Hello all, I need some help with my 2 year old female pit-bull, Keeva, that has developed some dog aggression. We got her from a rescue organization when she was 23 weeks. The foster parent told us that she was seized from the previous owner at around 7wks but other than that we do didn't know much about her history. She wasn't getting along with the other dogs in the home so they kept her segregated from the other dogs. The foster parent also told us that she should some aggression towards adult males but got along great with kids.

When we first met Keeva she growled at me while sitting close to her foster mother. I could tell it was a fear growl and took things very slow with her. Eventually as we sat there talking to the foster mother she realized that she wasn't getting rid of me by growling and started to investigate me. I ignored her and let her sniff. Eventually I was able to put her on a leash and take her out for a walk.

After getting her in the car to go home we noticed how nervous and anxious she really was. She didn't want to get out of the car. She didn't want to go up stairs. Everything in the world seemed to scare her. We worked hard to gain her trust and to build her confidence and she started to overcome most of her anxiety obstacles.

We enrolled her in an obedience class with the local SPCA and doggy daycare. She did well with the training and listens to most commands immediately. The doggy daycare was going well at first, but we started getting reports of her getting overly excited and causing trouble. I told them to give her more time outs to calm her down, but I don't believe they listened. It turns out the daycare wasn't very structured. It was just a large room with about 30 dogs running around. They eventually told her she couldn't come back and that was fine with us. We think that might have been too much for her anyway.

Fast forward to today at 2yrs old Keeva still gets overly excited when she see's other dogs. At first it was that she wanted to play and had no manners but now it's aggression. She used to play with other dogs great but something just changed. She zones in and then lunges once we get close. I try to correct her as soon as I see her body posture change, but I am not always on time with my corrections. When She does get a correction she sits nicely but then the whining starts.

As this is my first post I am sorry if it is a bit lengthy. I felt it was important to give you a bit of history on Keeva. Other than her aggression she is a great dog. We have established ourselves as the pack leader. We walk through doors first. She is not allowed on the furniture. She eats after we do. She has excellent leash manners. She will walk right next to us with a loose leash......until she sees a dog. Actually even then she would stay by our side and stop if we stop but she isn't really paying us any mind.

I have watched the video on dominate dogs and use most of the tools and techniques that are discussed. I am about to start her training with an e-collar soon as hopefully that will help. Is there anything else that I am missing? After a correction, should I correct the whining as well or should I let her expel that energy? Is the whining part of her anxiety?

She has overcome so much from day one and I just want to help her over this last hurdle so that she can become a much more balanced and happy dog.

Welcome, Jevon, and congratulations on adopting.


Doggy daycare ..... not wise to have started it, but very wise to discontinue it. For a fearful dog, that's flooding, and an unstructured situation is flooding at its worst.


"I have watched the video on dominate dogs and use most of the tools and techniques that are discussed. "

Like which, exactly? (As opposed to dominant, this dog is "nervous and anxious.")


"She used to play with other dogs great but something just changed."

She doesn't need to play with other dogs -- just to tolerate them.


"She zones in and then lunges once we get close."

How close?


"She zones in and then lunges once we get close. I try to correct her as soon as I see her body posture change, but I am not always on time with my corrections. When She does get a correction she sits nicely but then the whining starts."

You are too late in getting her focus on you if she has a chance to zone in.


"When She does get a correction she sits nicely but then the whining starts."

Do you mean a correction and a sit command, or what? I'm confused at this.



I don't see the e-collar as the tool for this reactivity.

Before I/we retype the wheel, have you read any of the desensitizing threads here?

Are you marker training?

PS

Lots of folks here are experienced with dog-dog reactivity. You'll get help.

I am no trainer. But one thing I might try when you go on a walk is to have GREAT treats in your pocket. When you see another dog, before she starts in with the stiffness and the whining, get her attention with the food. The food isn't rewarding the nervousness, it's rewarding her "mind on you" instead of a potential conflict.

Sometimes I think they get all steamed and worried because they think they have to do something.
Just have her thoughts on you, and she might learn to relax. Teach her to do nothing, "look at me"
instead.

Yup, focus on you is a huge chunk of desensitizing.

Are you marker training? Have you done any focus work (like a "look" command)?

First, thank you everyone for your welcome and your responses.

Connie - I'll try to answer your questions first.

I have order and view the DVD "dealing with dominant and aggressive dogs". Most of her behavior seems to stem from anxiety but there are times where she shows some signs of dominance (trying to hump dogs and people, placing her head over top another dog, etc). These signs mostly happened when she was at the daycare.

She used to go on walks with a calm intact 8yr old male boxer. They got along great but then they moved away. I would be happy if she could just tolerate other dogs. I would like to get her into agility training but I can't do that yet until she learns to ignore other dogs.

With my wife she lunges at about 20 yards. She would be sitting fine and then dart out all of a sudden. With me it's about 5 yards.

Yeah I'm still trying to work on my timing. I know I am usually a bit late.

She usually sits after the correction with a prong collar. I don't give her a verbal command. She sit, looks at me, starts to whine, looks at the dog, whines some more, all the while moving her front paws in a "lets go" excited motion.

I have browsed some of the threads on redirecting. I will have to read through them more thoroughly.

I have been doing some marker training. Saying yes when she does a command correctly, but nothing extensive.

Betty - I have tried food but when she gets in that zone the food doesn't matter. I would put it right under her nose and she would not care. Or she would smell the food, look at me, get the treat, and then go back to the dog. I will have to try higher valued treats and work on my timing of the treat. I have also noticed that she has a higher play drive then food drive so I would try to redirect her with a stick, but once she zones in, that doesn't always work either.

Betty and Connie - I have worked on the look command. When we walk I would say "watch me" and when she looks I say "yes' and she gets a treat.

All changes when she sees a dog. I have tried blocking her view with a parked car and trying to get her focus back to me, but she has almost hopped on a car trying to look at the dog.

Connie, can you explain re-activity? Is that the same as redirection?

Thanks again for all the help.

If sitting and holding focus with a dog nearby is beyond her ability (for now) back up and work on what she CAN do.

If you are on a walk and happen to encounter another dog, pick up your pace/determination and keep walking, paying no attention to the other dog (you don't look at it or acknowledge it). Once you're past the "safe zone" again you can praise her for staying with you (even though you probably had to tug or pop the collar to keep her moving at first.) But there's no real corrections here. The idea is to communicate that when we're walking we are marching forward and we don't stop, even if we see a dog, squirrel, motorcycle, or whatever it is that causes a reaction. None of those things is any more interesting than a tree. You don't see them, or react to them...and then she won't either.

For me, a basic rule is: if the dog isn't "getting" whatever the exercise is, then you're asking too much of the dog too quickly. Instead of forcing the dog to repeat failures, set her up to succeed...then push forward in baby steps. Walking quickly past another dog is easier to accomplish than holding a sit with a dog nearby. Start with that.

"Betty - I have tried food but when she gets in that zone the food doesn't matter."

Then you're way too late and/or way too close.



"Reactive" means the dog reacts (overreacts) to other dogs.



See what Tracy's saying? You are asking the dog to do something while she cannot. And you're correcting her for not doing something she cannot (yet) do.

"For me, a basic rule is: if the dog isn't "getting" whatever the exercise is, then you're asking too much of the dog too quickly. Instead of forcing the dog to repeat failures, set her up to succeed...then push forward in baby steps. " Exactly. She is set up to fail, and corrected for it. There are much better ways. I don't put corrections into desensitizing at all. I might correct later for not complying with a command (Tracy described a leash pop for not walking beside him), but not for being unable to hold a sit right in the face of a reactivity trigger.

The "something" I ask for has to be where she CAN. This is the gist of desensitizing. You ask the dog for behavior that you have practiced at home, alone, no distractions, and it's now very familiar, such as sit or look.

You ask for it at a distance from the strange dog where she can focus on you and not the dog. Maybe that's 20 yards ..... OK, fine.

This is not just a chance setup at this point. This is work, for you to plan and set up. The threads on desensitizing explain many ways to set this up.

The reactive zone sloooowly shrinks as the dog learns that she can focus on you and the world doesn't end AND she gets awesome rewards (high value bits of food). She also learns that YOU are in charge and she has no need to be on guard against other dogs.

But meanwhile it sounds like you are getting very close to other dogs way inside her trigger zone all the time. I'd calmly and quietly stop that for now. You can calmly scan the street ahead and plan your routes accordingly. If you have to pass another dog, you do what Tracy says and move along, you between her and them, and calmly (and briskly) move along past.

I'll dig up a couple of detailed desensitizing threads for dog-reactive dogs.

This is important too: "The idea is to communicate that when we're walking we are marching forward and we don't stop, even if we see a dog, squirrel, motorcycle, or whatever it is that causes a reaction. None of those things is any more interesting than a tree. You don't see them, or react to them...and then she won't either."


PS

MANY people here have done this, some with dogs far more reactive. Take a breath and relax, because you can do this.

Here's an old-ish quote that has some links in it. Questions welcome!

 Quote: Connie Sutherland

"Do you think this is fear aggression, aggression, or just a very strong play drive? I know with this type of forum that is very hard to answer."

Hard to answer, and in many ways pretty irrelevant. If you want what I want, you want the dog to be tolerant of but pretty much indifferent toward dogs who don't live in her home.

All of this comes from desensitizing. I could spend forever deciphering exactly what triggers my dog's reactions to other dogs, but in the long run, I don't much care. I want calm indifference, and the way I get it is through desensitizing work.

This starts with two major prongs: focus on you (as well as perception of you as not only all-powerful protector but also as the decider of behavior towards other beings), and bulletproof basic ob. When you have these in your home, you start to move it outdoors (or even to another room) to start proofing for venue changes. When you have these two at top level in some low- or no-distraction venues, you introduce controlled distraction while the dog focuses on you and your upbeat ob with awesome marker rewards. By "controlled," I mean controlled.

For example, a kid who stands and watches quietly is introduced into the scene. Then a friend with a neutral dog walks by at a distance that doesn't trigger your dog. The distance gradually lessens.

If no neutral dog is available, that's OK: you remove yourself and your dog to a distance from dogs under control (or behind a dog-park fence, for example {even greater distance with non-neutral dogs}) while the dog focuses on you and your upbeat marker ob with awesome rewards.

Have you had a chance to look at the link Barbara supplied? If not, here are the threads on desensitizing that are mentioned in that link:

 Quote: Connie Sutherland

http://leerburg.com/forums/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Board=134&Number=251709&Searchpage=1&Main=24232&Words=dummies&topic=0&Search=true#Post251710

http://leerburg.com/forums/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Board=134&Number=253411&Searchpage=1&Main=24388&Words=desensitizing+Connie+Sutherland&topic=0&Search=true#Post253391

http://leerburg.com/forums/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Board=18&Number=256896&Searchpage=1&Main=24726&Words=desensitizing+Connie+Sutherland&topic=0&Search=true#Post256896

http://leerburg.com/forums/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Board=134&Number=251762&Searchpage=2&Main=24232&Words=connie%27s&topic=0&Search=true#Post251762

It's a good process. There is no downside to it. It has many benefits besides the obvious one of dialing back the dog's reactivity.


eta

This is not to blow my horn --- the process is not MY process; it's just THE desensitizing process (IMO) --- but this quote from Kristel will be heartening:

"In addition to being somewhat traumatized, I was embarrassed by my dog's behavior. I have a fair amount of experience, this dog was bred by me, and still here I was dealing with a behavior I had never seen before in one of my dogs. I bought "Control Unleashed", "Click to Calm", "In Focus", etc. looking for a magic formula ---- but it really is as simple as laid out by Connie. My dog's reactivity was so extreme at times I felt like it would never change, but it did. It just takes a lot of time, consistency and patience.

The simple techniques shared worked wonders on my dog. There were weeks that it felt like I made no progress at all, but when I look at where we were, and at how pleasant my dog is now, all the time was worth it. The basic premise of building tolerance to distractions is a great way to go, and can carry over into any behaviour you'd like to teach your dog. It doesn't need to be complicated at all, it just takes time."

Cross to the other side of the street if you have to, for now. It's way better to have her succeed in ignoring a dog 50 yards away, than to fail at being near them.

And have no qualms at all about declining all offers from other dog owners to "say hello." Even for dogs that aren't hinky about strange dogs, there's no good reason ever for your dog to make nice with strange dogs. It's a ridiculous notion that far too many people walking dogs engage in. My dogs don't need to make friends with strange dogs. I'm teaching them to ignore all other dogs in the world. No, we won't be stopping to sniff Fluffy.

So if that helps any at all, set as your goal that Keeva will learn to IGNORE all other dogs...not that she will happily engage with them. Big difference in your mindset, and what you're asking of her.