Most people’s default behaviours are things like yelling at their dog, jerking the lead or tightening it. These things will make your dog feel worse and react more. Many, many of us find it difficult to behave differently, even when we know our habits are making the situation worse.

>> The best thing I can suggest is to PLAN exactly what
> you will do when the dog reacts. Rehearse that plan in your head, then go
> through the motions when your dog isn’t reacting, then take it on the road
> (class).
>
> Treat it as if you are an animal learning a new behaviour: expect that it will
> be a really rough approximation to start, give yourself praise (Jump up and
> down, eat chocolate, whatever floats your boat!) for anything close to what you
> are trying to do. Do small steps and ignore your “stuff-ups”.

And yes, clicker (positive reinforcement) training does work on people. Check out TAG Teach and do a search for it on YouTube.

http://www.nonlineardogs.com/socialorganisation.html

The formation of this alternative seems to be in response to dissatisfaction or possibly outright disgust with the old dominance theory stuff. The actual paper is based on “systems theory” which I understand is a discipline unto itself, with lots of accompanying jargon. It was a tough thing to read, with not only jargon but lots of large words that may or may not have belonged where they were.

My understanding of the paper is that dogs interact directly with eachother only one at a time. While two dogs are engaged with each other, they exchange body language that is divided into two broad categories: ‘threat’ and ‘non-threat’. The purpose of the exchange when dogs interact is to establish what each dog means when posturing, what things are important to each one, and that neither dog is intending to harm the other.

The ‘threat’ and ‘non-threat’ body language is about the dog’s state of mind or level of discomfort. As each one displays one bit of body language, it generates a response in the other dog. A ‘threat’ is intended to tell the other dog to back off, and is a sign of anxiety. A ‘non-threat’ is intended to express just that: “I’m actively telling you that I’m not here to threaten you”.  This is where dominance proponents get the wrong end of the stick. The one they call “dominant” is having the anxiety attack, while the one they call “submissive” who is giving calming signals, is helping to make the anxious one more comfortable. This seems to be the more confident role.

According to the author, the dogs will meet, exchange body language and reach some consensus about each other. The feedback loop going between them tends to make them more comfortable with each other. In group situations, she says that the new dog, after being looked over by the ‘regulars’ or residents, will seek out those dogs that seemed most anxious about him/her one after the other, even (or especially) if the new dog is anxious about them.

So dogs seem to value social comfort very highly, which would really account for the whole “information seeking” thing. Why else is a dog so driven to check out something that makes it anxious (producing lots of adrenaline and hyped behaviour along the way)? Obviously, confirming that the thing they are checking out is friendly is a huge motivating force, far above and beyond ignoring and not interacting (in the case of some dogs at least). To me, this smells like an instinct- a fixed behaviour that can’t be trained out, only modified.

The paper also mentions how the body language may form, the life stages and how the interactions vary in each, and dogs that have not had adequate socialization.  One nugget that I caught was that dogs who display escalating threats may not have learnt that non-threat signals are an option, or that they are reinforcing. I assume that somehow, the non-threat signals of the other dog are not calming to the anxious one. These threatening dogs are said to be ignored or avoided, because the other dog can’t open a line of communication. Real aggression, as in the dog does not inhibit bites and is going to damage another, is said to be very rare.

This does give me something of a map to work with. I suspect that Amika is not truly aggressive (though the fear is, if she looses her mind completely, she could become so- call it temporary insanity). As I already know, her internal state is one of anxiety, which fits with the ‘threat signals’ she gives.  I now have a new set of conceps where I can split out ‘non-threat’ signals and work on reinforcing them. I have read of trainers putting these calming signals on cue. This may be helpful for us.

Halti harness:

• good – not used for anything else, light weight and easy to put on.
• bad: doesn’t fit or work well, if it unhooks from collar she can step out of it.

Tracking harness:

• good – very easy to put on.
• bad – ‘should’ be used only for tracking, not that I’ve been following this.

Car harness:

• good – easy to put on.
• bad – a tad too small, can hurt her when she hits the end of the line.

Sledding harness:

• good – the most comfortable, safe, non-damaging harness.
• bad – a little tricky to put on, designed to be comfy when pulling, should be used to encourage pulling.

I decided to try the dud first (the halti), since the other harnesses were used for other things or were too small. Yep, it didn’t fit very well, but I remembered a post from someone somewhere on a forum talking about flipping the harness upside down to use on bully breeds, as it fit better. So I tried it, did some re-adjusting and was fairly happy with what it looked like. It makes it slightly harder to put on, since you need the forefeet (instead of head) inside the loop of harness to put it on.

Then I did some more thinking and fussing with the poor dog. I decided to try using the clip – on ring that would normally be on the top. This harness has another ring on the chest too. When I originally tried to walk her on it, I found that it rode up under her armpits and didn’t seem to affect her direction all that much when she was reacting to another dog. (and one time while trying to man handle her during a reaction, I accidentally grabbed and unclipped the collar clip and ended up with her wearing a loose belt that was about to slip over her hind quarters!) So I tried attaching the lead under her belly, and it seemed to work really well. She responded to the pressure without seeming distressed or particularly uncomfortable. No need to try the other harnesses at this stage.

When the lead is attached under the belly and the harness is fitted as shown below, the pull is down on her back just at the back of her shoulders, and backward under her forearms. The front of the harness attaches to her collar (very important, or the chest band drops down, gets stepped over, and then the belly band slips down and off hind quarters – freeing the dog). This attachment means there is also a downward pressure on her collar if she pulls.

This downward / backward pressure is all a bonus. The pull from the top of the dog’s back on a regular harness means that with force from the back legs, the forequarters are lifted off the ground. This is putting the dog in an aggressive / hyped body pose. Having the harness pull downward is putting the dog in an appeasing / calming body pose (as in a play bow). The final bonus is that it seems less inclined to tangle than when the lead is attached to the top of the dog. It’ll be interesting to see how it works out.

I think the type of bond that is obvious is the ‘you are always around’ type of bond. So in theory, a dog that hated the sight of his owner would still prefer to be around the owner as a source of ‘normality’ in a strange or uncomfortable situation. Then there’s the deeper stuff. There is the bond of respect and the bond of love. They can go together, but I think idiot humans can manage to get one without the other. The spiritual connectedness bond is a whole other kettle of fish. I don’t think you can get one of these without the love thing as well, but the opposite is true: you and your dog can love eachother to bits but be totally disconnected on the spiritual level. This is probably due to the human’s insensitivity, but I’m sure dogs can have the same issues.

The reason that I am pondering on these ideas is that I think I figured something out the other night. I’ve managed to have all of these bonds with Amika, except that spiritual one. I’ve tried reiki on her in the past, and she hasn’t liked it. I’m guessing that because I was such a mess when Amika was growing up, and because I shut her out emotionally, she’s probably put up defenses of her own. Who wouldn’t? If the person you are trying to bond with keeps having unpredictable emotional upheavals, you’d want to put that at arm’s length for self preservation.

Now that I only occasionally get into distress, and don’t dump on her, we’re doing better. I think the respect was always there, but grudging at times. I’ve worked on that a lot this year and it feels much better. Love is deepening too. I am sad that not enough of those things early on is probably what got us to the reactiveness she has now. It is the whole benevolent leader thing that is so important to make dogs feel secure, especially as pups. So I guess one of my issues lately has been grieving for that ‘loss’.

I’ve heard about TTouch (Linda Tellington-Jones) bodywork from a couple of different sources. One was from Leslie McDevitt’s “Control Unleashed” book. I finally decided to follow up on it and got a couple of her TTouch books from the library. (Less airy fairy than I thought, and sounds like it does actually work.) The other night, I picked up one of the books and decided I would park myself on the dog bed in the office to read it. Amika noticed me there when my partner got home several minutes later, and settled in next to me as soon as greetings were over. We don’t cuddle much, but have been doing more quiet pats lately. This is partly a function of her growing up (hey, she stands still for a pat!) and the way our house is set up – we don’t have a couch or bed that Amika is allowed on with the people, so I have to remember to make myself available.

So there we were, on her bed in the office. I was reading and I suspect she was feeling sorry for herself because of an ongoing urinary infection. I’m reading about TT so had tried inexpertly to do ‘circles’ with my fingers on her. She hasn’t appreciated them, so I just scratched and stroked her normally and then let my hand rest on her shoulder. I became aware of energy happening in that hand (as I am when doing reiki) and suddenly I was brimming with sadness. I wasn’t reading anything sad in the book (that had been a couple of pages ago, a lonely animal in a 1970′s zoo). I’m still not sure where that came from, all I know is that it coincided with that connection. Amika stayed quietly curled up beside me and I wonder if it was her sadness because she was feeling bad. Or maybe it’s mine, because I’ve missed out on this connection for so long. So while tears were dribbling down my face I was smiling with joy (and trying to keep reading the adventures of the young Linda Tellington-Jones).

Later when I was preparing to go to bed and had woken Amika with more pats and tummy rubs, I tried reiki again, simply laying my hand on her shoulder. Though laying still and relaxed on her side at the time, her head snapped up and she looked at the hand. She laid her head back down but the energy didn’t seem to flow after that – she said ‘no’. But pats were OK. Interesting, huh?

I’ve decided to make some dog snuggling time part of every day. Yeah, she gets pats and attention throughout the day, but gee it was nice just to hang out with a snoozing dog. I’m going to be persistent with the TTouch and reiki as well. Just the occasional bit here and there until she says she would like more.

With our new rules for tracking trials, the dog has to indicate the article it has found on the track clearly, so the judge can see and has no doubt. Prior to that, if the dog sniffed it, and the handler signaled the judge, it was counted. So of course, lots of handlers probably spotted the article first and just said the dog indicated it etc. Now we need some obvious change in behaviour like a retrieve or sit etc. So getting Amika to acknowledge articles is important.

There are three ways I have tackled the issue. One was shaping a behaviour, cued by the article, that gets rewarded. Two was preventing her from continuing on the track until she made some indication she knew the article was there. Three was just plain getting excited over articles.

I picked this up on the web someplace last year (wish I could remember where): To shape an article indication, pick what you want the dog to do ahead of time, and get some item to use as the article for training purposes. Start out in your regular training spot at home (kitchen in our case). Once the dog knows some training is going to happen, drop the article. Click before the dog investigates- you are capturing their interest. (I’m assuming the dog is going to notice! If not, no C/T just pick it up and waggle the thing around and drop it again.) Do a few repetitions where you click / treat the dog for going towards the item after you drop it, closer and closer. Then you start to wait for nose touch etc. You then go step by step into shaping the desired indication when the article is dropped. Last year, I wanted Amika to do a down with the article between her forepaws. Give the behaviour a cue that is given BEFORE your dog sees the article (like “where is it?”)

If you’re new to clicker training and shaping, there are lots of good resources. Here’s another blogger talking abut article indication on “Doggie Dog Blog”.

Once the dog starts looking around for the dropped article when you say the cue, start getting sneaky by dropping it at odd times and places when they don’t expect it. You might have to review the shaping in new places. Once that’s good, take it out tracking. Do this ‘game’ prior to a track, and then do a pretend track that is very short and all you do is the article game- with several articles close together (like a few metres). Stop using that cue word after the first couple of goes. You do not want a tracking dog that only looks for articles after you’ve asked! And it goes without saying that you use super rewards when you bring this into the tracking game.

Method two that I used with Amika was that I planted all 50 odd kg’s of me against her 27 or so kg’s as soon as she got to an article on a track. Putting the brakes on her is not easy, but I managed. AS SOON AS she showed any kind of indication, I let her get on with the track. That is the number one thing on her list when she’s tracking. It didn’t take too long for her to figure out that straining to get to the rest of the track wasn’t working for her, taking a token interest in the article was.

And number three is just getting excited. – Play tug with this sock after a track. Shake the sock to death after the track. Watch your owner get really excited and happy with you every time you so much as look at a sock on the track. – You get the picture. And this is all I’ve done this season and it is working. We need to review the shaping and pick something less difficult than the down, but we’ve got bigger fish to fry at the moment. When I can get her to the start with her head on, I’ll worry about bringing her article indication up to snuff.

There is heaps of tracking stuff on the web. If you’d like to see my club’s web site (or join the forum) you can visit them at TrackWest

This idea still wasn’t a plan, it was just an idea. I ran it past some people on the CU_Support forum and writing the e-mail helped clarify my thoughts a lot. The feedback was encouraging too. I then spent some time writing it out as a detailed, step by step plan. I put each step on the left side of the page, with space for notes on the right. I ended up with 34 steps and a better idea of how to implement training and the ability to track progress. It will also get modified as I go and see how Amika is doing.

The goal I was thinking of when I created the plan was getting Amika to the start of a track (at tracking training) in a controlled fashion. At the moment she gets so anxious knowing that there is a track out there -waiting- that she wears herself out and looses her ability to think clearly between the car and the start flag. She also tows me around and completely ignores me, which I don’t like.

In writing up the plan, I had to deal with the usual problematic distractions (namely the environment and people) and her lack of self control and escalating anxiety / excitement in the face of something she wants and gets excited about. These are our fundamental problems. So focusing on training for this one task at tracking directly addresses all of the biggest issues in our lives except other dogs. It indirectly addresses dogs because self control / anxiety / excitement is part of her problem with them.

The plan itself is based mostly on stuff in the book “Control Unleashed” by Leslie McDevitt. It centres around mat games and targeting, on / off switch games and more. It isn’t a simple plan, but rather an amalgamation of half a dozen individual training ‘games’ into a series of steps. The idea is to introduce Amika to some new games with a set rule structure. Once she knows the game, it gets more challenging as well as more rewarding and fun. Then we gradually bring in more and more distractions. The end goal is a dog working alongside former distractions in a focussed manner.

We’re up to step 10, which is where she can run to find her mat at the park, wait there for a reward, stay there while I do stuff for seconds on end and then come back, call her to heel off the mat for several steps at a time, handle her harness and lead (which is dragging) while she waits and then send her back to the mat (or the car) again. In the midst of this stuff, I’ll tell her to take sniff break and I’ll run off with her mat- which gets her back into playing straight away!

So we’re still just starting out with this plan of attack, but it is working well so far. I have a responsive, attentive dog at our quiet little training park. The game we’re playing has us working on recalls, targeting, getting excited and then calming down (off switch) and just generally being focused. And a big bonus for me is that I’m enthusiastic to try it all out and see what happens. I now have a plan I can follow and can apply all my creativity to solving problems along the way and modifying the plan as needed.

And if it doesn’t work out, I’ll seek advice from more experts.

(*From a Terry Pratchet Discworld book.)

I like that. But I also have another take on it. Another dog person at morning tea asked how I was getting on with Amika and was being pushy about attending a class. OK, I can understand where she is coming from, especially in the context of the above- BUT!

No one on the planet knows my dog and our situation as well as I do. I acknowledge that there are people out there that do know more than I do about the behaviour, and they likely have valuable advice and help for us. But how is that working for me? Well, I’ll tell you sister, I’m fed up to the eyeballs with all of the pushiness behind the advice. There are a lot of ways to skin the proverbial cat, but that does not mean you should start one way, then change your mind and start doing it another way part way through because you haven’t got to your end goal yet. (You’d end up with a really shoddily skinned cat- the shredded pelt wouldn’t be worth the effort.)

“Where are you at with training your dog?” is probably a better question for a professional trainer (or friend who wants to give advice) to ask me initially. Is re-training a reactive dog a quick process? NO**. Therefore, I can be in one of three places: haven’t tried it yet / in the process of using some training / finished with that. For number one, they can then advise if that method sounds effective, if and how it should be implemented. For two (trying it) they should NOW be asking “how’s that working for you?” If it is working, well then KEEP GOING!!! This is NOT the time to ‘change horses in the middle of the race’. If it isn’t working very well, NOW is the time for fresh ideas and advice. Same for the last phase- tried that. If it didn’t get you to your end goal, you should try something different.

“Where am I at?” I’m in the middle of implementing a training plan. “How’s that working for me?” It seems to be working well so far. This is not the time to change horses!

**Treating reactivity IS a quick fix if you are Cesar Millan. You just exhaust the dog (both physically and emotionally) using proximity to the thing it fears (claiming that the dog is aggressive). You include the use of enough physical force to completely cow the dog in your pressence. When the dog can’t take any more and stops responding to anything, you call it cured. Here’s a video of CM doing just that to a little pittie:

Thank goodness the local Perth “trainer” who used flooding (the technical name) didn’t go that far with Amika. But she still has a much worse emotional response to other dogs than before that fateful training session. So my advice on advice is to seek it when you need it, but don’t just do what you are told because you are talking to an “expert”. Do your own research (there are dozens of good dog books out there: www.dogwise.com ) and grill (sorry, ask questions of) multiple experts BEFORE you choose a method and try it (and possibly pay to make your dog worse). There IS good avice out there, but we need to seek it wisely.