Inspiring post by Sarah Owings

On the functional rewards yahoo group (where people discuss BAT), Sarah Owings wrote this post:

"Today was my last session with Fitz, the bull terrier, (which I'm really sad
about because I love this dog:( ). After two months of solid foundational work,
for today's session I decided to try for some vast-distance parallel walking a
la Turid Rugaas with a little P- thrown in for any barking and lunging. Irith
was kind enough to come help with her dog Franklin.

Fitzy has no fear or any real aggression issues it turns out. He is just Mr.
PUMPED, is an adrenaline addict, and clearly wants to get to the other dog!!! At
one point when Franklin was politely sniffing and ignoring him, Fitz started
barking and it was like "HEY! HEY! HEY! Look at me! Look at me!" Fitz's greeting
and play style are just too over the top for on leash ... and besides I don't
encourage on leash greetings very often anyway--and definitely no play. The
metaphor I came up with today about "proper leash etiquette" was this:

On leash it's like going to a fancy dinner party. You don't get to throw food
and have pillow fights.

Off leash--if the dogs are compatible, listening to each other's cut of signals
and equally willing--then you can have more of a party time... And at some point
we may try and hook Fitzy up with a more compatible play partner. (He needs a
fellow line backer-body slamming-tackling type and Franklin is more of a chase
me--intellectual-chess-player type).

Fitz's owners have been working a lot with the on-off switch game, auto orient,
relax on a mat and doggie zen. In other words LOTS and LOTS of foundation stuff
before attempting even going near a dog.

He wasn't perfect today, but all that hard work has clearly paid off. Even when
he barked, it was short lived and he "turned off" quickly, and 90% of the time
defaulted to an auto-check in.

We started the session with a full street width plus about 50' distance. Calm
behavior meant Fitz got to move towards the other dog. Lunging meant a U-turn,
walk away from the dog and mom gets boring for a minute until Fitz calms himself
down. (Which he did within 5 seconds every time).

Very quickly, the lunging and barking reduced dramatically. And then as we
walked the two dogs up and down on opposite sides of the street, Fitz started
making very conscious good choices. Looking away, checking with mom, sniffing,
etc.

Things were going so well, we tried a new idea. With Fitz calmly sitting, we had
Franklin approach on an arc and with low intensity. Fitz could do this! Any good
signaling on Fitz's part like head turns brought Franklin a little closer. Any
tension or intensity and Franklin left.

Fitz threw many lovely signals at this point: head turns, sitting, even laying
down!! Irith brought Franklin to about 20' with this approach and the two dogs
even sent each other what looked like some "I'm interested but not too
interested" signals.

Then we reversed it and let Fitz follow after Franklin. Any intensity on his
part and it was an immediate U-turn and boring mommy again. Calm, he got to move
forward.

Long story short, the dogs were soon able to have a polite sniff--disengage and
were even then able to sit side by side for a minute and ignore each other while
both dogs got treats.

During a couple of the initial advance--retreats Fitz tried a couple times to
initiate play by jumping up on Franklin and once got a tiny bit
mouthy/snarky--which may have been play as well--but he got a U-turn for that...
Because we want to teach him that on-leash does not mean play time. But we also
saw some nice sniffing-arcing and soft body postures between the two dogs as
well.

In the end both dogs were laying down about 10' from each other calmly and then
parallel walked about 10-15" from each other back to the car.

My clients were super happy to know that their dog is not aggressive and that it
is possible for him to be civilized around other dogs. When they first hired me
a couple months ago, his explosive outbursts at almost any distance just made
them too scared to try him with another dog until now.

I was delighted because I was not expecting this much success in one day. Whoo
hoo.

Sorry this is long. I just wanted to share. It wasn't BAT but a good combination
of foundation work, self control, and Premack. I find Fitzy a really interesting
case because I had to bend the formula for reactivity quite a bit. And he taught
me a lot. But it worked!

:)

--Sarah

_________________
Sarah Owings
KPA Certified Training Partner
sowings@bridgesdogtraining.com
(818) 415-0436

Bridges Dog Training, Los Angeles
www.bridgesdogtraining.com


For the foundation behaviors, see:

Leslie McDevitt's On-off Switch Game
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yIbVixSZ9Mw


And Doggie Zen a la Canis Clicker Training
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XmFCuB7pL2I


--Sarah

Weekly BAT practice

 Cynthia and I have been meeting with our dogs for weekly BAT practice each Tuesday. I think it's incredibly helpful--much to my surprise, because distance doesn't seem to be his functional reward. Getting closer and greeting is what he wants, but not what he can have with Cynthia's dogs (who are also reactive). Yet  BAT seems to be reducing his meltdowns and his threshold distance to other dogs. Now, after several practice sessions, if I do miscalculate and let him go over threshold a little bit, he's much more likely to tip over into his "oh boy, I see someone, please please please let's go say hi" stress whining (which is the same reaction he gives to new people, if I take too long to set him up to go say hi), rather than his "I'm freaking out, so let's scream and lunge." He had one momentary meltdown on Tuesday when an unleashed dog ran by, but that was really because of me, not him (I don't think he even saw the dog; I think he was reacting to my haste to get back to the crate, and to our training partner as well).

So that's progress.

Perhaps it's the motion that rewards him, perhaps it's the bones that I toss on his bed for him when we retreat after a successful advance, perhaps it's just the weekly practice. And perhaps distance really is rewarding. Whatever it is,
I'm happy with his progress (and pleased with my ability to stay calmer and read his signals better, so I can keep him under threshold more consistently).


Hunters are walking by our fences on the farm, something with their dogs. Frank mentioned that Vanya was running along the fence barking at them. Not good!  So yesterday I asked Remy, one of our farm volunteers, to pretend to be a hunter with a dog, so I could offer Vanya lavish rewards for staying calm. Remy put on some blaze orange, carried a pretend-gun over his shoulder, and walked Miss PLushy on a leash up and down the fence line. Vanya was thoroughly fooled and got very excited--lots of peeing and marking and woo-wooing. I didn't do BAT; instead I played LAT with cheese as the reward. He got the idea quickly, although a couple times he did run up to the fence (but his recall worked and he came bounding back for his cheese).


Good dog! He's got the zoomies today, because I've been mostly sick in bed with the flu, and that's very boring for a dog. For a little while, he curled up in bed with me, snoring with his muzzle on my face and his paws flung over my shoulder. Then he decided a roaring attack on the slippers would be entertaining. He has a little fungus/staph infection under his arms, poor thing, so 2 baths in two days with the malaseb. It looks better already. 


I loathe being sick. Especially when I have 6 talks to write for the Van Evera lectures at Northland College, taxes to do, classes to prepare for next week, blah blah blah. 

Happy dog

Vanya is a wonderful dog. I usually post about his rough days, so people get the impression that he's always a handful. But 99.9% of the time, he's the world's most perfect dog. On the farm, he bounds around, greeting people with endless joy, and working hard at his various jobs:
1. sniffing the apple orchard for voles
2. patrolling the prairie restoration for bunnies
3. sleeping under the oak tree
4. checking every person on the farm to see if they've had their daily allotment of kisses
5. greeting all strangers at the gate with wags and kisses, and then escorting them down the gravel drive.

When I come home from an endless day of boring faculty meetings and he hears me at the gate, my heart leaps when he wiggles into the car to kiss me and thunk me with his wagging tail. Then he hops out of the car and races  me down the driveway, running along the fence line as fast as lightening. When Frank lets him into my office and he comes zooming around the corner, he sees me and his face lights up--he wags his tail so hard, he sometimes falls over. How can a girl help but be moved? If a guy loved me with such devotion, I'd be creeped out. But with Vanya, he makes me happy.

So: for those of you readers who think I'm some sort of a saint for putting up with this dog: he's worth every moment! He brings joy to our lives. He may scream at the sight of new dogs, but here are all the things that he's good at:
1. he's great at leaping
2. and bounding
3. he never shows any separation anxiety.
4. every person on earth seems to be his friend
5. if you need him to go away so you can get some work done, he's not offended. He just goes off and snoozes.
6. he's brilliant at being engaged with the world


Perhaps it's the most challenging dogs who are best at worming  their way into our hearts. Or maybe it's just Vanya. He's a nut, but he's the best nut around

BAT practice

Vanya was practicing BAT today with Cynthia and her dog Dottie (their blog is http://operationgustav.blogspot.com/ . Vanya was remarkably calm, not even whining (!), and able to get fairly close, glance at Dottie and back at me, then run merrily back to his bed for his peanut-butter smeared bone. 

He didn't even get too excited when Dottie started playing tug with her owner Cynthia. When he noticed them playing, he did get excited, whining and wagging his tail and bouncing around in his version of play bows--so we doubled the distance and he calmed back down. 

All was going remarkably well until behind us suddenly appeared a lady with 3 HUGE dogs, who began leaping and lunging and roaring on their leashes at Vanya. Oy! So much for staying under threshold. At first he started yelping, rather than lunging or barking, and I bundled him into the car where he threw a bit of a fit, trying to scramble over his crate for a better view. Luckily the woman got her dogs into her car, although it seemed to take her ages and ages.

He calmed down fairly well, but not completely of course, and we ended the session after a few more games that I hoped would help him settle down some more (sniffing the grass, greeting our plushy fake dog, trotting along the trails). 

Unfortunately, he strained his front foot when he was trying to climb over his crate for a better view. Now he's limping, so he'll have a few days on leashed walks only--no chasing gophers in the grass, poor pup.

I think having weekly practice sessions with Cynthia and her dogs will help him a lot--especially if we find a place where I don't have to worry about so many dog walkers. 

Vanya update

Even though Vanya hasn't had any updates recently, he's doing just fine. I was off in NW Ontario for a month doing my field research, and Ontario has a pit bull ban, so Vanya didn't get to come along. Instead, he spent August hanging out on the Little Sugar River Farm with Frank and a bunch of WWOOFers (Worldwide Willing Organic Volunteers--people who come and work on the farm half time for a few weeks,  in exchange for room and board). Vanya adored having all the attention. Plus the guests at the guesthouse give him tons of love. So he was a happy boy--no commands, no expectations, just a lot of college kids to jump on and kiss, and a lot of gophers to hunt in the gardens. Now, of course, he acts like he never heard of impulse control games, or anything else for that matter.  He got into certain bad habits I thought he had long ago lost: the zoomies, mainly, where he runs around in circles, trying to get a person to play in the same over-excited way he tries to get other dogs to play.

He's so happy, I can't  help but wonder: why exactly do I keep trying to do all this dog-socialization with him? We live so far from other dogs, when we're down on the farm, that it's always quite the drive to go find decoy dogs. In his normal life, he could go for a decade and never lay eyes on another dogs (this is how Tiva deals with her dog-reactivity. She just ignores it. We all ignore it. Back before she came to the farm, she lived a life of lunging and barking at dogs when she was being walked, leashed, on the city streets, and her former owners used a  prongs to get her to be quiet. It worked, but she looked miserable. She perked right up when she came to the farm and stopped seeing other dogs on the street. Problem solved, more or less.)

Two main reasons to calm Vanya down:
1. So we can go camping and hiking in public together, without me worrying about him.
2. Potentially, so we can get another dog when Tiva dies. Or alternatively, so we can find dog playmates for Vanya, so he doesn't get completely starved of new dog interactions.

But some dogs are happier having human companionship, right? Vanya may be one of those: a dog who wants to be the only dog in a household. Or we may just decide we don't want to worry about the continual household management that goes with Vanya + another dog.

Such a good dog...

Vanya has been a real champ lately. Last night, our kayaking group came over for a bonfire after a sunset paddle around the point, and Vanya reacted to them with his usual unbridled enthusiasm (minus the jumping up, mostly). When he realized that two guys were already down at the fire pit, he ran off down to greet them and he did launch himself into the first guy's lap for a cuddle. "Strangers? Who's a stranger?" Vanya asks.  "I'm licking his chin, so how can he be a stranger?"

A few times throughout the evening, he hopped up onto the table for a treat (no, Vanya, you're not a lapdog. You're not even a table-top dog.) But mostly he lay on his bed chewing on his kong, with occasional jaunts around the fire to greet everyone all over again.

Otherwise, he's been entertaining himself by barking at the waves down at the water, chasing chipmunks, snoozing in the sun, scrambling over rock falls, and tracking down his treats. I had to go down to the Twin Cities for my friend's funeral, and he handled the 12 hours alone in the cabin calmly.

Good dog, Vanya! We haven't seen any other dogs for a while, which contributes to his calmness, of course. He misses the farm, the gophers, and playing with Tiva--but Tiva's getting a bit to old to play in the summer heat anyway.

Winter play