Things I wish I'd known before having a reactive dog

Those that have read this blog before are familiar with Finn. He is the younger of my two blue merle border collie boys, and is just coming up on two years old (when this article was first written - he is now 4). Due to a number of factors, both those I could control and those I could not, he is a reactive dog.

End of year ponderings

Again we are entering a time of year when fireworks are widespread. I am fortunate that the blue boys are completely unbothered by fireworks, but I know this is not the case for many dogs. All we guardians can do for the scared dogs that we don't have time to work with on desensitisation is ensure that they have somewhere they can hide, talk to your vet about medications to help calm them, and reassure them if they are scared and come to you. Do not just ignore them to show them 'there is nothing to be afraid of' because as far as they are concerned there IS something to be scared of. Comforting a scared dog will not make them think something is even more scary, it will make them feel better. Remember - fear cannot be reinforced.

I am not one of those people that makes New Year's resolutions, mostly because I know full well that I will have good intentions for about a week and then everything starts to go to hell! (Although the exercise bike and treadmill are very handy for drying dog beds and blankets on in the winter... 😂)

With the long hair on these two, we can get through some towels just drying off after walks!

Instead I have been spending some time reflecting on the way that things have changed in the last twelve months for me, my dogs, and the path my life is taking me. The short answer is a lot! I started this blog eleven months ago, at the end of January 2018, as a sort of diary of life with my two blue boys. Thanks to the things that have happened in the time between now and then, the entries have become longer, more informative, hopefully more interesting and an awful lot more scientifically based and correct. I have been fortunate enough to have been given access to a much larger audience of like-minded people, thanks in large part to the lovely people at Canine Principles. I am so proud to be a member of the CP team and trusted to find content for the Facebook page.

The high point of the year from the blog perspective is, without question, the entry posted in October, 'The Emotional Toll of Reactivity.' The response to what was essentially a stream of consciousness venting about how life with Finn makes me feel and the ways in which it has changed my life really blew me away. In the aftermath of posting, I made contact with a lot of people in the same sort of position and being able to show people just starting on this journey that there are people that empathise and have been there has been immensely fulfilling.

In terms of the journey with Finn over the year, I suppose many people would say that not a lot of progress has been made. I disagree. Although we still walk in the wee hours of the morning, he has progressed a lot watching the world from home. Our neighbours can even speak to us from their driveway now without him being upset, so long as he is viewing the world from his safe zone behind the gate, although all bets were off the other morning when the neighbour was standing on his garage roof! That required a couple of Finn's newly discovered 'big boy barks' to register his distaste, but nothing more than that, even for something so strange to him. Small children can go past on the pavement at the end of the driveway and are viewed purely with interest from this safe place of his, so we are letting him enjoy that for a while before challenging him with the world in daylight again.

He looks ridiculous when he sleeps like this!

Red, the older (and still the best) blue boy is still going at the grand age of fourteen. He's doddery on his back end and more than a little batty now. Barking solves everything in his world, which is a contrast for a dog who has been mostly quiet through his life. He is very opinionated about what he wants and when he wants it. I am not ashamed to admit that I pander almost entirely - he's an old man, he has earned the right to have what he wants when he wants it!

He really does love his new bed (just a single 13.5 tog duvet folded in half but he loves it!)

This blog has become so much more than a diary or repository of splodgy collie tales now. The perspective has skewed to a much more informational basis, particularly as my knowledge has increased. I am hopeful that my writing skills are improving with use as well! This is the direction in which I want to keep developing, sharing the things that I have learned along the way. A great many of the topics I consider are of course reactivity and fearfulness based, and I am aiming to branch out into a wider range of subjects, encompassing as much as possible useful information to help a healthy, happy bond develop and be maintained between dog and guardian. Reactivity and fear will always be a topic of interest however, and may well develop more content as time goes on. I am currently trying to work on a list of topics for next year, along with some other exciting developments that I hope to have news on soon. Things are potentially afoot in the blue merle world.

Whatever the next year brings, I hope it is a good one, both for us here in the Blue Merle Minion household, and for anyone that reads and enjoys these blogs.

Happy New Year!

Aversives and the reactive dog

'Aversive' is a word that can often be seen in conversations about dog training techniques and methodology. The language that it is surrounded by when being discussed by force free dog professionals clearly show that aversive is regarded as a bad thing, but what actually is an aversive measure?

Aversive: tending to dissuade or repel, causing avoidance of an unpleasant or painful stimulus.

Most often, the word is being applied to particular pieces of equipment, such as shock or prong collars, or choke chains. All of these things are known to cause some element of pain or discomfort, and so it becomes clear that aversive definitely means bad. Aversive does not however end with these contraptions. Yelling, shoving and kicking are all aversive. It would be nice to think that most humans would be above using these physically violent ways of dealing with their dogs but sadly we know that is not the case.

The importance of the right support.

I have made no secret in the entries on this blog of the fact I am convinced support is absolutely vital to the reactive dog guardian. I believe it is one of the most important, if not THE most important aspect for the human part of the fearful dog/guardian relationship. We need to make sure we are in top condition to be able to help our frightened friends. In the past I have discussed that a number of groups and pages can be found on social media, particularly on Facebook.

This does come with some warning, however. Facebook (and social media on general) is a place where it can be hard to be sure exactly who you are dealing with, and if they are who they say they are. As reactivity and the difficulties of life with a fearful dog are becoming more openly acknowledged and discussed by knowledgeable and competent trainers, there are a rapidly growing number of these groups that can be found.

Fear cannot be reinforced!

I have literally just emerged from the darkness. It has been, for once, a sunny day here in my part of the world. I have missed a lot of it though.

One of Finn's long list of arch-nemeses is the window cleaner. This goes back to my very first attempt at introducing him to them when he was about eleven weeks old. He did not like the noise of the ladders at all, and I made the error of trying to force the issue. I know an awful lot more now than I did then, so I recognise the difference between the socialisation of just exposure and the good socialisation of doing it properly (and wrote about it previously). The poor little fella ended up peeing himself in fear. I have tried hard to mend the damage, but to no avail. As soon as he hears those ladders he's on edge and guarding the house.This is an example of what is known as single event learning. Finn encountered the window cleaners and their ladder once, and he has always remembered that he was scared, so to him they are a threat.

The more I learn, the less I know

There is one thing I have been seeing a lot online recently – people being defensive of the way that they handle their dogs, train their dogs and any decisions that they make for them. To an extent, I can understand the feeling. Nobody ever likes to find out that they may have been wrong about something, made the wrong decision or handled something the wrong way.

Understanding it does not mean that I accept it.

I regret many things about the way that I handled or trained my dogs in the past. In the beginning of my dog handling life, science was a long way behind where it is now when it comes to canine psychology. I grew up in the era of the Barbara Woodhouse methods. For those of us in the UK above a certain age, we will all remember standing there in front of our dogs, clearly enunciating the word ‘Sit!’ accompanied by a rapid hand movement upwards. Followed of course by a ‘correction’ on a choke chain if the command was not obeyed quickly enough. I have never been a cruel person by nature, and many have treated dogs far, far worse than I would ever dream of, even back then, but this was a nationally recognised and respected trainer on the television regularly, so she must be doing it right, it must be the right way to train dogs. (I know, believe me I know!)

Over time, science moved on but, to my shame, I did not for some time. Cognitive dissonance began to set in as I could not deny that things were not as they should be, that jarring feeling of mental discord as two opposing ideas war in the mind and there is a fight to avoid letting go of the way that things have always been. Deep down I knew better, but this was the way things had always been done and why should that change? After all, why should I bribe my dogs to do things? I put the roof over their heads; they should obey me through respect for me. I am happy to say that I never subscribed to the dominance theory, and there has always been an element of positive reinforcement in my training, so there is that at least that I can look back on with slightly less shame.

Then along came Finn. Scared of everything outside of a very small, safe bubble of space, even I realised that the methods I had always used would not work with him. Lacking so much confidence as he was and then developing reactivity meant that any kind of authoritative approach would only make things worse. The act of researching reactivity, and how to tackle the problem brought me to the concept of counter conditioning. At this point, I viewed Finn’s ‘aggression’ as a problem because I had yet to realise that Finn was not being difficult for the sake of it, but rather that he was finding aspects of his life difficult to cope with. I knew nothing about conditioning, save for a faint recognition of the concept of Pavlov’s dogs. I started reading about using high value food rewards as a way to change emotional connections to things. Despite thinking that I could tell without doubt if my dogs were happy or unhappy, I had never really thought about dogs having emotions to quite the extent that I now know they do. (And I also know that I could not tell how my dogs were feeling anywhere near as much as I thought I could!)

This is his 'you have treats hidden!' face

Seeing how Finn started to react to counter conditioning prompted me to start trying the (for me) novel idea of using treats for training along with the fuss and attention that had always played a part in my training methodology. Then I started wanting to know more about how I could help my scaredy-cat boy so I started studying. Then I discovered how to use a clicker. The rest, as the saying goes, is history. I have moved to a positive outlook. Do I have days when I get really annoyed because things are not going the way I want them to when working with my dog? Of course I do, I am human. On those days, we put the training plan away, hang out, and have fun instead. I am not perfect, by definition as a human being I cannot be. Neither is my dog. To be honest, I would not want him to be ‘perfect’ – there are things I would love to be easier about him, but then if they were, I would not be doing what I do now, and I really love the path my life is taking.

So no, I will not accept defensiveness when it comes to any decisions people have made when it comes to their dogs. If they are in the past, decisions cannot be changed and were hopefully made for the best of reasons. Keep up with the science, read the latest developments when it comes to anything to do with your dogs. Make sure you are as educated as you can possibly be, and then make each decision based on science, knowledge and good common sense, not because it is the way you have always done things. If that means that decisions made in the past have proved to be wrong, learn from it and do not make those mistakes again. There is honestly no shame from having done the wrong thing for what at the time were thought to be the right reasons. We can all only ever do the very best that we are capable of. We are beholden however to make sure we are capable of making the best decisions possible.

The title of this blog sums up my attitude to the subject of dogs now. There is so much more to educate myself about and develop my skills in. Learn to develop and change as the scope of human knowledge regarding canine psychology, health, coaching and all-round well-being continues to grow. Your dogs deserve nothing less.

Accentuate the positive

Some of the comments and messages I have received on the last post have brought this subject to mind. Some commenters have observed that I appear to concentrate on the negative aspects of my walks with my reactive dog. In reality that fact is not true, but I do tend to concentrate on relating them here. In trying to relate to others with fearful dogs that struggle, I am guilty of not detailing all of our successes.

As all of us living with reactive dogs know, it can be incredibly mentally and emotionally draining. Dreading the prospect of the daily walk, being on high alert the entire time for any potential triggers, and that toe-curling, cringing embarrassment that follows 'that' look from other people if your dog reacts towards them will all drag you down if they continue without respite. Fortunately, there are things that you can do to lift your mood very soon after putting any plan to help your fearful dog into action.

Zero steps forward, two steps back?

Two blogs three days apart rarely happens these days, but I want to relate what happened this morning and analyse it a little, to show why setbacks should not be allowed to get you down.

For various health reasons, I have not been able to walk Finn regularly for a while. In fact for the last month, my husband has been responsible for the walking duties, supplemented with enrichment at home with me to help make up for the shortfall. I am much better and so back in the saddle, so to speak, and took him out this morning.

As our regular walks do, we went out a little after 4.30 a.m. while it was still very dark and cold. I was expecting Finn to be keen and maybe forget some of his loose lead walking manners as it had been a while. Yes, we did head out of our gate at home at a fair speed, but he settled down to walk beautifully within seconds, having a lovely time stopping here and there for a sniff and to catch up on what is going on in the local canine community via the 'noticeboard' (lamp post 😄). There was one incident of lunging a few minutes in as a cat ran across the road in the light from one of the street lamps and Finn got a bit excitable and tried to take off, but he was easily distracted by crossing the road in the opposite direction and a few tasty liver treats.

Be kind to yourself

Following the recent theme of focusing on the wellbeing of the reactive dog guardian, given how much information is available to help us help our fearful dog, I want to use a short entry to make an important point.

So much of the literature that focuses on reactive dogs and improving their thresholds etc discusses the biological processes of stress and what it does inside and outside of the dog. There are countless books and websites that tell us about the stress hormones and how they affect dogs on both a short and long term basis, with the associated mental, physical and emotional health risks that come to a dog that is living with long term, constant stress.

What just happened? What do I do now?

It seems my last entry on here struck a chord with a lot of people who are or have been where I have been with Finn. I’ve had messages from people all over telling me that it made them cry as they recognised someone else going through the same thing, or in some cases realised that they aren’t actually alone. It can feel so very lonely at the other end of that lead, I know, and I’m so glad that I have been able to reach people and let them know that it’s ok, there are more of us out here than you realise and, most importantly, there is help and support for your dogs and, every bit as important, for YOU.

Following the response to that last blog, I want to spend a little time just talking about the support available, how to find it and some things to avoid. Where you should turn when you’ve got home from one of those difficult walks and you don’t know what on earth to do. That’s what this blog title relates to – not the reaction to the last entry, but that confused, lost feeling when your dog reacts to something for the first time.

When he looks at me like this, I can forgive everything 😍

The emotional toll of reactivity

Get a dog, they said. It'll be fun, they said. Think of all those great, social dog walks, they said.

So why am I stumbling around a field at 4.30 in the morning?

I've had a number of dogs over the years. All have had their distinct personalities, but all were fairly easy going, and liked meeting people and going to places. Owning a dog meant that people would sometimes smile as we walked past them in the street, children would come up and ask if they could fuss them, and our dogs loved all of the attention.

And then along came Finn.

Crash, boom, bang!

One of the things that I find hard about having dogs is the fact that there are so many potentially scary or upsetting situations that our dogs can encounter and we have no easy way of explaining to them that they are safe, as we could with another human.

It's that time of year again in the UK. I come from near a town in the south east of England called Lewes, and Bonfire Night is a HUGE deal around here. Bonfire season starts in my local area on the last weekend in September and goes on until the weekend or so after Bonfire Night itself on 5th November. With bonfires come the real potential issue - fireworks.

'But he always does it at home!'

It's a scenario that many of us have been in. Your dog is a rockstar in training at home. The cue 'sit' has his back end on the ground before you can blink. Down sees him flat on the ground, looking at you attentively. 'Stay' results in a motionless dog, concentrating entirely on you as he waits to be released.

Okay, so maybe those might be a little exaggerated - most of our dogs are, after all, works in progress - but let us say that your dog has got a good handle on basic cues in the house and garden.

You take him out for a walk and meet up with some other people in the local off lead dog friendly fields. You see something up ahead and think that you'd like to keep your dog back for a few moments while you have a chance to make sure of what's going on. Confidently, you instruct your off lead dog to sit. Your dog, meanwhile, has also seen something up ahead and is merrily frolicking off to discover what it is. You turn to your friends and say 'I don't understand, he does it every single time at home!'

Socialisation matters.

Socialisation is a word that is seen everywhere in regard to dog training. One of the first things we are told when first contemplating getting a puppy is that they must be socialised. This is of course true and very important. What a lot of sources of information fail to tell us however is that there is a difference between socialisation and good socialisation.

The first socialisation Finn had on coming home - meeting his new big brother (and stealing his tennis ball!)

'We're stuck at home and the dog is bored!'

In my last entry I looked at a couple of ways to exercise your dog's brain if you are restricted to home for any reason. Today, I am going to go through a few training exercises and games that Finn and I do in the house or garden on days when we don't get out for a long walk, or we are on a 'cortisol break' following a difficult encounter with one of his triggers.

A half blown up football has always been a favoured toy

With a big enough garden, a game of fetch or frisbee is possible, but there are more constructive and interactive things that you can do. Being restricted to home for whatever reason gives a great opportunity to come up with new ways to have some interactive fun with your dog and to build and strengthen your bond.

Mental exercise matters too!

One of the first things that everyone learns about dogs is that they need walking. We all come into our dog owning lives envisioning wonderful relaxed walks, watching our dogs joyously gambolling around green spaces, playing with other dogs and having a marvellous time once or twice a day.

For some of us, those visions come to a screeching halt. For those of us with reactive dogs, the very act of going out for a walk becomes an experience potentially filled with stress that cannot be imagined if you have not experienced it. I speak from experience - my old dog is one I can take anywhere, he's incredibly easy to have around as he loves all people and gets along merrily with all dogs.

My young dog, on the other hand, is not easy. I would love to be able to take him rambling around the countryside but he's reactive to both people and other dogs, so the only way we get a relaxed walk where he can run loose and both of us get home having enjoyed ourselves is to go out at four in the morning. Yawn inducing but pleasant enough in summer, but it becomes rather more of a chore the further into autumn we progress.

Quadrants of what now?

“Oh, I don’t want to use FOOD to train my dog. They should obey me because they WANT to.”

I have no idea how many times I have heard something like the above statement, and it puzzles me every single time. Why should your dog want to obey you? What is in it for them? (Disclaimer – I do realise that some dogs are not as motivated by food as other forms of reward, but food does work for the majority.

What is trigger stacking?

Not trigger stacked!

Imagine a scenario for me. You are in the supermarket and get into a queue to pay for your shopping. You may not have much, and anticipate getting out of there smoothly, without hassle. Someone cuts in line in front of you. It’s annoying, but they only have a couple of items and give you a big friendly smile. It really is not that big a deal, so although it could be considered annoying, you leave it and avoid the aggravation.

Let us rewind now to earlier in the day…

Why loose dogs can be a problem

It happened again the other day.

I was talking to someone about my dogs and was interrupted with the statement ‘You need to get that reactive dog trained.’ Obviously the scales fell from my eyes immediately. If only I’d thought of that before. Some magical training and my dog would no longer be reactive!

Yes, that’s sarcasm. I’m sorry, it’s sort of what I do some of the time. Sometimes when you live with a reactive dog you have to find ways to laugh as otherwise you would spend half of your life in tears.

Anyone that has read my blog in the past has met Finn, but just in case anyone is new,

A Sunday silly

Just having some fun with a picture of Finn during his muzzle training 😁

A musing on ‘canine comedy’

I have recently picked up my first canine related job – finding pictures, videos and articles to post on a canine business related Facebook page. There are some amazingly funny and informative pages around and I have been learning a lot in my searches. However, I keep seeing pictures and videos posted all over the place claiming to be showing ‘hilarious’ images or clips of dogs. There is one single thing that links all of these posts, and it is not any kind of hilarity.

Cute only goes so far

Today in a Facebook group I am a member of someone posted a link to a news article reporting the fact that dogs that are ‘not cute enough’ are being left in shelters as people only want particular breeds (link at the bottom of this entry for anyone interested).

That alone is enough to rankle, but the list of most requested breeds also pricked at my irritation levels. Pugs, French Bulldogs and miniature Dachshunds. All of these breeds have serious genetic health issues prevalent in their breeds. Pugs and French Bulldogs are both bracycephalic. They are short snouted, giving them that apparently ‘cute’ appearance. In the cases of many examples of these breeds, they are also given an extreme difficulty in breathing and many require surgery to be able to manage a normal biological survival process. Their skulls are so shortened that their brains can actually be physically rearranged.

A Pondering on Reactive Dogs

As I have said on a number of posts, I have a reactive dog. His name is Finn, he is an adolescent Border Collie and he is scared of a lot of the world. His fear manifests as barking, growling and lunging. I have lost count of the times people have looked down their noses at me for having such an ‘aggressive’ dog. I used to spend a lot of time saying ‘Sorry, he’s reactive,’ which made no difference at all.

That has got me thinking now. Are we being unfair to our reactive dogs by using that label? Yes, it is a logical one – a dog demonstrating fear aggression is reacting to a trigger. My question is does everyone else out in the wider world understand what is meant by reactivity?

A post about consent.

Consent is something a lot of people don't tend to think much about when it comes to dogs.

Sometimes people have asked me if they can make a fuss of my dog (this is my older dog, or previous dogs. Finn makes sure that no one he does not know wants to come anywhere near arm's length of him!) and I have always said yes, as my previous dogs have always liked people. In fact Red, my older dog right now, gets very concerned if children seem worried by him.

I remember a couple of years ago we went to a jousting exhibition event and took him with us. While we were watching a display of firearms through the ages (Red took ZERO notice of the extremely noisy cannon going off 30 feet away, despite the people doing the display saying that all dogs in the area would run!). There was a little girl with her family near us. When she saw Red, she took a sharp breath in and edged away. I just stayed where I was, holding his lead. Red looked back and forth between me and this girl a couple of times then, despite all the noise going on, dropped to roll in the grass next to me and do that INCREDIBLY cute thing they do with both paws over their eyes and muzzle, peeking out at this girl every few seconds to make sure she was still looking at him. Yes, he's a tart 💖💖 After a few minutes he sat back up next to me, on the side so he was between me and this girl who then (admittedly without permission) stretched out a hand and just stroked a fingertip up his ear. The one time I didn't mind not being asked, because that dog was just SO happy this girl had made the tiniest little fuss of him. He had quite the fan club by the end of the day, with the couple of other kids that loved making a fuss of him.

So yes - asking the owner is important. But - even more important to my mind - is whether the DOG wants to be fussed. There may be any number of reasons for the owner to say no - dog is in training, or is an assistance dog, can be easily scared by quick movements, or they've recently adopted the dog and aren't entirely sure how he'll react, just to list a few - but even if they say yes, if the dog says no, that's it.

This flow chart by the hugely talented Emma Judson illustrates this nicely:

Emma does commercial illustration and can be found here: Cartoon 'Ems and is also the hugely talented pen behind Foul Mouthed Fido

Great graphic about on-lead dogs!

Superb graphic here from Streetwise Dogs who can be found on Facebook at Streetwise Dogs - Holistic Dog Behaviour & Training

Public Service Announcement (yes, it's a video that needs to be watched)

If you watch one video today, make it this one. It could save endless heartache, dogs' lives and possibly kids' lives as well.  Find a course somewhere (yep, I'm going to pimp Canine Principles again because their courses are amazing and fascinating) and learn the essentials of canine body language to keep you, your dogs and everyone around you safe. Dogs and kids can be safe together, but you have to know the signs that the dog is not happy and respect them. Always respect what the dog is telling you - they don't WANT to bite, it's a last resort, so learn how they warn you WAY before it gets to that stage.

Michigan Pet Fund Alliance's FB video