's coming, so it marks it as correct. But you can use a word yes, or you can say good girl. You can praise her when she's behind you. But I think using treats as a first step to
lure the dog behind you. If the dog tries to pass you, you can give a guttural tone, and you can also use forward body language, so you flip around and put a little bit of body pressure on the dog to get them to stay behind you. And then use a queue like let's walk. We use that a dog on Smart, don't we, Jamie all the time. That's our cue. I wouldn't use let's go because we say that to our husbands and our kids all the times. You know, hey, let's go. You're ready to go, you know,
So use the term let's walk. It's its own particular cue. And that's walk means walk behind me. And as long as I'm walking, stay behind me. And I think if you can teach your dog to naturally walk behind you, some dogs naturally walk behind you, and they those are the dogs that already know that you're in charge. But the ones that are constantly fighting you. Those are the ones that need to change the relationship a little bit.
I can say that I became a real believer. I've been with you many years, but I became a real believer in understanding this is an instinctual position for dogs. Is when I had three dogs, and I had a very dominant cattle dog, and whenever we were out on a walk, my other two dogs, Border Collie and Beagel would never pass her tail. Never she was out in front, and they would and if they even tried, she would
send them back to where they came from. They were so happy on the walk because they didn't have to do security detail. They could just be happy on a walk and know that she had it covered. And so that really made me understand how dogs view it when we own that front position and we decide what's safe and dangerous and they can just go along for the walk with less anxiety or fear.
Yeah, I mean, I will tell you getting a dog to walk non reactively on a leash, the first step is is trying to get that dog behind you. You know, we have many clients a dog on smart that come to us every single day dealing with this subject. And the what we first do is we first teach them how to become a good life. And you can go back on some of my other Canine Master radio shows
and learn how to be a good leader. Just just go through the old shows we do talk about how to become your dog's leader and how to lead the dog. And let me just be very clear, leading the dog is not becoming abusive or aggressive or we're going to dominate you. It's not about that. It's about leading the dog. Most dogs are looking to be guided or led, so I wanted to just address that. So but in our classes we deal with this. People drop their dogs off
to us. Gosh, it seems every holiday, can you get my dog to be non reactive on a leash? So it's something that we do constantly, and I think that it's a real, real, big problem. And what we do is we teach the dog to walk in a let's walk behind us until we release them out of positions. So it's almost like a sit or a down position. They stayed in that position until they're released to go take a potty. And people go, oh gosh, they're gonna
be so miserable. They're not miserable. They are so much happier and go ahead, happy and go lucky because they're not in the decision making process we are. And the dogs learn to They love their walks, they enjoy them, but they're taking your lead and following you, and they will never be aggressive behind you.
Yeah, And I mean, even just a little example of when we'll start a new class, we may have you know, twelve people come in with dogs and everyone comes in and that's why they're coming to us for help, and all of their dogs are pulling them across the room and they're letting their dogs pull them into the corner and smell and sniff, And I'll say, everybody, stop, just plant your feet, don't let your dogs decide where you go.
Just stop.
But my dog wants to go here, but my dog wants to go there. Stop. And even that just saying, hey, I'm gonna decide where we go when we go and not let my dog pull me everywhere. That's just like a little baby step to starting to be the decision maker on the walk, even before you can get your dog behind you. Is not to let them dictate where to go all the time.
Yeah, you know, Jamie, there was one other question you had for us.
Yeah, you know, maybe you can just explain to our listeners. You know we say don't let your dogs meet on leash. We can't drop the leash, and so can you just give some pointers on an appropriate way for people to safely introduce their dogs on leash to diminish that fight or flight reflex.
Okay, so let me just say one thing that's really important. Introducing two dogs on leash that don't know each other is always a risky situation. I don't care. The dogs always seem friendly and oh I never saw my dog do that before putting your dog in that decision making process and the dogs not knowing whether the other the dog, how the other dogs would react. It's always risky. That said, we're gonna do it anyway, aren't we? Way most of us some of us will. And so here's some pointers.
Do you want to get your dog when you're introducing him to another dog, make sure that that dog you're not pulling on the leash and tensing on the leash. When you pull on the leash, you're actually transmitting to your dog. Hey, I'm nervous. So you want to add a very jovial and friendly Oh what a good boy. I always tell people to do the jolly routine, which is a singing voice when they're starting to meet. Oh what a good boy you are, say it in a
very happy, sing song voice. This relaxes the dog. The next thing is don't hold your breath. Dogs here, especially your own dog, here's you when you hold your breath, and knows that you're nervous. So if you're nervous when the dog is meeting another dog and the dog hears you holding your breath and not breathing and not being happy, the dog is going to sense there's something to be nervous about and will many times become reactive.
Even if you know, clients will pull on the leash tighter, they'll grab a harsher grip of the leash because they're nervous, and the dogs will sense that. Then their owners are nervous, and so then that can escalate.
That makes the whole situation worse. So slack in the leash. You can guide your dog little pulls, but not a constant pull. And if you're going to have them meet, try to get your dog. The head to head part is the dangerous part. Try to get your dog to do a friendly greeting. And you know where a friendly greeting is for dogs. This is going to sound kind of disgusting. It's a butt sniff, a mutual butt sniff.
That's a friendly greeting. So I don't tell people do this and when they're meeting people at cocktail parties, but certainly when you are introducing your dog to another dog, get them away from the face to face and get them right to the rear end where they can sniff each other's butts and do a friendly greeting. Then put slack in the leash and hopefully at that point the tension is over. So those are the ideas that I would do if I'm going to go against Chris's advice
and introduce my dog to another dog on leash. Okay, great, we do need to wrap up the show, Jamie, and I just want to thank you so much for being on the show today. Yeah, and I think we gave some people some good pointers. You know, I'd love to know your comments and have you join the conversation. And you guys can always email me at Chris at canine dot com and you know we'll be sure to answer your questions. And yeah, and they can also email Jamie.
You can email me. I'm the training director at dog on Smart. My emails Jamie j A, I M E E at dog on smart dot com and we'll be happy.
To help you absolutely, so make sure to visit our website. Also, it's kaninemaster dot com. We have a monthly newsletter that is really informative and grated. You can sign up for that. We may even have you, you know, call into the show and with your questions. So send me your videos and your photos so I can see what's going on
with your dog and help you fix your problems. So Jamie and I say bye for now, and we'll see you next time on Knine Maaster on pet Life Radio, where I will continue to help you master the relationship with your dog.
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