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.

As much as we might wish it, there is no magic wand that can be waved to make the difficulties of reactivity go away. It is truly a process, and one that has no set timetable for progression. Every dog is an individual. One fearful dog's reactivity to other dogs will be slightly different to any other dog's reactivity to other dogs, and that holds true for any form of reactivity. They will all respond to a behaviour modification program at a different rates, and there will be days when it feels as if progression has gone backwards.

Posted before, but it is one of my favourite pictures

How then to survive the ups and downs and the bad days with mental and emotional health intact? I refer you back to the title of this entry (and apologies if I've given anyone an earworm - I have been mentally singing ever since typing it!), as the answer is to concentrate on the positive aspects.

As said earlier, behaviour modification for reactivity is a process which takes place via a multitude of small steps. The healthiest way to look at things with regard to progression is to largely ignore the bigger picture. Do not look at the whole issue, but instead focus on those steps. Celebrate every little victory, every step forward. This counts even if it is steps to regain progress lost through a blip. Every single improvement is something to be happy about. So, in this post, I am going to share some of the little victories that Finn and I have had on our journey so far. This is a dog that, in the beginning, would react as soon as a person he didn't know or another dog came into sight, and went into meltdown at the mere sound of children anywhere nearby.

We have been using a counter conditioning process. This means careful exposure to triggering stimuli (in Finn's case, people, dogs and especially children) at a distance that keeps him under threshold while using ultra high value rewards. Importantly, these high value rewards should only be given when the trigger is present, and be packed away the instant that the trigger is out of view. The dog only ever gets these ultimate goodies when the scary thing is around. Therefore, over time, the reaction becomes 'there's the scary thing, I get ALL the good stuff' and the dog turns his attention to his handler, anticipating his tasty reward.

As Finn's threshold distance has been decreasing, we have also been adding in some LAT training - 'Look At That' is what the acronym stands for. When a trigger comes along, now that Finn can often be calmer, we move to a safe distance and then he is asked 'look at that.' Every time he looks calmly at the stimuli and then back at me, he gets rewarded. The fact that we have managed to reach a point where we can use LAT training is a victory all by itself. I have to use careful judgement to ensure LAT is a good idea on any particular day. If Finn has in any way been triggered by anything earlier in the walk, he will not be calm enough to be able to respond.

It may seem at times that no progress is being made when seeing triggers out and about, but there will still be positives to be found. One of the first things I ever noticed with Finn was his recovery time shortening after having reacted. Early on in the process, a reaction would mean that he would be pulling, frothing and foaming the entire rest of the way home, whether that took ten minutes or an hour. Over time, his recovery time has shortened down so that now he can go from full on reacting to giving me back his attention and walking with mostly a loose lead inside a couple of minutes. This is a massive improvement that so often gets missed. Yes, if we see another trigger on that day, he will react again, but then he will calm again in just a few minutes. This may be the first sign of improvement that you notice. Although it makes little difference to what is seen by others, it makes a massive difference to your dog!

Cheating slightly as this is Red, my non reactive dog but he's beautiful and doesn't feature on here often!

Finn used to react very strongly to anything he didn't like on the television screen. The list was very long - any animal, any person moving towards the screen, people running,  women crying and women about to cry, anyone breathing heavily. One that struck me as particularly strange was overweight people, as I am hardly what could be called svelte! And the one time 'Obese: A Year to Save My Life' was on and he saw the person on there running, the TV nearly went flying! (I suspect it is linked to the dislike of heavy breathing sounds in truth). This one actually improved without me actively doing anything about it. Because of the amount of things he reacted to on there, it was almost impossible to predict when something was going to turn up and so I couldn't redirect before it happened. However, whenever anyone would knock on the door or ring the doorbell, Finn has been taught to go into the kitchen so we can shut him behind a baby gate for safety. He has adopted the position that the kitchen is his safe place now. If anything he doesn't like appears on the screen (and that's also improving as he chills about life in general with the counter conditioning etc.) he will glance at me and take himself out to the kitchen for a bit of a timeout and calming session. It's a great example of how dogs can make associations about things without us initially being aware. People at the door scare him, but the kitchen has always been safe when they are there, so it's a safe place to go when anything bothers him. From several times a day charging the TV with hackles raised, it might be a couple of months or more now. That makes life at home in the evenings much more pleasant.

In terms of other people and dogs, there are good days and bad days. People on the other side of the road may require a good staring at, but these days, it is as much nosiness as anything fear related, so long as they are just walking along minding their own business. Anyone loitering might get a growl, but he will nine times out of ten keep walking along with me. Dogs are less successful than strange people, his ideal distance for them is still quite big, but on a really good day when the whole walk has been peaceful, he has managed to largely ignore a dog ahead on the other side of the road, with maybe a bit of a pull until we can cross the road and let him follow the scent trail for a few strides.

Children have been a major issue for Finn. For safety, we haven't tested him out walking with children around for a while. He does get to see children though. We have a set of gates across the driveway down the side of our house. If we are doing things in the bits of garden in the front of the house, the dogs can have the run of the garden and this part behind the gates so they can play but still come out and see where we are, and bring toys for us to throw for them or whatever. You get quite used to gardening and suddenly having a half inflated football whizz past your eyes! He can clearly see people, dogs and children going past on the road. We live in a village, but in the densely populated part, so there are often people and families walking past. In the beginning, he be barking furiously through the gate but has now progressed to the point that he will watch anyone go past on the pavement quietly, even children on bikes (cyclists have mostly been for chasing in Finn's world historically. It's a work in progress, like everything else). We can now say hi to our neighbours when they are outside of their house, and they can say hi back without him launching into orbit.

There may be all kinds of 'little' things that your reactive dog improves with. Keeping a diary can be a good way to note positive progress in those little factors. It is important to realise the progress that you are making and to celebrate each victory, no matter how small or inconsequential it may seem. Living with a reactive dog is hard. Accentuate the positive, eliminate the negative. I don't often take advice from old songs, but this is a definite exception to the rule!