Toby, the Reactive Rescue

OntarioSheltie said:
Yeah, I guess. Some days are all round great and then there are day's when he does terrible and I start to think I imagined any progress.

He's got such a wonderful personality otherwise. When I handle him I try to be confident and assertive, but secretly I feel bad for him that he's so fearful, he just doesn't know what he's missing.

I took him hiking for the first time on the weekend with some friends. I might as well have transplanted him on mars, it was all so new and different to him. He did wonderfully (its city noises that scare him) and I even let him off leash. He returned to me every time, even with the distraction of 6 other dog friends. Its just so sad that he's missed out on so many experiences, like walking, hikes and having dog friends. :no:
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What about transplanting those 6 other dog friends to the city situation? Maybe, if they react properly to the noises of the city, he'll learn from them. Just a thought.
 
feel like a failure to him on BAD days though. I also recently had someone I know tell me that I'm not helping him by giving him treats when he's afraid. I explained what I'm doing with him but this person was adamant that what I'm doing is wrong. Since he explodes when he IS afraid, I don't see a way around it. I thought I was redirecting his behavior by having him look at me instead of exploding, not encouraging his fear. Am I doing something wrong?

Sadie and Ginny are both a bit reactive, but I've just accepted that that's the way they are. They just become overly excited when they see squirrels, cats or hear skate boards. But Toby's issues can be exhausting when he's having a bad day. The intensity of Sadie and Ginny's explosions are nothing like Toby's. :(
I tried treats with Sandstorm when he was reacting (lunging, barking, spinning) to cars on walks, it did not work well, and CM has used treats (though not often) depending on the dog- he says it is very hard to get the treat timing right. True for me, and Sandstorm did not get much better at all. Now I make him sit as a car goes by, again, I watched this demonstrated on a CM show. My timing at first was again wrong. I was making him sit way too soon, and in anticipation of the car, SS would get worked up, and I would get anxious. I have now got the timing perfectly after watching the demonstration, and calmly have SS sit AS the car is very near to us, walking in the same direction as the cars closest to us. It has worked wonders - but Sandstorm did not come to us with any issues, he had a great first 5 months of his life with his breeder and eight other shelties.
Good luck,
Karen
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I think you're doing the right thing in a difficult situation. Your friend sounds like she is thinking along the lines of "don't comfort your fearful dog with treats and cuddles you'll just reinforce it" whereas your situation is very different to say mine - where my puppy is reactive and does get fearful but he is young and hasn't got a deep rooted fear like Toby's. Dash's is more a fear of the unknown. So yes it would be wrong for ME to treat Dash but you're dealing with something much harder. I think I would be doing the same thing as you already are, try anything to get his attention back on you then. Maybe even try moving backwards, away from whatever is freaking him out (hard I know if he is leaping about) but as soon as he comes and looks to you and you reward him he should start to learn its more fun to stay around mum than carry on. (You're not "running away" from the object because you only go a few steps).
When he gets more confident you can move on to the 'ignoring technique'.
Unfortunately all I can really suggest is don't give up, keep practicing every day. Two steps forward one step back. Good luck!!
 
Leo walks every day 1 block at busy street. We are not able to walk well yet on close sidewalk but able to do much better near stores space. Distance makes a difference.
Toby has a history and will be much harder to change since he is not a young pup anymore. But it is still the same principle- reward behavior you want to see. CM principles are not going to work here- from waht Melissa descibes, Toby is going into red zone of overstimulation very easily, once he is so stressed that he is not able to respond to his favorite treats, it does not matter whether Melissa is trying to give them or not. Once dog went over all you can do is to remove stressful factor whether by distance or redirecting by gentle leader. Flooding won't work or " not cuddling"
Patience, slow but steady, just as you doing. Good luck Toby! It will take time but you will be there. Some stressors will need to be divided and brough in small portions- like taping car sound and playing it low during meal time or at his favorite place. Making a special mat, possibly with lavender scent and taking with you anywhere and directing your pup to the mat when he gets stressed in new situation will. Setting up a routine when coming to unfamiliar places- like " look at me" game twice, " look at that" 3 times, etc
 
My Jazz JRT/beagle was the poster child of the reactive/fear aggressive dog. She also had the added bonus of a terrier mentality and dog dominance. I rescued her at 1 yr and she had no socialization before me. Then she was attacked by a loose dog.

Trust me, no hope once they get into that full blow reaction. Don't even try. Just get them out of there and watch for the very early signs next time. With Jazz, she would take a deep breath and her body would tense. If I missed my chance to redirect her at that point, a couple seconds later she would go nuts. I couldn't work though it in that state. Nothing redirected her, nothing stopped her. I just have to get out of there and be more proactive the next time. Following a lot of obedience I could stop moving, tell her to sit and watch me(her redirection) and then let the distraction(usually another dog) go by and then go on my way.

The key to reinforcing fear reactions is the timing of the reinforcements. It must be before the fear gets to the panic stage or it must be at the second the attention towards the feared object breaks or the behavior stops no matter how small of a change it is(ie barking and going crazy, pause for a breathe yes good boy, reward). You know when the fear is full blow because that is the point when he stops taking treats at that point your only choices are remove,redirect or ignore. Too late to do anything else. Well, there are other choices which involve punishment ie collar checks, physical restraint etc but I doubt you went to go there. Punishing fear reactions tend to make them worse.

Absolutely reinforcing(ie petting, soothingly talking to them) at the time of full flow fear itself will make it worse. Thats what the brain is focused on. Its the law of learning. Redirecting and reinforcing or waiting it out past the fear and then rewarding will decrease it. Remember it is always in the timing, reinforce only the behaviors you want. I made this mistake with Jazz and she did get worse. Never say or do anything at these times which could be reinforcing.

When the dog can't not handle the distraction, I find quickly removing them from the distraction or increasing the distance between you and the distraction to the point the dog can handle works best. If you start to notice behaviors that would signal a fear reaction ie staring, body tensing, growling etc. Stop redirect to a behavior that you want such as looking at you or sitting. Reward. Wait until you see the body relaxing, reward, and then move on. Never move on unless they are relaxed. Just wait. When they go forward calmly praise, reward and always reward calm, bold behaviors just don't wait until there is a problem to give feedback. Also above all else be confident and know your plan when you start to see the warnings behaviors, it will relax Toby greatly.
 
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Remember how far you have come, take a deep breath.. and don't be hard on yourself :)
You will get a million opinions, well meant or otherwise... of course, you already know mine, lol

I agree with Dr. Shelli... also only other thing I can say is to use the BAD days experiences to give you an idea what is TOO much and learn what set him off at what time, and you will be able to redirect sooner next time... these bad situations tell you what his tolerance level is at that time. Learning experiences are a good thing, that's all

You are doing an amazing job!
 
You have not had Toby that long, but you have come a long way with him in that short of time.

Take a deep breath, remember what he was like when he came to you and how he is now. You are going great with him. Just keep on doing what you are doing.

As for treating, use it until you see he is well under control and then gradually reduce the treating until you don't have to unless it is an extreme reaction. It will come.
 
I think there are two kinds of scared dogs.

One that gets scared of something and you can redirect fairly easily with treats and then they can go on with life. Our Meggie is like this, we have had her since she was a baby. She is afraid of cars on our walks but can be redirected with treats fairly easily, however if we don’t intervene in time and she gets her frantic barking and spinning going the next car is going to be harder to redirect her. But she bounces back easily and the next walk is a clean state. She hates the vacuum but after she makes her statement she will go away and leave it alone.

Louie, on the other hand was a rescue of unknown origin and he came to us afraid of everything or at least it seemed that way. Walking was especially hard he was terrified of dogs both inside and out. The dogs inside the houses must have been able to sense his fear and barked at him too, we tried everything all the suggestions that I am reading here but none worked, walking was not fun for either of us but I thought all dogs needed to walk. I got involved in a reactive dog group where I learned that for dogs as fearful as him we weren’t doing him any favors by insisting he walk and trying to “teach” him to “accept” what was scaring him. That he wasn’t able to calm down inside even when he appeared to be calm and it wasn’t good for his health. He also had multiple things inside we were trying to get him "used to", all kinds of sounds, flashes, bugs, shadows, reflections and many, many more things. In desperation we decided to try not walking and play in the yard instead and in addition we attempted to not let him be around as many of the things that frightened him inside, If we had to sweep he went outside, we attempted to get all flies before he sees them, we don’t use the flash on the camera, little changes to avoid his scarey things. Once we decided that WE were going to be the ones to change and not Louie things began to change for the better for him and us, he became an extremely happy and more laid back dog, now many days go by without things getting him upset and if when the stray fly appears we are able to redirect him easily. Once we took the pressure off him it all changed. He does walk sometimes but not every day and we walk early in the morning but he apparently doesn’t give off the fear he used to because he can now walk by houses without dogs barking at him. It really worked for Louie and was the best thing we could have done for him.

Toby is new to you and still afraid, maybe the answer is to take some of the pressure off him to do the things that we all consider normal. It will get better, I know how your heart is breaking for your fearful little guy.
 
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Thanks for all of the insight everyone!

Like Toby, I have good days and bad days. I try to keep my head up but was feeling very frustrated and down yesterday.

I thought about my situation with Toby and everything everyone said.

Toby is making more progress than I let on, its just hard to see when you get focusing on the negative. And as everyone pointed out, we've only had him for two weeks!

I just want to be clear though, when Toby explodes, he is not in the least bit aggressive, I'm not sure that I ever mentioned that. There's just a lot of lunging, barking, whining and some times yelping. Toby can quickly and easily work himself into the highest level of anxiety if I ignore his behavior, but I hesitate to use the words 'red zone' because some people relate those words with aggression, which he's shown no signs of, although his lunging can be interpreted as that by passers by (Some idiot on an electric scooter actually honked his horn at us when Toby freaked at the sight of it. Gee what a BIG help! :mad:).

That being said, while he still barks, lunges and generally frustrates me, now that I'm in a better state of mind myself, I realize that his anxiety isn't reaching this heightened state at all anymore, that his BAD reactions are still only a fraction of how he was. My experience is with sensitive dogs and dogs who are noise sensitive, but I've not had to deal with this level of reaction before.

When I was walking him this morning and watching his reactions, I realized that a small tug on the leash and praise was enough to get him back on track some times. On a busy road he did very well walking past a large hydro truck on the opposite side, doing work on the hydro lines. He growled and fixated on it a bit, but when I gave him a gentle tug on the leash and kept going, he looked away and returned to my side.

Last night I jogged with him, which pretty much guarantee's more barking and lunging, but he's slowly doing better. I found much the same thing, since its harder to give treats while running. When he barked lunged, I pulled on the leash, which brought his head back around (the gentle leader is such an AMAZING tool for dogs like Toby) and enabled him to focus again.

Toby had a small set back Monday night. We brought him to my parents house for the first time and my mother was cleaning out the family room. She had this sun shaped decoration leaning against the back of a couch, which Toby hit as he was trotting by. It scared the heck out of him and he was very subdued and stayed by my side for the rest of the visit. Today he noticed the wreath on our door and freaked, I think because it resembled the sun decoration. He was good about sniffing it but was still afraid of it. Oh well, what can you do. :rolleyes2:
 
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