Episode #27 Reactive Rover

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This is The Puppy Training Podcast Episode #27: Reactive Rover. This podcast is for those looking to train their own dog, whether as a family companion, a service, or a therapy dog, and I'm here to help you every step of the way. This is The Puppy Training Podcast, and I'm your host, Amy Jensen. 
Hi. Everyone have to tell you that this is one of the most fun things I do all week. And I know what you're thinking, Amy. You should probably make these longer. That's the most fun thing that you do a week. But really, I want you to know that I have fun recording these for you and talking and to you about dog training and obedience and how we can get our puppies to be better behaved. So today's topic actually came from Chloe on Instagram. She sent me a message asking about what she should do when her dog sees another dog and barks or tries to lunge towards the other Doc. So this is something that a lot of dog owners deal with. And I thought, you know what? Let's talk about it on the podcast this week. I'm also teaching a canine coaching class for all of my members on Wednesday. It's a video course on adolescence, and usually this is a behavior that crops up once your puppy turns into a teenager. So sometimes we think our puppies just super well mannered and sweet and calm. And then adolescents hits, and we get a little bit of some different behavior cropping up. So this is one of those behaviors that all of a sudden are puppy might be overly excited to see another dog. Or maybe he's fearful of another dog. There's that fear stage that puppies go through when they're about six months old at last a week or so, and some anxiousness might be mixed in their different puppies feel different emotions, but sometimes is barking in this lunging behavior occurs, and we need to know howto handle it and to not let our puppy practice it so that it doesn't become a habit. We definitely want to be able to walk down the street with our puppy without any issues. So let's talk about this. Thanks, Chloe, for bringing it to our attention and for giving us the topic for this week. Okay, so this is something that can be frustrating, embarrassing, overwhelming. Sometimes this causes us not to want to take our dogs out on a walk. But the good news is, if you have a puppy who does this, there is a high rate of success. We are able to turn this behavior around in a fairly simple way, and we're basically taking that emotion that are Dogus feeling, which is in most cases they're feeling either fear anxiousness, and we want to change that to a feeling of happy confidence. It's kind of what I like to think about it, as so you can think of, Ah, here to close your eyes and think of a dog walking down the street with happy confidence. What does that look like? Right? Their bodies lose, other mouth, has relaxed, maybe their tongues hanging out, their tails neutral and kind of wagging. They're just happy that she's happy to be out on a walk. No stress, not a stress in the world. They are carefree, and that's really what we want to be able to walk down the street with as a dog who's confident and happy. So what I want to do in the next few minutes is outline a sample plan off something that you could start right away with your puppy to start to reverse this. If your puppy has issues with barking or lunging at other dogs that he sees so the first step is we need to figure out what does your dog love. So I want you to get a piece of paper and a pen, and I want you to start out by writing everything your dog likes, and I want you to rank them from. This is my dog's absolute favorite thing now. It could be a toy. It could be praised. It could be a belly rub. It could be food, and I want you to be very specific. Is it? Chicken is at stake. Is it a hot dog? Is it a tennis ball? Whatever it is that your puppy love, I want you to make a list. So ah, hierarchy, if you will, of things that your puppy loves. We need to identify something that really motivates your dog. Now, whenever we talk about training and changing behavior, we have to find something that motivates our dog to want to do so. And in this scenario, we have to find something really good, because not only are we outside where there's a Brazilian distractions, there's also something that our dog is actually reacting to, so I call them triggers. It could be another dog. It could be a person could be a pine cone, whatever your dog reacts to or whatever is his trigger that causes him to bark and lunge in pool. Now, in this scenario, it's another dog. But you can apply this little program that I'm gonna talk to you about today in any of these scenarios. So number one again find out what motivates your dog, and we need to find something good. Step two is to figure out where your dog won't react. So what? We call this the Line of Threshold. At what point can you walk your dog down the street and he'll see another dog or a trigger? Whatever is his trigger. But he won't bark or lunge or pool. So how far away do you have to keep your dog so that he doesn't react? That's the threshold line. So the threshold Once you cross that line, he would start to react, and we want a pinpoint where that distance is. The reason why is we want to keep our puppy under threshold were behind threshold, so we don't want to cross that line to the point of reactivity. We want to keep him in the calm, Happy ST as we try to train this new behavior and change his emotional feeling toward the trigger. So it's important that we identify that line and then we wanna work behind the line so that he's in a nice, happy, calm state while we're training the new behavior. So Step two again is find that line of threshold. At what point does he start to Barker Lunger Pool? And then we need to work behind that line and be careful not to cross it now, as we work through this and it gets better and better, and the more times that we exercise this and practices with our dog, that threshold light is going to get closer and closer to the trigger till ultimately, you'll be able to stand right next to that trigger, and your dog will be completely fine. But for the meantime, we need to make sure that we are working in the safe space for our dog, where he is able to feel calm and happy and in control of himself. And then we'll work on it, moving that line a threshold closer and closer to the trigger. All right, So once you've identified that, then you know as you're out and about how far you need to keep your puppy away from whatever he's seen so that we can progress. If you happen to cross the threshold line in your puppy starts to bark again, or lunch or pool. You're going to go backwards and training. You're gonna regress and have to work a little harder. So do your best to find that, you know, really pinpoint that distance and then work under it with your doc. Now, Step three would be to train an alternate behavior. So the scenario goes like this. You're out for a walk. Your puppy sees a trigger. Maybe it's another dog, and your dog started to bark and lunge towards the other Doc. So what we wanted to be is we're walking down the street. The dog sees the trigger or another dog or whatever it may be, and our puppy looks at the trigger. And then looks at me, or maybe you want him to look at the trigger and sit. Maybe you want him to look at the trigger and roll over. I mean, honestly, you can pick whatever you want. We're just simply training an alternate behavior because I don't like the behavior of my dog looking at another dog and barking and lunging. I'm going to train an alternate behavior that's better. So for me personally, I like my dog when he sees a trigger or something that previously made him nervous or anxious. I want him to look at me to give me his full attention with his full attention. Then I can ask him to do other things so I could ask him to turn the opposite direction with me. I could ask him to walk away with me. I could ask him to do a sit or a down or a stay. You honestly, you could ask him to fetch or touch or high fiver shake or anything. Really, You're just directing his attention away from the trigger and you're creating it some fun and some happy good feelings, which is really what we're trying to replace that fear and anxious filling with. So it's a win win for both of you. He sees something he either gets a food reward for or he gets a game of fetch with it or a game of tug with it. Um, you're asking him to do other things and he gets to feel better. He doesn't have to feel that anxiousness or that fear. We can keep him in a happy place, even when he sees these things that used to cause anxiousness or fear in him. Once you've identified what your dog, what you want your dog to do so the alternate behavior. We don't want our dog to bark and lunge, but maybe I want my dog toe. Look at me. Then we can start to train that to happen automatically. So the way that I like to do this is I'll take my puppy out. I'll keep him clearly behind that threshold line, but I'll take him somewhere where he's going to see several triggers and I'm gonna have food right in my hand. So let's say that my puppy loves turkey. I'm gonna have some turkey on hand the second that I see a trigger for my puppy So the second I see another dog and I know that my dog sees the other dog. I'm literally putting turkey in his mouth. So here's some turkey. He sees the trigger here, some turkey. He sees the trigger here, some turkey, and I do that several times, maybe 10 15 times, to the point that when I stop putting the turkey on his mouth so he sees a trigger the next time or another dog, and I don't put the turkey immediately down for him to eat. I want to see if he'll look at me as if to say, Hey, I saw something. I get food for that. Remember, I've been seeing it over and over, and you keep putting food in my mouth. Where's my food? That's the star of him to look at me automatically. So again he sees the other dog. I'm putting turkey in his mouth, and I do that repetitive Lee. And about the 10th time I pause and count to maybe three or four before you know, giving him that food reward. I'm going to see if he'll look to me as if to say, Where's my food? That's what I want to capture the second that he looks at me, I'm going to start to market. I'm in a mark. Yes, I use a verbal marker in my training. So the second he looks at me, I mark yes, And then I give him the food reward. And from that point forward, that's how I handle it. So when he sees the trigger, I wait for him to look at me. The second he looks at me, I marked yes, and I give him the food reward, and that's what I'm gonna practice for the next several sessions. So that's how I would handle situations like this. In a nutshell. Again, those steps are First, you've got to figure out what your dog loves identify something that's very motivating to him. Secondly, you need to figure out the threshold. At what point will your puppy see another dog or a trigger and not react? How far can you? You know, how close can you get to that object or a person or dog? Or seeing before he starts to bark and lunch? We need toe work below that, we need to keep him in a calm, happy state while we practise this alternate behavior, Step three is to figure out What do you want your dog to do? Instead of the barking and lunging again, I like him to give me his full attention. So once I have his attention, we can do other things. And then finally to train that I like to have it be automatic so you could go through that last step again. Off he sees the trigger reward. He sees the trigger reward. He sees the trigger reward and then you wait a few seconds and see if he'll look at you or give you that behavior you're wanting instead of the immediate reward, and then mark the look and then reward after that. And that's basically what you want to do. To begin with. Try to do these steps on your own and see if you can. How far you get. See if you can make any headway, your progress with your puppy. But if no, by all means, if you run into trouble, reach out to me some uni Mila in Fort Baxter Bella dot com. You are welcome to join my members only area where I do offer that live one on one coaching. I also offer those Wednesday puppy classes of the A zoom, and this week's topic is on adolescents. So if you have questions like that, you're welcome to join and get those answered. That's what I'm here for. I'm here to answer your questions. Questions. I'm here to help you train your puppies, and I want you to get the help that you need when you need it. Thanks for listening today and happy training. If you have a question about anything you heard on this podcast or any other puppy training questions, visit my sight Baxter and Bella dot com to contact me.