Control Unleashed Discussion Group

I'm loving the book but I am only in Chapter 3. There is just so much information and I really like her take on the reactivity. I feel like she is describing Kyara's behavior spot on.

Though I have not read this section in the book yet, I'm familiar with the LAT as I have done this with Kyara a lot. I've also done a few BAT sessions which sort of connects LAT with what SheltieChe explained about rewarding with what the dog wants to do. In my case, Kyara is scared of people especially when on leash (can't run away therefore she barks like crazy and tries to look scary to stop people from coming closer). When I see someone I say look at that and treat her for doing so in a calm manner. I'll repeat it once more but this time, her reward is running off to the other side (away from the person). I find it helped Kyara a bunch and I should do it more often. I look forward to reading this section to get more info on it and some motivation to keep doing it while on walks.

Anyhow, I need to read with post-its to mark down pages that will help me. That is a great idea! On April 24th I'm starting a new agility class aimed for people who want to start competing, I would really love to have read the book by then and have done lots of exercises. :)
 
Meldor said:
In my case, Kyara is scared of people especially when on leash (can't run away therefore she barks like crazy and tries to look scary to stop people from coming closer). When I see someone I say look at that and treat her for doing so in a calm manner. I'll repeat it once more but this time, her reward is running off to the other side (away from the person). I find it helped Kyara a bunch and I should do it more often. I look forward to reading this section to get more info on it and some motivation to keep doing it while on walks.
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That's similar to what I was doing with Sadie, before having read control unleashed. When I saw her staring at people I started by calling her name or changing directions to get her attention, the rewarding her for looking away or looking at me. Now that i've been reminded of how LAT looks, I'm rewarding her for looking at people. She's a smart cookie and VERY food motivated so she's been doing awesome. So proud of her.

Good luck with your agility class, keep us posted on your progress with the book and agility training!
 
When I read control Unleashed last year, I immediately changed how I treated Bailey during walks.

I also used to mark her for looking at me and then treating her .

I saw a huge difference after I changed her mark to looking at a dog or person without reacting.

It really helps dogs associate their triggers with something positive. And when they figure out that not reacting to their triggers gets them a treat, they'll automatically look at you anyway because they're expecting a treat.
 
take4roll10 said:
It really helps dogs associate their triggers with something positive. And when they figure out that not reacting to their triggers gets them a treat, they'll automatically look at you anyway because they're expecting a treat.
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Thanks for sharing that, I'm really hoping I'll start seeing this more consistently with Toby. This wasn't difficult at all to teach Sadie since her discomfort of strangers was/is FAR less severe than Toby's anxiety issues. Her love of food outweighs just about everything. :smile2:

I've almost felt bad since teaching Toby impulse control because at times he's still so obviously upset when something triggers him that I can't predict. The best way I can describe it is that reacting seemed to help him to cope with something scary, so by teaching him control and taking away his reaction, I've also taken away one of his coping strategies (albeit a bad one.). The look on his face and the noise he makes (almost a cross between a whine and a scream) when he's really afraid and doesn't know what to do heartbreaking.

This doesn't happen nearly as often now since he's been medicated. I'm really excited about the coping strategies, especially LAT that Control Unleashed is teaching me for helping Toby.
 
JOY!! :biggrin2:

To find this thread and to be reading the book!!! My friend lent it to me and I thought it was just another training book and wasn't really thinking it would be relevant to me particuarly as I thought it would focus on recall/focus issues. But I started playing the 'Look at that Dog/Person/Horse/ etc' Game with Epic and during one session at training club there was a noticable difference in his reactivity around the other dogs so by the end of the hour he was calmly watching them get up and move about. I've been using this technique for about 2 weeks whenever an opportunity has presented itself and the improvement has simply been astonishing. Two nights ago when I was on the field doing some agiliy training, the almost #1 horror situation arose when a young black lab pup ran over and was bouncing round us. Epic was on a lead so I blocked the other dog from him until the owner retrieved it and although Epic was doing some lip curling, that was the extent of his reaction. He would certainly have lunged and snapped before and become very worked up. I can't do the controlled work that is set out in the book but simply doing WOW look at that dog' click and treat and keeping him below threshold is helping so much. The other games, mats, relaxation protocol etc are also showing very quick results. I'm sure that the people in my village think I'm crazy anyway so telling Epic to look at every dog like it's the most interesting thing in the world probably just confirms their suspicions! But I'm just so impressed with this brilliant book and I've recommended it to a few other people with similar issues. :smile2:
 
Julia, this book NEVER gets old
with a reactive dog these exercises are a godsend!
It's funny how a couple of years later, people are surprised when I tell them Toffee is dog reactive...
It didn't change that he is dog reactive, but his coping mechanism are SO much better, and some people are totally surprised when I tell them oh, sorry T needs a bit more space... we still get a lot out of all these exercises, it's a book that should be on everyones book shelf!
 
I totally agree. Even if there aren't any specific problems, a lot of dogs would probably benefit from these excersises just to help improve focus. Yogi is my next prospective candidate to hopefully stop him 'wuffing' at dogs running during obedience shows...:wink2:
 
Just curious. I've started up the LAT game again and where I live now is way more productive to good training sessions, versus horrible ones at my last place (way too much foot/car traffic to keep Koji under his threshold).

How fast would you say you saw some changes? I don't mean they stopped, but simply that they'd look at something, then you?

I noticed with cars (Koji wants to chase at cars, he's very motion reactive), by the third day, he was looking at cars, then looking at me before I could even click. So of course, I was clicking looking at me (which is what I was told to do after the LAT was working, trainer told me that's the natural progression, but okay, never got that far before).

With everything else, a tiny tiny change, but I'm still shoving food in his mouth as he LAT and doesn't go over his threshold.

BTW, people have stopped to stare at me, with the clicking noises and crazy woman popping treats in dogs mouth. But honestly, it's good for Koji, cuz the dog stopped, then leaves. And both things are issues. (we're far away, so no going over threshold, yay).

Gotta find my book again. So glad I found a better environment to work within.
 
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