TRAINING A DOG

Dealing With Aggression In Dogs

HUGE topic and ALOT to cover, I hope I address everything I want to without getting side tracked or blabbing too much about stuff.

When you narrow it down, most aggression cases are fear based.

Resource Guarding - afraid that their high value object will be taken away from them.
Territorial - afraid they will lose their territory/space that is high value to them.
Human Aggression - they perceive the person(s) as a threat to themselves, usually dog warnings go unnoticed by us humans and then get a secondary warning (bite).

How to avoid aggression problems? There are many ways #1 being don't correct/punish your dog! This sounds very bad from a owners perspective, as I'm sure you want to let the dog know that the kind of behaviour he or she just exhibited was unacceptable.BUT, did you think of WHY you dog even needed to show that behaviour?

Example :

Past client of mine has a dog that is extremely dog-dog aggressive, cannot even SEE a dog in a distance without lunging and pulling you down the road to attack the dog. After speaking with the client, the man continues to tell me that it started out of nowhere and has been progressively getting worse for the past year. I keep trying to get some sort of answer out of him, I was looking for the dog's trigger or the event that started the dog's thought process on this track. Finally, the man's son speaks up and tells me that the dog was attacked out of nowhere by a neighbors dog just over a year ago, BINGO! So now I knew WHY he reacts aggressively towards dogs. I also find out that when the dog was just growling they would smack it over the snout to tell him not to do that, so now this dog has lost his 1st warning to other dogs (growl) that he is scared, what is the secondary warning.....a bite.

The owners also have yelled and screamed and leash corrected the dog numerous of times when the dog got in a dog fight (as they were told their dog is dominant and needed to be shown who's the boss), so now this poor dog has learned that when he's near dogs BAD BAD things happen, so OF COURSE he's aggressive, he doesn't know what else to do. His mind is telling him, Dogs = bad, well he see's a dog and he wants them to go away so he charges at them and fights.

So now we have a dog that has learned aggression with fear aggression, also this dog was under exercised (100 lb dog out for 10 min walks at 11pm at night, no other exercise throughout the day).

So this dog as you can see was showing aggression due to a number of things: No exercise, corrections near/around dogs, lack of obedience and most importantly what started it, a traumatic event for the dog. Not to mention the stress that this dog was carrying, wow.

So HOW do you FIX an aggressive dog?

(do not attempt this without professional help as you can endanger other dogs and/or people)

Change the dog's thought process, much like cognitive behavioural therapy in humans. You need to expose the dog to the stimulus/trigger in a gradual period of time, always making sure the dog is having a POSITIVE experience during therapy. If you push that dog over his or her threshold you are taking steps back with training. If the dog is constantly barking or growling, he or she is LEARNING from this.
By no means am I saying, "get out there and throw your dog by a bunch of strange dogs" this would be just utter chaos and stressful for both you and your dog.
Find a behavioiurist or trainer in your area. Make sure if you're working with a trainer that they have,

Experience working with aggression cases
Use ONLY positive reinforcement (no shock collars, choke chains, reprimand, intimidation ect) ASK!
Is comfortable working with your dog (some trainers won't work with certain breeds)

Ask questions about what goes on during a rehabilitation and keep asking them! A good trainer will ALWAYS answer your questions without a price.

With professional help you can overcome your dog's problems in less then 1/2 the time trying to do it yourself.

** Be careful about searching for information on forums and chats, a lot of those people are just dog owners looking for answers themselves and are not qualified to give you a solution over the internet. **

Aggression CANNOT be fixed over the internet or phone!

A great DVD to help understand Aggression is Behaviour Adjustment Training by Grisha Stewart
You can find this at Dog Wise Website : http://www.dogwise.com/

Reece (April 4, 1997-May 19, 2011)

Reece was helped across the Rainbow Bridge this morning. My Novice A dog; my strong-willed, independent border collie who always questioned my judgment. From Novice A and trained thru utility, plus agility and rally and even a little herding. What I would give to have you all over again, now that I am the trainer you deserved. I’ll see you again someday.

Fun video of some tricks

Just Luna doing some of her favorite tricks on a nice Spring Day!

Treibball Class Start Dates

Finally I am able to start my classes! Here is all the info, please contact me ModernCanineTraining@Gmail.com or (604) 866-8999 to register or if you have any questions.

GREEN - NOVICE LEVEL (5 Classes) $69.00 +hst

FULL:Monday @ 7-8pm starting June 6, 2011
AVAIL:Tuesday @ 6-7pm starting June 21, 2011
Here we go over the foundation training of Treibball

Pre-requisites: Basic Obedience, Dog must NOT be aggressive towards other dogs or people

Limited 3 dogs per class

PURPLE - ADVANCED LEVEL

(4 Sessions) $97.00 + hst

FULL:Saturday from 1-3pm every second week ( Sessions bought in groups of 4).

In the advanced level we work on the dog's speed and drive, I will be helping any spot problems that each dog may be having trouble with as well.

Pre-requisites: Novice Level Treibball, Dog must NOT be aggressive towards other dogs or people

Limited 4 dogs per class

CLASSES ARE HELD OUTDOORS IN THE CLAYTON HEIGHTS AREA (184 + 72)

I can't wait to get started! So far Treibball is growing at a FAST speed here in the Fraser Valley

Domination & Wolves

This I think is a real problem with a lot of dog's problems today. People are being mislead that their dogs are wolves and that if a dog does something you don't like the dog is automatically classified as dominant. This is very far from the truth, your dog is NOT a wolf and your dog most likely is NOT dominant.

Dominance In Dogs
So to start off, what does dominant mean? Dictionary term:

Exercising the most influence or control
Most prominent, as in position; ascendant

Dog's can most definitely have a more dominant (strong) personality, some will always push the boundaries and see what they can get away with, as dog's do what is most rewarding to them. But to label a dog dominant is very rare as you will find many animal behaviourists and good trainers will agree. Dominance has been a popular term amongst trainers and dog owners because it's easier to blame the dog for misbehaving then telling the owner that their training is failing.

Wolves And Pack Mentality

Another misconception is that your dog is a wolf- FALSE, your dog is a dog (canid lupus familiaris).

Would you call your cat a lion?

Watch the full episode. See more Through a Dogs Eyes.

Yes - Dogs have similar behaviours as wolves such as greetings to one another, warnings ect. but cats have similar behaviours to lions (purring, nudging ect) you wouldn't call your cat a lion now would you?
The first "tail waggers" were likely derived from the asian grey wolf, though the evidence for this is speculative at best, for certain breeds in fact, trace their ancestry to Egypt and Mesopotamia (e.g. greyhound, Pharoah hound) or EurAsia (e.g. sherpherds). There has been thousands (roughly 15,000) years of domestication from humans to shape a wolf into useful help to people, which came the dog with a job.

Power of the pack
Most dog's do not live with 5 + dogs and people over one roof and these dogs and people live their entire life happy and healthy. I know of many places where there are 7 members (dogs and people) in a household and it's chaos even though the humans are practicing "alpha roles" on a daily basis. What these so called "pack leaders" are advertising is power, most people are power hungry in some form or another and this type of training is appealing to them.

My experience
It's not easy for me to say but when I started out I was taught by many people that you needed to correct the dog when he or she didn't comply with the command, this will teach them to listen to us! Did it work, yes eventually, but did I enjoy it, no I felt very upset with myself that this is the only way to train. Years passed, Cesar Milan came to t.v. with his pack leader philosophy, I thought that I should try this training methods to experiment on whether it works or not. All I have to say is my poor dog, I have never been so upset with myself and miserable then when I played "alpha" to my Border Collie. Not only was I unhappy with the training method, my dog was shutting down right infront of me, the happy go-lucky dog with light in her eyes was fading. I then stopped all training and put work on hold to research a different training method, I had heard of positive training "reward good behaviours, ignore bad ones" I thought, "well that sort of makes sense but WHY would you ignore a dog biting you?" I was desperate to find a new way of training that made sense, I bought books off the shelf left, right and center, I searched all over the internet, I contacted certified applied animal behaviourist and found what I was looking for, a AMAZING, wonderful training method that works with every single dog. Progressive reinforcement training, showing your dog the appropriate ways of humans through reinforcement.

Three weeks later I started re-training my dog with progressive reinforcement, starting with baby steps (sit, down, come, stay), it was sad to see the lingering problems from the horrible dominance training I had done weeks before was still there. If she was unsure of what I wanted, she would shut down right infront of me, tail low, sad eyes, frustration kicked in on my part and I then realized that I need to be trained, not my dog. Slowly she started coming back into her personality, she wouldn't shut down any longer she would throw me TONS of confusion signals (sniffing, scratching herself) I took these as, "okay, I'm moving a bit fast for her" so I cut training sessions into 2 min sessions and LOTS of fun. Now look where we are, you can SEE how happy Luna is to work with me, she throws me kisses every two seconds, her tail is wagging the entire time! She barks when she's happy (it's a wooof woof woooof sound, lol), she listens on the first cue, she's a better dog all together and I'm a better person after seeing and feeling the difference progressive reinforcement makes in our life.

Conclusion: The dominance/alpha training method has proven to do more harm than good! People will NEVER master the art of trying to be a dog or wolf! We will never be able to perfectly replicate what a dog will do to another dog. This is why the dominance/alpha/pack leader method is useless and has hurt many dogs and people. People have gone WAY overboard on this method. People become total idiots and power happy and all they focus on is more ways to enforce their position as a “PACK LEADER” and “THE BOSS.”

Take this from someone who has been on both boats, if I could go back I would, dominance training almost ruined me and my dog.

Devon's adventures in the rally ring

This winter I decided to pursue Devon's Rally Advanced title. I was chairman of a local obedience and rally trial, and I didn't want to be 'bored.' Devon is a very environmentally-aware dog. She tested this way in her puppy test, and Gayle warned me I'd love it for field work and tracking, but it would be difficult for obedience.

As wonderful as Devon is in training, she is very distracted in new environments. She sees the smallest things I never notice, and that nose has gotten her in trouble! At a show and go this fall, she was obsessed with the high jump during and open run thru. She was so obsessed, I could not get her to heel at all even on leash. I decided to try a retrieve and go back to heeling later. As soon as the leash was off, she took off across the ring to the far standard of the high jump - there was a black wheel on the metal jump! I had not even SEEN the wheel, but she did from outside the ring. She had to go see it.

And as I mentioned, that nose gets the best of her, too. Here is her first attempt at Rally Advanced. The off-set figure 8 was 30 feet across the ring, and she had not been in that area at all, but she spied it off the startline and took off to have lunch!

Needless to say when your first run ends in being excused from the ring you have no where else to go but up! And this run became legendary during the weekend, with the judge even telling the utility B competitors about it the next day!

Devon's second trip in the ring earned her first leg with a 92 and a second place. She was better, but I think she was still trying to see if she would get lunch in the ring. She was also very distracted by the chalk in the ring mats. I'm not planning to "fix" this until she earns her VST, because sniffing chalk is something we've encouraged in that sport. But after the disaster of the day before, I was pleased she was with me and tried.

Devon's third trip into the ring came at a local Sibe specialty. It was a very small trial (19 total entries in all 6 classes). I had taken the girls to a show and go in Dayton the night before and got home at midnight, but it was worth it to continue taking Devon to new places.

I tried a new strategy at this trial to take her up to the ring and show her where she would be working. This was a great idea, because when she walked into the ring, she was more focused than I'd seen her in the past. She had a really nice run, with some sniffs and wide turns in the beginning. But she finished strong, showing what a nice working dog she is. Devon earned a 94 and first place for this run.

On May 8, we went to Ft. Wayne for Devon's forth time in the Rally ring. it had been 6 weeks since she'd been in the ring, and we'd done less training in those 6 weeks. I was concerned about how she'd do. I shouldn't have been.

I used the same philosophy of showing her the ring before we went in, and I worked her in that area. This was clearly her best run yet, with only a couple of sniffs. Darn that sniff before the jump causing her 3 points, because she ended up with a nice score of 96 and 3rd place to finish her RA!

I'm really proud of Devon earning her RA. She progressed well with each time in the ring. I feel like we learned a lot about each other, and it gives me good insight into what she'll be like preparing for obedience (which is a long way off).