Hey everybody Welcome to Shaped by Dog I amSusan Garrett and today we are going to tacklethe topic of reactivity and aggression in yourdogs, And I want to preface this by saying.This is a serious, serious issue. Andif, you have a challenge with your dog. I strongly advise that you seek out the help ofa certified veterinarian behaviorist One thatis, equipped to deal with problems like this in areinforcement-based program And one that whereneeded will use pharmaceutical interventionto help create a different reality for your dogso. That your dog doesn't go through life feelingthat.
How do you reduce reactivity in dogs?
They need to react, Create a better realitythrough pharmaceutical, better living, throughpharmaceuticals And then eventually you'llbe able to wean off of that. But that kind ofstrategy will come to you from a professional So today, I'm for the rest of you, I'm going toshare how different has led to aggression, forsome dogs and how a lot of aggression reallyis learned.
It isn't that there's somethingwrong with the dog. Now, there are some dogs justlike there are some psychopath people that theirbrain just doesn't work quite right. There are avery few dogs, a small percentage of dogs who areaggressive or reactive because ofa serious problem with the brain.But for the rest of those dogs, today I'm goingto give you some insight into how it happens.
How do I stop my dogs reactivity when walking?
And I'm going to share with you acouple strategies that you can useto help your dog and you have better outcomes. Okay. So, let's just, I'm going to talk a littlebit of science first, the word stimulus. It's,It's a thing. Stimulus is an event or a thing thatcreates a behavioral response in your dog. Yourdog has got a checklist that rolls through hisbrain that he doesn't even think about of stimulithat are good that he says, Oh yeah, I love that,yeah. So, it could be, it could be treats.Itcould be activities that he loves. It could bepeople he loves, it could be places he goes. So,there are things that create like a stimulus thatcreates the thought that, Oh, I love that.
How do you prevent the reactivity of a leash?
There are things that are innocuous. Like,you know what, thats pavement, that's anotherhouse. Like those are innocuous. I notice them,but I don't really notice them. They're just,you know, white noise to him. And there's things,always things he loves, things that are innocuousto him, things that he hates and things that he'safraid of.
Now he has his running catalog orin his computer, in his brain and all of thoseare created through experiences that he's hadin his lifetime up until this point. Okay.Now, what happens when we come upon something thatis different? Something that the computer doesn'thave an output for, for that dog. Different couldbe maybe a combination of senses. So differentcould be something that the dog sees.
So, like the sight of a tennis ball createsexcitement for a dog, but they don't come outof the womb going, Oh, tennis ball. I lovethem. Although with some Labrador retrievers,you might think so.
Tennis balls are somethingthat experiences, and rehearsals of thoseexperiences have created I love tennis balls.So, the sight of a tennis ball creates oneresponse, but the sight of say nail clippers forsome dogs, creates a different thought becauseof the experiences attached them the same withsounds. So, the sound of car keys for dogs wholove to go for a car ride, the sound of car keysmay mean something completely different then.So, you get a different response like excitementversus a knock on the door.A knock on thedoor might create a different response ofarousal and excitement and barking and chaos.
Then there's the sense of touch. My dogs get amassage every week they see the massagetherapist come to the house for them.They love it. They like stand in line. I want tobe first. All right. Picture a dog the first timeyou put booties on a dog, if, have you ever seenthat? If you haven't, Google that on YouTube or doa YouTube search for it. Because it different withbooties is like they go Cray-Cray, so differentversus something that they know isgoing to create a different response.Dogs can smell excitement.
They can smell fear onus. And that creates different responses in them.Taste. Why did some dogs avoid the taste oflike medicine versus the taste of a treat? So,experience has created a catalog in the brain forthese dogs, but new or different enter the dog,walking with new boots on createsa completely different response.So, different in dogs and people.
It createscuriosity. Now curiosity could be engaged like,Hey, what's that? kind of curiosity.I'm interested in that. Hey, what's,what's going on over there? Curiositycould also be a cautious curiosity. Andboth kinds of curiosity could lead to reactivitydown the road. Stick with me on this one.Take the example of it could be a child skipping,or it could be like, if you have a, a small whitedog, it could be a big black dog.
Theyreinterested, theyre curious, what's Oh,I've never seen that before. Now, if you'rewalking with the dog and they're showinginterest in the kid skipping, and they might startpulling towards that kid skipping. Now you mightpull back on that because you'regoing in the opposite direction.And when you're pulling away from something, thatactually for dogs they want to pull into that.In a lot of dog sports when we want to createdrive for a thing, like the sport of agility,we want to create drive for our dogs to gofaster over obstacles.
For bite work we wantto create drive for the dog to spring andbite asleep. We use that opposition reflex,where we pull the dog back from something.So, if you're walking and your dog showsinterest in something and they start pullingtowards it and you pull them away from it,the next time the brain sees thatthey're going to pull harder.They're going to maybe start vocalizing. They'regoing to start going, Hey, I want that thing!
And the vocalizing might create a trigger inthem. So maybe the third or fourth exposurethey're going to immediately see thatthing whether it be another dog or a child,they're going to immediately startvocalizing.
Especially with a puppy itcould be out of excitement, Hey, Hey, Hey! But as these experiences go on and they'd neverget to figure out what exactly that experienceis, the triggers create barking, creates growling,the dog because of their lack of ability to beable to understand what it is on the other sideof the skipping child or the black dog, you nowhave a dog who is just reacting in a barking,growling way. If you were to take that leashoff, they would charge at that thing now.
Allof that pent up, not being able to go. Now theymight charge and just start sniffing, but theymight charge and start circling and barking. Theymight charge and circle, bark, maybe even nip.So that is how just curiosity and in commoninterests can escalate to reactivity and possiblynipping. Okay. Now the other curiosity. The othercuriosity, it could be a curiosity of the cautiouscuriosity.Could be that the dog is fearful.The dog might show that fear with their tailtucked. They might get their eyes wide.
If you go to episode four, here on Shaped by Dog,I talked about TEMP. The dog is going to show youwith their posture and their mouth, that thereare alarm bells going off in their brain. They mayactually do what we referred to as alarm bark. So,if a dogs got a medium tone bark, woof, woof,woof, when they are showing curiosity that'sbeing cautious, they might get very shrill atthe end of that bark. Instead of, woof, woof,it might go, Woooo wo wo wooowoooo. That'san alarm bark.Danger Will Robinson. Okay.
Igot to stop using that reference because like 99%of you are too young to even know what it is.So, the alarm bark or a dog that curiositythat is cautious, it might be growling. Oohh,I don't know what that is, oohh. Um, now itcould escalate to, or it might just trigger likeimmediate fear that panic, I've got to get outof here, or I want to run behind my mom's legs orI've got to try and escape this situation. Theymay pee on themselves. And if they can't get awayand they are in close proximity with somethingthat they were cautiously curious about, they mayjust lunge.
Lunge and snap, possibly even bite. That is how curiosity that is cautious could turnto an icidence of reactivity or aggression.Think of yourself, you walk home and it'syour birthday. And all these people popout from behind the coach, surprise!And that's kind of like curiosity and thenexcitement versus you're lying in bed atnight and you hear a thump downstairs.Uh, thatkind of curiosity is like, Oh, that's different.I did you hear that? Okay. Where's,where's the dogs? Let's go.All right.
So different createscuriosity. Curiosity isn't always good,but what's important is what happensduring and afterward. And that's whereyou and I come in as the owners ofthose dogs. So, the dog is sayingeither, Hey, I'm interested in that. or thedog is saying, Whoa, I'm afraid of that. Whoa,Whoa, Whoa, Whoa, Whoa. I'm afraid of that. If adog says, Hey, I'm interested in that. or I'mafraid of that. you need to believe them. And youneed to take that feedback as their owner and say,I'm here for you.
Let's figurethis thing out together. So,the two strategies you need to be aware ofare, in the moment and after the fact.Two strategies. So, in the moment strategy isgoing to involve either as I spoke about in aprevious episode, you're going to either goingto ignore, your going to manage, or you're goingto train. When we have a challenge that's whatwe're going to do in the moment. Are you goingto ignore, are you going to manage, or are yougoing to train? That could be your strategy afterthe fact too. Oh yeah. He went off at somekid on a bike, but you know, whatever that,you know, maybe we won't see that kid again.
If you ignore when your dog is saying, I amworried or I am interested and you donothing, you plan nothing for the future,behaviors don't stay static.So that is verylikely now there's a chance the dog might getused to it and go, Oh, that's a kid on a bike,oh that's innocuous. That's not a problem,but you're rolling the dice because it could alsogo the other way, where they get more and moredriven to want to react to that stimulus. So, you're in the moment you could choose toeither punish or reinforce. And you're going togo, Whoa, Susan.
Reinforce my dogs acting likea bit of a goober? I'm going to reinforce that.Let me tell you a story. I was at an agility trialmany, many years ago. I did a little workshop.And I went to an agility trial and the peoplewhose home I was staying in, they had a bunch ofAustralian Cattle dogs, like a gaggle of them.I don't know. There was maybe five, six,seven. I don't know what a gaggle is.They were all in an ExPen.
And whenever anybodywith a dog walked by, they all went at the fence,aggressing, barrier barking, Ra ra ra! Itsounded like they wanted to rip off somebody'slimb.As you could imagine, they were not a fanfavorite of everybody who had to walk by that.And to be fair to the poor dog walking by, that isunfair for them to have to deal with that. And so,I said to them, if you like, while I'm here thisweekend, it was a three-day show, I will help fixthat.
They're like, yeah, that'd be cool. So, I had, I created small little treats,everything from cut up carrots to some pieces ofmeat and just interesting treats. Various levelsof value. And I put them around that the dogcouldn't get, around the outside of the ExPen.And I put a little sign at everything.If you're walking by with a dog, pleasejust throw in a handful of treats. Now Imade sure I asked the people who own the dogs,These dogs won't be aggressive to eachother, would they? If we threw some treatsin there. and they said, absolutely not. So that's what we did. Now after the first day,people walking by and the dogs were barking,aggressing at the ExPen, and I, you know,just keeps throwing. Now I did it myself. IfI was around, I would just throw cookies in.
They were concerned. They're like,Susan, am I not feeding my dog forbeing aggressive towards another dog? And that's what people at the end of theday around the bar said to them, Whywould you letting her tell you to dothat? Your dogs are getting cookies for beingjerks. But there are two responses in life.There is a response you think of like, I'm goingto plan to stand back here and scare you.Or there is a response you have no controlover.
Like when somebody grabs you from behind,you're going to scream and try to run away,that's a reflex. With those dogs, those triggershave been built in that we bark at the fence. Byday two, they were still barking at the fence,but not with the same gusto. By the end of daytwo, there was just the odd one. The young dogwould bark and look at everybody else andeveryone else is looking for the cookies.Day three, there was no barking.
And so, what we were doing was changingthe trigger. So, when you're in the momentand your dog is reacting or showing interest,your dog is saying, I'm curious. What you wantto do is minimize the fear by getting further awayfrom the distraction. So, if it's a kid on a bike,get as far away from that kid as you can. Playthe search game where you turn the dog away andyou throw cookies on the ground.
Now, if they'rereally fearful they will not going to eat. My favorite is to get them to tug on a toy.And then that's in the moment, I want to minimizethe stress of that experience. What most peoplewould have you do, like the dog, he startsgrowling at a child, you would say, Hey, whatare you doing? or worse you might correct thedog. That's actually throwing gasoline on a fire.Your dog is saying, I'm uncomfortable.I'm a little afraid. And you're saying,I don't care.
You're not allowed to be afraid.Would you do that to a kid? I'm a little,I'm a little bit afraid. Well, some peopledo that when they've paid to see Santa,the kid shows, and they're afraid and they go,here, take my child. Not really a good plan.If your dog is saying I'm afraid, believethem.
Go to episode 24, where I talked aboutthe distraction index, increase the distance away.Set the dog up to be reinforced and then go homeand create a plan. What am I goingto do in this environment? So again,ignore, manage, or train. The management wouldbe, I'm never going to go near children onbicycles again. And that's really out ofyour control, not a good strategy.
Ignore,take your chances but there's a lot of reactivedogs around this world with people who took theirchances and it didn't go so well for them. So, let's train.And the train is going tobe creating a journal for that challenge,writing down what happened, where you were,what happened before it.
So were you just in acrowd and a bunch of dogs put their nose up yourdogs butt, your dog was already stressed ordid you just get in an argument with a parkingmeter person and your dog could sense that stressand then they went off like what happened beforeand what's your plan to counter condition it? So, counter conditioning is being intentionalabout changing the trigger.
What is dog leash reactivity?
So if it's somethinglike a child on a bike, what's your dog like withone kid walking? And, you know, build up so thatwhen you see a kid walking, good things happen,we're going to play a game of tug, or we'regoing to play some hand targets.When yousee a kid walking, then when you see a kidskipping, when you see a kid pushing a bike,when you see a kid and pretty soon akid is either going to move from fear toideally innocuous.
They might even moveto love. Look, mum, there's a kid!That's a good thing, isn't it? Right. So different can lead to reactive or aggression.But it doesn't have to be that way. It's allabout you helping your dog to catalog experiencesin a way that is appropriatefor their future and wellbeingand yours and all the dogs around them. That's it for today on Shaped by Dog.
Please,if you haven't done so, sharethis podcast with your friends. Ilove to hear from new listeners and what theirbig takeaways are from this podcast. So, leave mea comment. I promise I read each and every one ofthem. We'll see you next time on Shaped by Dog.That's the reactive dog. We don't want that.
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