Here’s 3 year old Tilly, my Australian Cattle Dog/Catahoula mix.
She’s a wonderful dog. Great personality. Loves people. Loves dogs. Wait, no - she loves dogs when they’re inside. When they’re outside, she goes bonkers. Specifically, when she’s on-leash and sees another dog, she gets very territorial and protective. This is not desired behavior.
I try to socialize her as much as possible. But the problem is that there are dogs that she sees every single day on her daily walks that she still gets extremely concerned over. Does anyone have any suggestions on extra activities or exercises we could be doing to calm her down?
Are you letting her meet the dogs or pulling her back? Why not try off-leash walks at a dog park to socialize her? Dogs need to learn how to act around other dogs, and they don’t really learn properly if you keep tugging them back. It sounds like it’s now a learned response and you’ll have to re-train to get her out of it.
She goes to dog parks, and does wonderfully. When I could afford it, she was going to doggy day care once or twice a week. Inside or off-leash she’s fine. On-leash, not so much.
Yeah, it’s the on-leash thing then. Are the other dogs on-leash as well?
When either dog on a leash is pulled back by the owner, it causes the dog to imitate an agressive stance, causing a big domino effect of agression for both (or just one, depending on the demeanor of the dogs).
ETA: I’m not a dog trainer or vet, this is just what I’ve been told by our dog trainers and have experienced myself.
Okay, I can absolutely see that. I’ve been working on getting her into a sit in these situations, but it’s very difficult. And when she does, she’s still getting herself worked up. Walking in the other direction helps, but I don’t see it as making progress.
What kind of distraction and association techniques are you using? Have you tried giving her treats when she sits during an on-leash dog encounter associating the good behavior with a positive experience? I assume you make sure you speak to her in a firm but soothing voice instead of an aggressive, stressed out tone.
Just a couple of thoughts. Have you thought about anything other techniques that you’ve used in other situations that have the effect of calming your dog down and using that to diminish her stress in this situation?
Distraction is another technique to try but I’m not sure if that’s more of a stop-gap measure or a long-term solution. If it’s not combined with changing the event’s association, I’m not sure how well it will consistently work.
I should have added, I think getting her to sit is a great idea and exactly the thing I do with my dog. I also will rest my hand on his shoulders while he’s sitting as a physical reminder to stay seated. That also helps to have my hand there so I can quickly grip his halter should he release the sit to lunge at the other dog.
I should note that I have a very small dog, though, that is pretty compliant for the most part. The behavior I’m trying to prevent is his jumping into other the faces of other dogs in a playful manner as some take that as an aggressive move.
Is the leash attached to the collar, or do you use a harness or Halti/Gentle Leader?
One of our dogs would freak out about other dogs until we switched to a Gentle Leader, and our obedience class trainer said that some dogs react badly to the collar pulling at the neck.
Interesting. So, what does motivate her? The alternative is to work with negative associations, but I’m not fond of that method. I don’t think dogs should be bulldozed for acting like dogs. My philosophy is that dogs deserve to be steered gently towards desired behavior that may very well be the anti-thesis of their natural behavior.
It could be that when she is on leash, she is “working.” Protecting you, whatever- our dogs were always “working” when on leash. Off leash, they were happy, friendly and amiable to other dogs. Not so on leash. (Edit- it had nothing to do with our behavior with the leash- pulling, etc. I don’t pull on leashes, anyway- we are in Newfoundlands, and properly harnessed, they can pull a Volkswagon- so me jerking on a leash would do less than nothing. I rely on early, intensive dog training. )
This was not a purposefully trained behavior by any means- I think our dogs thought that they were working to protect their pack while “on the job” and free to party when “off the job.”
I think the issue may be that when I got her, she had been in a home where she was fenced in and had an electric fence - so being territorial was sort of her job. She’s motived a bit by food inside - but outside she’ll just sniff her favorite treats and ignore it.
I really don’t want to go negative with her. When I visited my brother over Thanksgiving, we put their electric fence collar on her, because he has a huge backyard, and we wanted her to enjoy it. We walked around to show her the boundaries (so the collar would just beep - not shock). Once we let her free, she went straight for a boundary, got shocked, and ran inside - never to venture out again. I felt absolutely awful about it.
She’s a runner, and I live in a pretty urban area, so I would feel very uneasy about her safety off-leash outside.
Nope, I’m not nervous at all. I watch Cesar all the time, and attempt his techniques - mainly getting her into a sit in these situations and wait for her to go into a submissive posture - but she goes right back into aggression once we start moving. It’s most likely I’m not giving it enough time - but we went on a 5 mile hike on Sunday, and she was still unable to calm down when she saw a dog on the last 200 yards.
What about a toy she likes or a ball? That can substitute for food.
My dog sounds a lot like yours. I was never really able to get rid of the behavior but to be truthful, it’s a problem that you have to work on intensively and I didn’t. Dog aggression isn’t a big deal to me (people agression, otoh…) and I really don’t mind just crossing to the other side of the street to avoid the problem.
That said, things I found helpful.
Watch your body language and how you handle the leash. Dogs are sensitive and when they’re on leash, they’re attached to you. If you’re nervous and tense and tightening up on the leash, the dog is going to know it and react accordingly. Keep the leash as loose as you can and keep yourself as relaxed as you can.
Do you have any friends with dogs that might be willing to work with you on desensitization exercises? You start with your dog on leash 50 feet away and gradually get closer and closer as your dog behaves better. If you’re at 25 ft and the dog freaks out, bring her back to 30 ft and begin again, always rewarding for good behavior.
The only drawback to this kind of thing is that dogs don’t generalize well so your dog might be densitized to one dog or one particular situation but not to other dogs or other situations on leash.
This exercise makes you look weird but I found it really helpful. Your dog, whether she’s fearful or protective or territorial is basically associating negative things with the other dogs she sees on leash.
Your job is to try and change those negative associations to positive ones. So, say your dog sees another dog on leash. You take whatever motivates your dog make sure the dog sees it and well, act as weird as you can.
Take the treat, toy or whatever and run around, the dog’s on leash, she has to follow you. Make the dog chase you. Dance around, jump around, whatever you can do to get your dog’s attention and make her want to follow you around and chase you. The idea is your redirecting the dog’s nervous energy into a more happy state and that your dog then begins to associate being on leash and seeing other dogs with fun. You can’t do this half-heartedly, btw…you really have to behave like a total fool.
I know it sounds weird but it works.
Find a dog trainer that you’re comfortable with and you can work with. I don’t think corrections are the worst things in the world but I do think you have to be careful when dealing with aggression problems. You don’t want your dog to associate seeing other dogs while on leash with being thumped around. This is not helpful (you also can’t do corrections with a halti collar, bad for neck).
I think the whole alpha thing is kinda lame but doing the whole “nothing in life is free” routine is always helpful, before your dog eats, gets any treats, gets played with or petted or gets any attention, have her sit or lie down. Make her work in exchange for whatever she wants.
And Cesar Milan is lame too but he does get one thing right, dogs need a lot of mental and physical exercise especially dogs like cattle dogs or catalouhas. Tired dogs are good dogs.
This really rings true for me. I’m thinking about getting a backpack for her - there was an episode of Cesar Milan’s show where he tried to get the dog focused on a different “job” - carrying water in a backpack - while on walks. Seemed to really work. And plus, then I wouldn’t have to carry the water!
I have 2 Border Collies, One is old and just doesn’t care. The younger is about three. He gets along with his doggie brother and the 3 kitties, but does not like other dogs. One reason we moved to this house was so he could have a more private backyard and not complain about every dog that was walked up the alley.
This summer I’ve decided to take a new approach. I’ve tried to distract him w/ toys as we walk by other dogs, doesn’t work. Since it has gotten warm, I have made it a point to walk him by fenced in dogs. If he starts getting aggressive, I’m not yelling, but I am grabbing a healthy chuck of shoulder and physically making sure he doesn’t get aggressive. I’m the Alpha and I’m trying to relay w/ utter simplicity that the behavior is unacceptable.
Border Collies are a different breed, literally. I got the older dog when he was four from a professional trainer. She told me and demonstrated techniques, that this breed cannot be allowed to take over. You have to put the dog in a submissive position once in a while, so they remember who is in charge. I had to become and remain pack leader. Trouble is, I’m worried what my technique looks like to my neighbors. It must look like I’m man handling the dog.
I just started doing this a couple weeks ago, and I think he’s starting to get the hang of it. I can’t advertise this as advice, I can just share that I have the same issue and that I’m struggling along with you.
I have to cure this aggression, he has to learn. Both for his own good and for the safety of others.
Training philosophies (only positive reinforcement, or some negative in there as well) aside, I’d have to say that this was definately a mistake. But you know that now, I’m sure
I am not an animal behaviorist, nor a trainer - I’m just an average joe who owns a dog, and who also happens to have an invisible fence. So with whatever qualifications that gives me (which I admit is not much), I can definitively say that one single session of training with an invisible fence is nowhere NEAR enough time to fully train the dog into knowing where the boundaries are.
I’m not trying to be snide, and I’m in no way trying to say how you should train your dog. I dont want to get into a discussion about whether an invisible fence is good or not. My point is simply that one session with an invisible fence that ultimately ended up in failure is not representative of the type of response you can expect from a ‘corrective’ (or negative, depending on what you want to call it) style of training.
Also - for most of this pose, I’m saying ‘you’ as in the general public reading this. Nothing pointed and personal at you, Munch
EDIT: I just reread the thread and saw you mention that you have an invisible fence at home. OK, I can definately see the thought process there. Give me a moment while I remove my foot from my mouth.
However, I would still say that it would take longer than one session to learn new boundaries, as a dog’s brain obviously isn’t as advanced as a humans. Although sometimes my brain works in ways that’ll give a dogs a run for its money
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