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I've got a couple of questions about managing play with other dogs. Eris is about 6 months old and likes to play a bit rougher than what a lot of people are comfortable with. She understands overt signs to stop from other dogs (whining, warning growls/snaps) fine, but doesn't really respond to less obvious signs of submission (or at least, what I assume are signs of submission). When her playing becomes too rough I tell her to ease up, she ignores me, I leash her and give her a time out. After a few minutes, if the other dog approaches her again, I let her go back, if not then we keep going. I started doing this about a week or two ago, the behavior escalated to a point where it became problematic about a week before that. - What would be the best way to capture the desired behavior for gentler play? Issuing the command and leashing when she continues doesn't seem like a great way of doing this. Should I be looking for situations when she disengages organically and then capturing that with the command? Should I avoid even giving the command for a while until she understands what the command means? I'm still a ways off from being able to recall from play, so that's not an option right now. Should I focus on that instead? - The point at which I intervene depends a lot on the other dog's owner, but if they don't step in or say anything, I'll usually step in when she's been holding the other dog's ear or neck for more than a few seconds, and definitely step in if she starts shaking them. This also depends on the size of the other dog. I'll stop her earlier with smaller dogs, later with bigger ones. Am I meddling too much? Too little? I'd like to hear thoughts from others who have gone through similar situations. - Is there anything else I should be doing? Eris zonked out on dog drugs: https://imgur.com/2TAqLMr
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May 30, 2019 15:09
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Mine was a giant disappointment because it came back "eastern European village dog". While probably correct, it was kind of an anticlimax after six months of guessing. We opted for the slightly more expensive Embark package which does health screening as well, which helped me to rationalize it as being useful and not just for fun.
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Mar 13, 2020 16:47
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Thaddius the Large posted:Kind of a niche question, but how do folks feel about letting their dog chase squirrels? Mine goes after birds and lizards and digs for mice, and is occasionally reactive towards people. In my experience the downsides are a short-term increase in excitability and an increase in prey drive that lasts for several days. The upside is that it significantly reduced her reactivity threshold for several days, and also makes her basically ignore everything else around her, allowing her to peripherally experience stuff that makes her anxious while she's being positively reinforced by the hunting. Another side effect that probably isn't linked to this, but is definitely strongest with prey, is resource guarding from other dogs.
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Aug 22, 2020 10:42
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Dango Bango posted:Any thoughts from the thread? I'm willing to work with him but I'm worried I'm out of my depths and his issues are getting/going to get worse. He's been with you for three days, right? I think the recommendation is to give an adopted dog at least two weeks to acclimatize to the new environment. That said, there's no guarantee that the separation anxiety will go away or even lessen in that time period. As for general advice, I used the safe word method and it's been working fairly well so far. But it's a very slow process for us (a couple of months of 3-4 repetitions a day to get to about 30 minutes). The idea is to have a word or phrase that tells the dog that you'll be coming back, starting with minuscule amounts of time (and distance), and building up very gradually. For example since my pup also followed me from room to room at first, we started with just leaving the room, coming back immediately and treating. Then extending the time spent out of her line of sight. Then closing the door after leaving. And only then actually leaving the house. However the dog should be calm all the time, so if they get up to follow you at any point (except when you return), you need to roll back the amount of time you're away. And vary the time you're away so they don't start anticipating your return. The trainer I worked with also discouraged using any commands when leaving since a stay/lay down in that situation coerces the dog into staying in place, whereas the idea is to make them ok with you leaving and choose to stay where they are in that situation. kalthir fucked around with this message at 13:00 on Aug 27, 2020 |
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Aug 27, 2020 12:57
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Fallom posted:We got our puppy in December and haven't been able to socialize her as much as we'd like because of the pandemic. We've been taking her on walks around our neighborhood and encouraging her when she stays calm around other people/dogs (she gets curious and whiny but not aggressive) but that's still not a lot of exposure. Today, she bolted out the front door and charged at a group of kids across the street. She didn't bite any of them, just ran up to them and barked, but that's small consolation. What can we do to curb this behavior? If it's fear-induced the basic steps are to manage situations so that she reacts as infrequently as possible (because the barking is a self-reinforcing behavior; she's scared, she barked, nothing happened, so she'll go with barking the next time as well), and to do counter-conditioning and desensitization (exposing her to uncomfortable situations, but at an intensity where she won't feel the need to react; and while doing so rewarding her so as to have her associate the uncomfortable situations with a positive stimulus). If you do miscalculate and she does react, don't punish her, just get her out of the situation as quickly as possible (the reasoning behind this being that punishment might suppress the behavior, but you don't know which behavior will replace it). So you're on the right track with the porch idea. That said, it might be something completely different, and getting a trainer to do an assessment is probably a good idea.
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Sep 15, 2020 15:46
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