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.