Hi there everyone. I have a 1 y.o. Jack Russell who I am not sure on how to correct around hyper snippy dogs. I don't think she is dog aggressive as she goes to daycare (where all the dogs run free under supervision) and has never had any problems. On walks if a well behaved dog comes close she is fine and just wants to sniff and play. The problem is when one of those crazy lapdogs come near her barking and snipping.....she will go off the wall. I walk her on a prong collar and I swear when she starts to go crazy that dog feels no pain...like she will choke herself out trying to get them if I let her.

So my question is, how can I correct this and make her not want to kill (that's what is seems like she wants to do anyway)? My understanding is prong collars increase drive so i try not to correct her with that. She has been through basic obidience class and knows marker training, but that seems to all go out the door once that prey drive kicks in.

Any responses are greatly appriciated.

Thanks,
Matt

You're walking her with a prong but not using it for corrections? What's it for then?

If you're walking her with a prong collar, you must correct her with a prong collar, or she will learn to pull on it and hurt herself, and learn nothing. If you are walking with a prong, correct every time there is tension on the lead. If you don't want to correct with a prong, don't let her wear it. But if you don't find corrections with the buckle collar effective, then you need to try something else.

How are her loose-lead skills?
Does she know Leave It? Can she Leave It without a correction or bribe?

If you work on these things first, then the temptaion of the snippy dog can be used during proofing of those skills.

 Quote: Matt Wilson

Hi there everyone. I have a 1 y.o. Jack Russell who I am not sure on how to correct around hyper snippy dogs. I don't think she is dog aggressive as she goes to daycare (where all the dogs run free under supervision) and has never had any problems. On walks if a well behaved dog comes close she is fine and just wants to sniff and play. The problem is when one of those crazy lapdogs come near her barking and snipping.....she will go off the wall. I walk her on a prong collar and I swear when she starts to go crazy that dog feels no pain...like she will choke herself out trying to get them if I let her. ... So my question is, how can I correct this and make her not want to kill (that's what is seems like she wants to do anyway)? My understanding is prong collars increase drive so i try not to correct her with that. She has been through basic obidience class and knows marker training, but that seems to all go out the door once that prey drive kicks in.
Matt

I think that you are letting her get far too focused on the ill-mannered dogs, and I agree with whoever told you not to use a prong on a dog who has gotten to that level. I'd back way up and stop letting these situations happen, period. You are the leader on the walk, and you can see that uncontrolled dogs are heading your way. You can calmly cross the street or change directions. Then you can be working on the dog's focus on you, gradually increasing distractions (not an out-of-control yappy dog yet!). This dog is not ready to be calm around a wild dog, and I would avoid like heck starting that habit that she wants to start.

 Quote: Denise Skidmore

... How are her loose-lead skills?
Does she know Leave It? Can she Leave It without a correction or bribe? .... If you work on these things first, then the temptaion of the snippy dog can be used during proofing of those skills.

Yes ... exactly. Much down the road, that is a good very high-level distraction.

Thanks for the replies. I walk her on a prong because I do correct her with it for most things like sit, leave it, stay when we walk. She is very well behaved on walks...she will leave it, sit at all curbs before crossing the street, I say HERE and she is by my side in a flash. I do have the DVD from this site and used that to train her with the prong.

I do try to avoid any situation with these types of dogs. But once she (Pele is my little girls name....Fire goddess not soccer player) sees them coming it's like she knows they are crazy already and that's it....she gets into full kill mode. It's just like a switch...from calm to kill in 1 second.

So is it best to calmly just walk away? That's what I do now but I am walking calmly away and she is all on 2 legs trying to get them. Sometimes I can tell her HERE and she will come to me...but then it's right back to focusing on the dog. I don't want to give her a pop when I tell her HERE when she is all worked up like that because it dosen't help much.

Walking away is the best thing if your dog is not ready for that phase of training.

If you give a command, you must follow through. Otherwise you're telling her, "HERE means come to me unless there's a crazy dog over there, in which case you may ignore me." If you're in a situation where you don't want to correct her, then don't give a command. Otherwise you're teaching her that this is a circumstance where it is acceptable to ignore you. She is _not_ so foccused on the other dog that she can't hear you. She just makes the other dog a higher priority than listening to you.

"Otherwise you're teaching her that this is a circumstance where it is acceptable to ignore you. She is _not_ so foccused on the other dog that she can't hear you. She just makes the other dog a higher priority than listening to you."

Ok, I know I am guilty of doing this and is probably the main reason for my problem. I have corrected her before with almost no result though. She is only like 11lb (thinks she is 90lb though) and I have popped her as hard as I dare because I don't want to rip her head off or cause any damage and she is still trying to get them.

So what would I do if I give her the "leave it" or NO command...she does not listen...she gets corrected....and still does not listen? I would really like to do this without the prong collar if possible, can marker training help here? Like when she actually does answer to my command then click and treat? Figured I would ask since she would still be in a crazy mind set and I don't want to encourage that.

OH, and this all happend even after she has been fully exercised and is tired out of her mind....just so there is no question if she is getting exercised or not =)

Other than this problem there really isn't anything else she does wrong behavior wise. She has a lot of energy and I love that about her.....just not when she directs it where I don't want her to.

Thanks again for the replies....and sorry for all the questions. I just want to get things right.

Matt, you have to be super-aware of what's going on around you.

While you work at home on focus and ob, under limited and only-gradually-increasing distraction, you have to avoid taking the dog "on the road" to face over-the-top levels of distraction. This means that your road routes are chosen and monitored so that the closeness that triggers this unwanted reaction is not a factor.

You need to stop letting this intense focus on the other animal develop.

That means you don't enter the situation, and if you do, inadvertently, you correct instantly, way before the dog is straining on the leash and honed in on the other dog.

But for now, keep that situation out of the walks.

 Quote: Matt Wilson

... can marker training help here? Like when she actually does answer to my command then click and treat?

Yes -- at home, working on focus and ob under minimum distraction, slowly increasing the distraction level and keeping it under your control.

I am not an expert on marker training, but I'll try my best: Marker training is best used in a low-distraction envrioment, with controlled introduction of distractions at a distance that gets the dog's attention but does not prevent her from continuing to want the reward.

For pete's sake though, if she's only 11 lbs, just pick her up and turn her to face away from the other dog? (No, not recomended by any experts.) My dogs are 70 and 97 lbs, and my main form of correction on walks is making them turn around and walk away from the distraction. I use a martengale with the soft dog, and a prong with the hard dog, and do an about turn. They have the full slack of the lead's time to remember what's going on and catch up with me, and avoid a physical correction. When they return to my side we can turn around again and approach the interesting object. When something is really interesting, we end up walking in circles, but it's good training, and we do slowly get closer to the interesting object. They know they have to pay more attention to me than the other thing. They may forget long enough to leave the heel position, but they rarely forget long enough to get to the end of the lead, where I do enforce the rule.