Curbing Leash Reactivity

[Guest Giselle]

Oh, I understand I usually walk my three pups by myself, too. My motto is: When you can train, take the opportunity and train. When you absolutely can not train, be proactive.

 

For Ivy, "proactive" means huddling her against me to block her view of the dog or walking quickly past the dog or backing out the other way, etc.

 

Jackpotting is varying when you give a treat. So instead of treating every time, you treat, maybe, once every 3 times. That way, the dog doesn't know when you will treat, but will still have a desire to work. Think of jackpotting as in gambling. You never know if you'll win, but you do it with vigor anyways because you *might* win

[Xan]

Ah! Thanks Giselle.

[Guest LindsaySF]

I just found this thread while searching for something else entirely. Thanks for posting the video Giselle.

 

 

Question for those of you who've done this for awhile: Does there come a time when you can walk all the way past the triggering situation and only treat afterwards, or only praise? Or, must you always and forever have treats at the ready? Will the good behavior go away if not food-rewarded every single time for eternity?

In addition to what Giselle said about "jackpotting", I think it depends on the dog. My last dog Brutus, a pit bull foster I kept, was very praise-motivated. He lived to please me so phasing out treats and going to praise only was quite easy. With a dog like, say, Teagan, I could see that being much more difficult. Teagan could care less if I'm pleased with him, or if I praise and pat him. But he is food-motivated. I would think I'd always need a pocket full of treats with a dog like him. I might not have to give a treat every single time, but I couldn't phase them out completely.

 

I eventually got Brutus to the point where we could walk all the way past a triggering situation, and he got praise afterwards. He had a time limit though, if it took too long to pass a strange dog on the trail, he would start reacting again. I had to speed up and walk faster in order to get past the dog within his threshold 'time limit', and I would encourage him along, but afterwards he would look at me like "Did I do ok?", waiting for my praise and approval. I miss my boy.

 

 

 

 

 

~Lindsay~

[plepkowski]

Very nice work Giselle!

 

We used to use cocktail franks cut in pieces when I was training guide dogs fifty years ago. We couldn't expect a blind person to use a clicker so we found some sharp sounding foreign language words instead of clicks and then taught the blind person how to do it.

 

The training had to be maintained by the blind person for years after the dog left Seeing Eye.

Edited February 27, 2008 by plepkowski

[Guest rachel2025]

I use "YES" said in a high, happy voice as Pike's "clicker." (I am simply not coordinated enough to hold dog and clicker at once. hee). It works great, although sometimes I forget about him and say "yes" in the same tone in conversation, at which point he also expects a treat. Besides his name, yes is the only word he recognizes. heh.

[Guest 7ct5]

This topic is old but has great information!

 

I was wondering if the original video link could be reposted? It asks for a password when I click to view it....but I am very interested in LAT game.