Dog reactivity and biting at 3 years old

[rebeccamonchon]

Good day 🙂

I have a rescue dog which was found on the street beaten up at 4 months old, she was then after in foster care with one that just left her on the balcony for long periods of days where she had to poop and he never cleaned it up. I took her pretty fast. When she came to me she was pretty wild and biting me the whole time, so I walked a lot with her. The problem now is that every time she wants to go for a walk she has the connection with " i need to poop , so therefore i bite". So she bites until I will walk her. I tried many methods such as distracting her with playing games or walking away to another room and so on, but she seems to always find new ways so i won't let her alone. If i leave her outside the door she will bark a-lot (and i live in apartment so I cant let her bark that much). When I train her a bit to "forget the biting" she sometimes forget it, but 80 % she will start biting again because she needs to poop. She also bites my guests and other people when she is jealous or want to go outside, which is very frustrating. 

Some more info about the biting:
So i know its either connected with that she wants to go out and really need to go or connected with a-lot of guest and requiring attention. She normally does not break any skin, so its  "controlled" biting where it will leave a mark on your skin but its nothing aggressive to it. She goes after me and she even started to come after me and try to bite my legs if I would walk away. She is a 26 kg dog - medium sized mixed race dog. 

Is there any ways of training this? 

I have some more problems with her: 

1. Sometimes when cuddling her she can "snap" and try to bite me when she doesn't like that i touch her in this instance - for me I know she never would attack me and its quite "innocent", but its scary for other people and I'm always nervous that she would do it with them. She can sometimes tell us with gnarling and making the sound to stop and most of the times she does it before she "snaps", so if I would stop cuddling she also would not snap in most instances. 

2. I walked in a dog forest with many dogs, I think she met around 100 dogs or more in the total period, where she never had any issues with any dog. Many dog owners also told me she is so good socialized especially with puppies. After 1 month of going there nearly every day, she all of a sudden attacked 2 dogs in a row. She sniffed them and then went straight for the neck and put them down on the ground keeping on attacking them, In the end there was no blood and no damage, but it was quite aggressive and looked terrible. After this I am very nervous with letting her play with dogs as I dont know when it would happen again and it was so unpredictable. My veterinarian says she is not an aggressive dog, but that I need to learn to control her fear. 

3. When going on leash with her she is 90 % fine and really okey with other dogs, I can pick up a treat and distract her and she won't react to any of them. There are some dogs which she becomes super reactive with. She barks and lunges and becomes aggressive to the point that anything which is in her way she attacks. She bit me one time in the leg and my boyfriend 2 times. Mostly it is with dogs which are coming with bicycle or together with joggers (running towards her). Sometimes it is when we are just walking normally and she really doesnt "like" this dog. I have no way to stop her and just have to let her bark. Its almost impossible to walk the other way, and I cant put anything in front of her then. 

I have to point out and say that the 3rd point is much worse now after she lives together and walk together with our other rescue dog (german shepherd) which she flips more when he is barking on other dogs.
She is a very restless dog, highly active and always exploring new things. If I let her in a garden she will never just lay down, she goes around everywhere and won't be peaceful. Inside she is quite good and can relax alot, until she needs to go out. 

 

 

Edited May 22, 2020 by rebeccamonchon

[Adrienne]

Hello Rebecca,

I do remember your situation and you certainly have made lots of progress with her with since you mention she previously was acting wild and biting you the whole time.  I also recall that she used to be reactive towards other dogs on walks and it seems like no it's only more a matter of dogs being jogged or running along bikes. 

 

The biting when need to poop behavior you are describing sounds like her way of communicating, albeit in an undesirable fashion. This can sometimes happen if you inadvertently reinforced the behavior in the past. 

 

Here are some dynamics we need to be aware of. You state "she bites until I will walk her."  This suggest that likely you have waited her out at some point and then finally gave in. The problem with this is that, this approach reinforces persistence. Let me explain with an example. Let's imagine a child that cries for candy. Every time the child is in a store, he cries because he sees candy and wants it. Mom gives in several times. Then one day, a dentist finds several cavities, so mom decides to cut out candy for some time. So next time in the store, the child cries, but mom is firm not to buy any candy,  so he has a super temper tantrum (in behavior science this escalation is called an extinction burst). 

 

So moral of the story is that, if we give in to undesirable behaviors, those behaviors put roots. And if one day we decide to not give in, the child or dog will likely increase the intensity of the behavior (or try a different behavior altogether). At this point, giving in would reinforce persistence.  If we do not give in instead and stick to our plan, ignoring even the stronger intensity extinction bursts, we would eventually extinguish the behavior. So when "she bites until I walk" we are rewarding persistence as the dog is reinforced (by being taken out) for those insistent behaviors. Dogs learn through associations, they understand behavior/consequence when these events take place in a close enough time. 

 

 Now, we don't want to totally extinguish this behavior as we must consider: what if she really needs to poop? So we need to evaluate things carefully as we don't want to set her back in her potty training progress and cause her to poop in the home just because we don't want to reinforce the biting behavior. So perhaps the best approach here is helping her find a softer way of communicating to you her need to potty. 

 

So how can we accomplish this? Here are a few ideas:

 

-We can be really attentive and reinforce milder signs of needing to go out. For instance, the moment you notice she is walking towards you with an intent to bite, you anticipate her and walk towards the door. This may or may not work depending on how ingrained her biting behavior is and her level of arousal over the whole situation. With this method though, there is a drawback: if we ignore her one day because we failed to take notice or a bit distracted, she will likely revert to the biting to get your attention. 

-A better option may be to offer something that will distract her for just enough time to keep her mind off of biting you and giving you a way to break the chain. I know you tried already distracting her, but we need to find something that helps her make a good choice just for a little bit. So she is coming towards you to bite? You can toss her a handful of high-value treats on the floor (or her kibble is she really likes it) and as she eats you walk away to grab the leash (if high value enough she should choose those rather than biting you), then hand feed a treat while you put on the leash on, then do several steps of attention heeling with a treat at eye level, give it and head together outside. 

-Make life easier. Keep treats handy in your pocket or treat bag, keep the leash ready by the exit, have nothing blocking you so that you can swiftly get prepared as she eats the dropped treats and you can get her out quickly reducing the chances for biting. 

 

The next question though is, does she really need to poop? or is she blowing you off, just wanting to go outside for fun? There's only one method to really differentiate the two needs and that is measuring  and keeping track of her poop behaviors. 

 

If you feed her on a schedule, her poop time can become more predictable which offers you the advantage of being able to better track her physiological outputs. Bolt down notes every day at what time she poops (consider pee as well since she may be asking out for that too). 

 

Now, if you notice a pattern, you know what to expect. If every day she poops first thing in the morning around 8 AM, then around noon, then around 6 and then around 10 prior to bedtime you have a pretty decent predictable schedule. So if she starts acting impatient around 1145 you know there's a pretty good chance she has to truly potty. If she starts getting impatient around 1230 just half hour after peeing and pooping, you know most likely she wants to go out just for the fun of it. 

 

On top of this though, we need to also consider why she is finding being outside so rewarding that she's asking so often to be taken out. Life in an apartment can become quite dull after some time, so it might be worthy aiming to encourage fun activities in the home such as brain games, fun training sessions, play, shaping exercises with the clicker etc. With dogs I board, I like to make it a good habit to give something exciting such as a special toy or treat upon entering the home just to build some anticipation to going back home. I support a fun indoor environment as the outdoors has many great amenities (think a child looking forward to build an airplane from a kit when coming home).

 

When you have guests over, she may be better off having her 'own space" to prevent her from wanting your attention and asking over and over to go outside )unless it's her potty time). You can grant her an area to call her own with a baby gate or indoor pet fence, where she is not really alone (she can see you and the guests, but she can't engage in the biting behavior). We don't want her to rehearse the problematic behavior which allows her to put roots. So unless we are able to provide her with other things to do, this may be the best option. If she barks in this area, it may help to provide her with some food dispensing toy or safe chew toy. 

 

Sometimes when cuddling her she can "snap" and try to bite me when she doesn't like that i touch her in this instance - for me I know she never would attack me and its quite "innocent", but its scary for other people and I'm always nervous that she would do it with them. She can sometimes tell us with gnarling and making the sound to stop and most of the times she does it before she "snaps", so if I would stop cuddling she also would not snap in most instances. 

 

If she has good bite inhibition and her rabies vaccine is up to date, we can work on creating positive associations with the help of behavior professional. A disclaimer is warranted here: Bites can increase in intensity at any time, depending on dog's arousal levels and whether the dog may feel the need to escalate or feels stressed. On top of this, any bite that breaks skin can be at risk for serious infections. For safety, it's therefore important having a dog behavior professional help you through and you may want to wear thick gloves for safety again considering that any bite that breaks skin can be a vector for bacteria (think tetanus and sepsis). 

 

What I do usually for cases as such is  that I touch slightly for a brief time a body part the dog seems OK with most of the time and feed a treat.  I rinse and repeat several times, always paying attention to the dog's body language ensuring that the dog is "under threshold." Read here about threshold. https://www.braintraining4dogs.com/members/archive/threshold-levels/

 

I make sure to keep these the session short and fun. If at any time the dog seems uncomfortable, I make a note of that, and go back a step or two until the dog is comfortable again and consider using a lighter touch or briefer for whatever triggered her response. 

 

Next session, I touch other areas and feed a treat. Rinse and repeat several times , but always keeping the session short and fun. 

 

Then, I might start petting areas she might not like too much. Very brief touch, treat. Rinse and repeat several times. 

 

Next, I may start increasing the duration of the touch. Like I might give a stroke of one hand rather than a brief touch and feed a treat, stroke, treat, stroke treat. 

 

I would then progress gradually up to when the dog seems to not only tolerate being pet, but even enjoying it. I am after what's known as a "conditioned emotional response. " This means the dog's body language shows happy anticipation rather than dread. 

 

Other people would have to do this too if we want to generalize the behavior, but it may be just safer keeping your dog on leash when people are around and tell them to not pet your dog. Once again, we must consider safety, considering that even though a bite may not send a person to the ER, it can still cause infections every time it breaks skin, not to mention, we are allowing the dog to rehearse problematic behaviors. 

 

2  I walked in a dog forest with many dogs, I think she met around 100 dogs or more in the total period, where she never had any issues with any dog. Many dog owners also told me she is so good socialized especially with puppies. After 1 month of going there nearly every day, she all of a sudden attacked 2 dogs in a row. She sniffed them and then went straight for the neck and put them down on the ground keeping on attacking them, In the end there was no blood and no damage, but it was quite aggressive and looked terrible. After this I am very nervous with letting her play with dogs as I dont know when it would happen again and it was so unpredictable. My veterinarian says she is not an aggressive dog, but that I need to learn to control her fear. 

 

 I often recommend dog owners to avoid areas where encounters with other dogs occur for the simple fact that just one interaction gone wrong has risks for impacting dogs at an emotional level paving the path for a reactive dog. There are too many stories of dogs being attacked or dogs attacking when they are allowed to mingle. If there are dogs you are almost 100 percent certain she gets along with, you can reserve play dates with these dogs, but always consider that fights may happen in any case and supervision is always a must.  Your dog is at an age (social maturity) where several dogs start becoming more dog intolerant. It's important to prevent her from rehearsing troublesome behaviors that can put more and more roots. 

 

3. When going on leash with her she is 90 % fine and really okey with other dogs, I can pick up a treat and distract her and she won't react to any of them. There are some dogs which she becomes super reactive with. She barks and lunges and becomes aggressive to the point that anything which is in her way she attacks. She bit me one time in the leg and my boyfriend 2 times. Mostly it is with dogs which are coming with bicycle or together with joggers (running towards her). Sometimes it is when we are just walking normally and she really doesnt "like" this dog. I have no way to stop her and just have to let her bark. Its almost impossible to walk the other way, and I cant put anything in front of her then. 

 

Predictability is your best friend when it comes to behavior modification. If you can find a common pattern of what sets your dog off towards these dogs, you are at an advantage. You mention it happens most with dogs on a bike or with joggers, then these are the stimuli you need to work on. 

 

Find a distance from where your dog can watch these and do the same exercises you used initially to work when he was reactive towards other dogs in general (see your initial thread below). If you have a helper who jogs with his dogs or bikes with them, you can create set-ups for this exercise and you can control their distance, speed etc. Please be careful avoid touching your dog to prevent a redirected bite. See a professional for help since she has bitten before both for safety and correct implementation of behavior modification. 

I have to point out and say that the 3rd point is much worse now after she lives together and walk together with our other rescue dog (german shepherd) which she flips more when he is barking on other dogs.

 

Please avoid walking her with your other dog as this makes things much harder. Have a family member walk your other dog on separate occasions and in different areas. Dogs feed off each others' emotions so when your other dog notices something, you other dog will too and they will join forces together. For behavior modification to be effective, you need to have 100 percent attention on one dog, so you can scan the environment for triggers, give distance and work on behavior modification. 

 

Sorry this got so long! Let me know if you have an more questions or want to go more in depth on any of these subjects. 

Best,

Adrienne