Counter conditioning without food?

[ZOFIA WISNIEWSKA]

Hi!

New here but figured I’d post right away since I’m desperate for help 😅 

Walking my dog is currently so bad it makes me want to cry. The moment I allow him to step out the door, he goes tail up, head up, tense, like he’s instantly overstimulated.

I always calm him down before I move from the door, get him to heel, look at me, and so on, but he just can’t seem to switch off for more than a moment. He pulls, he lunges at random things he spots, he barks at nothing or at the sky. I think generally dogs are the biggest issue as he lies down and refuses to move as soon as he spots a dog and then lunges if the dog gets closer. Sometimes I can get him to change direction and walk away if I’m quick with a “Turn” command before he lies down but often there’s another dog there since I live in the city and in a dog-dense area. 

Full disclosure, I haven’t done the courses yet but I did have a look at the case studies and specifically at Homer. Now I have learned about counter-conditioning before, but the problem I have is that as long as there is a dog anywhere in sight, he’s just completely uninterested in food. And yes, I tried store-bought, self-made, raw, human food, all kinds - nothing interests him. If a dog is far enough sometimes he will absent-mindedly take the treat while staring at the dog but I think he does it more as a “I’ll take it if you want me to” rather than a reward. 

Odd thing is, this has only been happening for maybe a month. I don’t believe anything particular happened to trigger this. Previously he’d do the lie down and sometimes pull on the leash a little but there was no tension and barking and lunging. I also spent all of last week at my boyfriend’s place with my dog and he was completely different on the walks there - yes, he’d stare and lie down when he saw dogs but he was able to listen to me otherwise, didn’t bark at nothing, didn’t seem tense. As soon as we got back to my place and stepped out of the car he went tail up and started barking on the corridor. So it seems like it’s also location-specific? 

I am really frustrated with this, it seems whatever I try either doesn’t work at all or works for a moment and then stops working. For example, I tried just marking focus and attention, so if he’d look at me or be close by I’d say “yes!” and give him a treat if he came up. And as soon as I started doing that, he would focus heel half the walk, unprompted, I’d tell him to go sniff or go potty and he would do that and come back. And that made me so happy and suddenly one day he just stopped doing that. Like if he looks and I say ‘yes’ he will just continue on.

It’s come to the point where I just genuinely dread going on walks, they are so stressful and embarrassing for me. We come back from the walk and I’m on the verge of tears.

He’s a 1.5yo BC, unfixed. 

[ZOFIA WISNIEWSKA]

Like this morning, we had an actually decent walk, with some lie downs and staring but no barking or lunging so that was nice. And I was quite happy about it until we got back to the apartment building and as soon as he walked in he lunged at the door because he saw his reflection in the glass…

[Adrienne Farricelli]

Hi there!

Welcome to the forums!

It sounds like your dog it way too over threshold for him to accept food.

How old is your dog?

What breed is he?

Does he have any herding blood? I ask because herding dogs typically engage in a crouch-like posture when seeing other dogs. 

 

 

[Adrienne Farricelli]

Sorry, just noticed right now that you mentioned he's a 1.5 year old or border collie. 

So I am going to take little snippets of your text and share my thoughts. 

Now I have learned about counter-conditioning before, but the problem I have is that as long as there is a dog anywhere in sight, he’s just completely uninterested in food. And yes, I tried store-bought, self-made, raw, human food, all kinds - nothing interests him. 

So one important facet of counterconditioning is that it works best when combined with desensitization. Your dog is showing signs of being over threshold. If we don't lower threshold it would be difficult for counterconditioning alone to work (it can still work, but it will take longer and there will be more room for setbacks). Here is  a read about threshold levels: https://www.braintraining4dogs.com/members/archive/threshold-levels/

Here is a read about desensitization: https://www.braintraining4dogs.com/members/archive/desensitization/

If a dog is far enough sometimes he will absent-mindedly take the treat while staring at the dog but I think he does it more as a “I’ll take it if you want me to” rather than a reward. 

This is a good sign! Remember that when taking a treat during counterconditioning, we are not looking to reward behaviors, but creating positive associations. It doesn't matter how he takes the treat. Actually, taking treats absent-mindedly is often a starting point. The more he does it, the more it will start "to register" more and more eventually. For challenging cases where keeping under threshold is difficult, I sometimes need to smear a little canned food on the dog's lips to get them started, the behavior may seem mechanical at first, but with time it gets better. I call the treats given this way "chill pills" because it seems like with time, the dog starts to eventually calm enough to take the treats more rationally and it paves the path for behavior modification. Make a mental note of this distance, it's a starting point, although ideally, I prefer starting from a distance where the dog takes the treats in a more relaxed state or working more on teaching better coping skills altogether before going on walks where triggers are present. 

Now if you have a nice window with a view over dogs walking by the road (or having some volunteers), you can even start with that to implement some 'look at that exercises" as discussed here:  https://www.braintraining4dogs.com/members/brain-training/university/look-at-that/

Odd thing is, this has only been happening for maybe a month. I don’t believe anything particular happened to trigger this. Previously he’d do the lie down and sometimes pull on the leash a little but there was no tension and barking and lunging. I also spent all of last week at my boyfriend’s place with my dog and he was completely different on the walks there - yes, he’d stare and lie down when he saw dogs but he was able to listen to me otherwise, didn’t bark at nothing, didn’t seem tense. As soon as we got back to my place and stepped out of the car he went tail up and started barking on the corridor. So it seems like it’s also location-specific? 

It's likely that your location has a strong rehearsal history. Your dog may have formed strong associations with the area and rehearsing the barking/lunging behavior so much so that once he sets foot there he goes into "reactive mode."

I am really frustrated with this, it seems whatever I try either doesn’t work at all or works for a moment and then stops working. For example, I tried just marking focus and attention, so if he’d look at me or be close by I’d say “yes!” and give him a treat if he came up. And as soon as I started doing that, he would focus heel half the walk, unprompted, I’d tell him to go sniff or go potty and he would do that and come back. And that made me so happy and suddenly one day he just stopped doing that. Like if he looks and I say ‘yes’ he will just continue on.

There are good chances that things are working well for a moment and then something happens that causes him to go over threshold or he struggles keeping his attention on you for too long, which is normal if we haven't worked much on adding duration to a behavior. However, the good news is that he has shown you the potential for being capable of paying attention. If you reinforce those glimpses of attention, and work on maintaining low threshold levels, you should be getting more and more of these successful episodes.

Remember: In classical counterconditioning: we feed treats to form positive associations with triggers

In operant conditioning: we feed treats to reinforce desirable behaviors. 

If a dog is too over threshold, operant conditioning becomes difficult. The dog cannot cognitively function to rationally perform a behavior. The dog is in a fight or flight state, think trying to solve a math problem when you are on a sky scraper and scared of heights. If we though work on making triggers less worrisome through classical counterconditioning, the good news is that paves the path for our cognitive functioning to open up. If the person scared of heights is offered some form of therapy to make heights less scary, he or she will eventually be able to solve that math problem.

If he's struggling, it's therefore OK to work around strong distractions by tossing some treats to the ground for him to go chasing after. Just for the sake of making him get through that critical moment without barking or lunging and hoping for a change in the mindset to piggy back as well "Oh a dog!  Now, where are those fun treats to chase?"

We can always practice some steps of flashy attention heeling before tossing the treat later on in the next sessions, but we really want initially to come home with some little successes to build on. Sometimes, it's best to cut a walk short and come home with some nice success rather than walking a bit more and encountering a set back.

For this reason, the advice of putting a halt on walks (or keeping them brief) until the dog has shown the ability to be less over threshold is sound advice because we don't want the dog to be flooded with stress and endure too many setbacks and rehearse problematic behaviors over and over. It's important to protect the work done and set ourselves for success. Some difficult cases may require RX meds by the vet to lower threshold enough to get started. 

You  can start to train him to respond enthusiastically to a  fun treat toss game starting at home. As soon as he approaches you, toss several kibble in different directions at a distance and tell him to go "find it!" as you point at the kibble.  You can then do this on leash in the house, and then on leash in the yard, and then on leash in front of house, and then on walks with no dogs, and then on walks with dogs at a distance.

You can eventually start introducing a sit prior to the kibble toss game at home, so that his sitting and then chasing, yo-yoing back and forth between you and the tossed kibble, and then carry that over on walks, but for now, we just want to build on little successes here and there before asking for specific behaviors which takes more effort. 

Here are more tips for walking reactive dogs: 

https://www.braintraining4dogs.com/members/archive/how-to-make-your-dog-less-reactive-on-walks/

He’s a 1.5yo BC, unfixed. 

The crouching down behavior is typical of border collies. It's part of their herding behavior.  Border Collies have undergone strong selective breeding for the exaggeration of the "orient >> eye >> stalk /crouch>> chase" component of the canine predatory sequence, while considerably decreasing the confrontation and killing components so that they could work with farm animals without harming them. 

When border collies herd a flock of sheep, they may be therefore often seen eyeing (basically staring at the sheep to control them) and crouching down towards the sheep carrying their head low, hindquarters high, and tail down.  After stalking, border collies will spring into action employing a variety of herding styles such as rushing to the front of the flock to turn or stop the sheep's movement or gather them into a group to move them towards the shepherd. 

Even though many herding dogs are no longer used for herding to the extent of before, the strong instincts to herd are often alive and well in these dogs, to the point of them wanting to eye, stalk and creep up towards anything that moves and captures their attention, and often this includes other dogs, vehicles and people too!

To reduce this behavior, it's important to always scan the environment looking ahead. Until trained to perform an alternate behavior at a fluent level, when on walks, pay close attention to your surroundings and work on maintaining that distance. If another dog is approaching and you cannot give your dog enough distance, make an emergency u- turn. https://www.braintraining4dogs.com/members/archive/emergency-u-turn/

It also helps enrolling sheep dogs in some fun canine sports to provide them with some outlets for their ingrained herding behaviors. In particular, herding trials are great as these dogs get to do what they were bred for, but if there are no livestock in your area, the sport of Treibball (where dogs get to herd large balls) can be equally satisfying. You can also find some herding balls for dogs online that your dog can play with in the yard.

Don't forget as well to keep that mega border collie mind busy! 

I hope this helps! Keep us posted on how things go. If you have setbacks, feel free to post here and we can do some troubleshooting,

Happy training!

Best,

Adrienne