Fear Agression

[Yamaha_gurl]

What exactly is it? My Bella growls at large dogs, while on walks, at a distance. She is fine with little dogs. How do I correct this behaviour?

[greytpups]

"Look at me" training might work...search for Giselle because she has some videos of her training on GT.

[christinepi]

Tracker is the same way. But he crosses threshold very very fast and then is completely unreachable with treats; and without interest in treats it's much harder to get through (I gave up eventually and just try to avoid other dogs while on leash--and he doesn't do this at all with other unknown greyhounds...). If Bella has a higher threshold and maintains interest in treats while another dog is in sight you have a good chance of turning this around. Patricia McConnell has a book called Feisty Feido with good tips for working with that.

Edited January 17, 2012 by christinepi

[kudzu]

Do some searches on Classical Conditional in particular with dogs. That's what I would use to start. You pick something she loves & use that the instant the strange dog appears & stop when the dog is gone. So strange dogs become a predictor of good things. Most of us use food for a great many reason, primarily because it is more often the most effective & convenient thing. You give the dog treats regardless of how she is behaving. Basically you wouldn't be correcting the behavior nor rewarding the dog for the desired behavior, at least not at first. You use treats to help her form a positive association with the appearance of a strange dog but as already said it must start before she is over threshold & unable to take treats. That threshold varies significantly among various dogs.

 

LAT (Look At That) is a game you can play to help a dog learn to focus on you in the presence of triggers yet allowing to feel she is allowed to look at the object of concern. It is one of the games in the book "Control Unleashed" by Leslie McDevitt. I used it with my staghound & even my fumbling attempts started yielding good results quickly. Do a search on "Look at that" & Control unleashed to find people's description of it. You can find videos on Youtube of Leslie McDevitt practicing it.

 

BAT (Behavioral Adjustment Training) was started by Grisha Steward of Ahimsa. It teaches the dog a behavior she can do in place of the current unacceptable behaviors she does when seeing the object that upset her. The dog gets a click & treat when she does that good behavior instead of the undesired one but she also has signaled you to give her what she really wants, usually retreat. This serves multiple function. The dog learns to control the situation, to communicate with you, to became less stressed by the trigger & even desensitized to it. There's so much more I can't easily explain. Again, do a search & you will find lots of info on it. This is something you can do & again something I was able to use even with my meager abilities. Honestly, in you position I would choose BAT as the first line of approach. (But I'm neither a dog trainer nor a behaviorist.)

[NeylasMom]

Do some searches on Classical Conditional in particular with dogs. That's what I would use to start. You pick something she loves & use that the instant the strange dog appears & stop when the dog is gone. So strange dogs become a predictor of good things. Most of us use food for a great many reason, primarily because it is more often the most effective & convenient thing. You give the dog treats regardless of how she is behaving. Basically you wouldn't be correcting the behavior nor rewarding the dog for the desired behavior, at least not at first. You use treats to help her form a positive association with the appearance of a strange dog but as already said it must start before she is over threshold & unable to take treats. That threshold varies significantly among various dogs.

This. Once she starts associating seeing dogs with getting treats, switch to letting her see the dog and automatically look at you for the food before you treat her. Then you can work up to having her look at you for longer periods before you give the reward. When you start working on it, more treats for a more difficult situation (for example if a dog surprises you and instead of growling she looks at you, don't be afraid to give a whole string of treats as you continually praise her rather than one) and try to keep her at a distance where she notices the dog but doesn't feel inclined to growl while you work with her. Over time you can decrease the distance. Keep in mind that some dogs may be more likely to elicit a growl than others (ones that appear more threatening, or are more hyper, or more vocal, who knows) so you may need to back up for those, or increase the rewards.

 

Make sure you use high value treats. Canned chicken that you rinse and drain works very well for most dogs. A clicker will also increase the speed of her progress, but isn't necessary. You can use a verbal marker instead: Bella sees dog, looks at you, immediate "YES!" followed quickly by treat.

 

I started doing this recently with Violet. There have been a couple of dogs that have set off a fear response, but mostly she just gets overly excited and can't control herself. We started working on it more routinely over NYE weekend and she pretty much gets it by now. If it's a small dog that's close to us or very vocal (VERY exciting to her as she's got a good prey drive) I still have to put the food in front of her mouth, but in most other situations she looks right to me. When I see a situation that will potentially be difficult for her (especially if we can't get away) we "pull off" to the side of the path or sidewalk out of the approaching dogs reach and I ask her for a sit and just feed non-stop until the dog is passed. It's made walks SO much nicer.

[Guest Geostar]

I'd take Bella to Obedience school where she'll see all types of dogs and learn to ignore them in such a place. Obviously, something has happened to her to make her feel that way, and/or, she feels threatened by them because they aren't a greyhound. For example, our long bodied Doug is scared silly of those tiny Chihuahua dogs which used to come up and bark at him.

Best wishes in working out something that will work..

-star

[JoJo207]

Since being attacked Rex has become fear aggressive when on lead. One day on Youtube I found a trainer who does little instructional videos, David the Dog Trainer. He's fun to watch and does a great job breaking things down for you. I've been using his treat distraction technique with Rex and he's doing so much better. Now when a dog barks Rex (and Brooke) look at me. We can walk past excited barking dogs behind a fence or on a run. We still struggle with other dogs who are also out on a walk, but Rex is doing amazingly well. I definitely recommend looking David the Dog Trainer up on either YouTube or Facebook.