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what has worked

01/16/2024

i want to preface this by saying that i'm not a professional dog trainer or behaviorist. my dog is an individual and what is effective for decreasing her reactivity will not be effective for every dog. i learned a lot by reading about other's experiences with their reactive dogs, so i think that it's useful to share our current successes and how we got there.

determining her triggers

this one feels stupid at first. of course i'm aware of her triggers, that's why i'm here in the first place. but it helps to list them out and determine a plan for each one. some of them are easier to tackle. it can improve quality of life to focus on overcoming the easier ones first. this can also help you work on the big ones distraction-free down the line.

a brief trigger list:

• the big one: other dogs. she reacts by whining, growling, barking, and depending on distance, lunging towards or running away. the maximum distance that will generate this response, or her threshold, is about a hundred meters.
• people with raised arms. she reacts by stiffening and sometimes barking at them. this one is fairly easy to just avoid.
• people putting their face close to hers. if her nervous body language is ignored, she will bark and muzzle punch the person's face. mostly easily avoided when our visitors listen to us. becomes a problem if someone needs to care for her in my absence, or if the vet needs to examine her.
• being physically grabbed or pushed. she will snap and bark. again, easily avoided as long as visitors listen to us.
• certain sounds (jingling keys/tags, vibrations, compressed air). the first sound is related to a dog being nearby, so she will stiffen and scan the area for a dog to react to, sometimes whining. the others cause her to aggress the object making the sound by snapping and sometimes barking. these triggers are not as intense for her and she can be distracted by treats.

muzzle training

there are so many dogs in our neighborhood. not only that, but there are so many poorly behaved off-leash dogs in our neighborhood. i was terrified of goose biting one of these dogs every time we went out on a walk. she hasn't ever bitten, even in a few situations where she had the motive and opportunity, but it was a great source of stress nonetheless. so i took her measurements, ordered a wire basket muzzle, and trained her to wear it. no more stress for me, with the added benefits of people giving us more space and preventing goose from eating garbage and other unsavory street food.

i should mention that a muzzle should allow a dog space to pant and drink water. it should be gradually introduced to the dog using positive reinforcement. the dog should associate its muzzle with good things like treats and walks.

management

starting to walk goose in the early morning and late at night, running along busier streets, and going hiking only during unpleasant weather or at weird hours on unpopular trails helped us avoid running into other dogs from the get-go. this keeps her stress levels much lower (we're avoiding trigger stacking, which can worsen reactivity). when we do encounter the occasional dog, it's usually not as big of a deal and we can turn around instead of freaking out. our leash training improved dramatically once we had less distractions in our environment.

exercise

two walks a day and ~10 miles of running per week keeps the crazy goose at bay. and for some reason, a running goose is much less likely to react. we often have to cross the street or turn around to avoid dogs, but she doesn't pull me towards them or vocalize. maybe we're going too fast (6:30-9:30 min/mile) to give her the opportunity. i still run her in her muzzle, though.

counterconditioning (CC)

this means pairing every instance of a trigger with a compelling reward, ideally WITHOUT going over threshold. for treat rewards, if the dog is taking them roughly, it is probably too close to threshold. increasing distance can also be a reward, it certainly is for goose (this is called negative reinforcement because you are rewarding via removal of a stimulus). CC is difficult to do in the wild. controlling the intensity of the trigger by maintaining distance, hoping that the dog i'm training off of isn't also reactive, and pouring treats down goose's throat isn't easy. to simplify things we started dragging around a large dog-shaped stuffed animal on a leash. our neighbors must think we're weird, but it really helps! goose recovers much more quickly after going over threshold now. sometimes she will look at me after seeing a dog, expecting a treat. this is called a positive conditioned emotional response (+CER) and is the goal of CC. once there is a solid association between the trigger and receiving a treat, we can move towards desensitization (DS) by gradually increasing the intensity of triggers as long as she does not go over her threshold. in the meantime, we practice behaviors that are incompatible with reacting to other dogs, such as sitting instead of lunging, looking at me instead of the dog, etc. this is known as differential reinforcement of incompatible behaviors (DRI). it's important that she is already able to reliably sit and hold eye contact with me.

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