# Crazy Cody - Problems Approaching Other Dogs



## Brave (Oct 26, 2012)

Hello! 

Has your puppy gone through formal obedience training, by chance? My Bear used to get over stimulated quickly and would resort to lunging, barking, pulling, etc. What helps is to work on the problem BEFORE the dog becomes over stimulated. So keep them below that threshold and slowly work up to closer contact with animals. 

What I've been doing with Bear is starting with "watch me" or "look at me". As soon as I see a dog or person coming towards us, I stop walking, put Bear into a sit and keep reinforcing "watch me" with lots of treats. As he keeps his focus on you, you'll be teaching him that when other dogs are around he needs to watch you to find out what to do. You are adding something to reinforce the desired behavior ("watch me")

IF this puts him over his threshold, walk him AWAY from the problem. Is that means you have to walk across the street, back the way you came, up onto someone's driveway, etc. Whatever it takes to shows "If you bark/lunge/pull, you will be removed from the situation". You are removing something to make the undesired behavior occur less often. 

Something else we're doing with Bear, is sitting in our driveway and watching the activity, but being a passive participant. This also works well in cafes and coffee shops (but the dog needs to know settle before attempting this). This tends to desensitize the dog to these stimuli (in our experience). 

On walks we remove the idea of letting dogs meet. Once Bear understood that at no time on leash will he be meeting these new dogs, he drastically cut down on how horrendous he is around new dogs. He no longer has the unchecked desire of "Must see dog now!" because he knows I'm not going to introduce them. We have our own version of letting him know it's ok to approach a person or animal (cause we ALWAYS ask permission from others first). We say, "Bear, wanna make a new friend?" and at that point he will walk over to the human or animal and be nice. 


Some people tie yellow ribbons on their leashes to signify that their dog needs space. I've seen people with dogs in vests that say "In training". People tend to respect these (if they understand what they are for).


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## Jennifer1 (Mar 31, 2012)

My lab is leash aggressive. He's fine with dogs, unless he is on a leash and then he goes into attack mode, if I would let him.

What I've been doing to work with him is to first and foremost keep him under threshold. I do everything in my power to keep him at a distance that he is comfortable and doesn't react to the other dog. At first for him, this meant crossing the street if someone was walking towards us with a dog. If that wasn't possible (traffic), I would pull him up into someone's driveway to get the distance.
Secondly, it is instinct to pull him in towards you, that puts tension on the leash which is a signal to the dog that something is wrong. As hard as it is, try to keep a slack leash!
I use normal kibble for training, but keep cut up string cheese on me at all times during a walk as a high value treat.
In the beginning I would cross the street (before he got upset-distance!) and put him in a sit and just keep feeding him treat after treat after treat to keep him focused on me as the dog walked by. Eventually I got to the point where I could keep walking him (still on the other side of the street) and doling out the cheese telling him to watch me-to keep attention on me and not the dog.
I'm at the point now where I will go off of the sidewalk, but not across the street and tell him to "watch me" before we get too close to the dog. It took a long time to decrease the rate of food reward, but now I can have him keep his focus on me and give him a treat once we are safely past the dog.

The key to this though is to do as much of the training as possible under threshold! Once they get too excited, they can't learn!


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## Charliethree (Jul 18, 2010)

Understand that when Cody responds negatively to other dogs he is responding out of fear. Suggest using a front clip harness to give you better control, and eliminate the risk of hurting himself if he should hit the end of the leash with any force. A dog will learn quickly to associate discomfort or pain he experiences with what he is looking at when it occurs, so if he hits the end of the leash or you give a correction when he does react to the other dog, it reinforces to him that he should be afraid seeing another dog makes 'bad' things happen.
When out on walks, praise and food reward every time you encounter/pass another dog, this will help to reinforce, and help him generalize a positive association with dogs in general.

Also work on confidence building, practice and food reward behaviors that he knows, - sits, downs, shake whatever he can do. Teach him easy tricks and reward with lots of praise and good stuff, the goal is to create and reinforce opportunities for success. Pay attention to those things he feels anxious about, a work at creating positive associations with them. If he is afraid of an object, lay a trail of treats up to it and on it, and give him the freedom to choose to approach or not. If he is afraid of people, reward him for just looking at them, over time do some controlled 'set ups' where he is given the choice to meet or not. Have the person turn sideways and or crouch down and offer some treats him, toss them to him from a distance to start with. As his confidence builds, he will choose to get closer, if he wants to move away - let him and try again.
If you are using corrections in training, do your best to not use them, in a fearful dog in particular, corrections undermine confidence and increase anxiety in an already anxious and stressed- positive training methods - build confidence. 

Suggest reading: Feisty Fido by Patricia B. McConnell. It will give an understanding of his behavior and how to work with him.


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