Redirecting my dogs attention

[SianNewman]

Hi Adrienne,

We have recently adopted a 3 year old male un-neutered sheepdog from a farm. He has some reactive problems (joggers, some walkers, some bicycles!) which I am working on following the techniques shown on this website which seem to be working although it is early days and we have a lot more work to do. Safety first!

I am writing about a particular issue we are experiencing with him in the house. We have desensitized him to a lot of things and he seems quite settled but I need to redirect his attention away from my 13 year old daughter who he rushes up to and sniffs her inappropriately. When she walks downstairs his ears go up and he heads intently towards her. I have asked her to turn her back and ignore him but she finds this hard when he is sniffing her private parts. He is not aggressive. I can call him away but I'd like to stop it from happening and teach my daughter how to handle it as I won't be there to call him away all the time. My daughter likes him and understands that we need to show him how to behave but it is making her embarrassed which I totally understand.

I wondered if you had any ideas? In the last few weeks we have started training as his health was very poor at first. Now he's better, he has learned sit -stay, down, hand targeting and he also targets a particular toy I throw (he touches it with his nose). He is currently learning 'leave it' but I think he's a bit confused as he is offering me sit and down. 

Many thanks in advance

Sian

[Adrienne]

Hi there,

Welcome to the forums!

Your pup is exhibiting normal doggy behavior, although it may seem inappropriate to us. Most likely, when your daughter walks downstairs, your dog just wants to check on her,  but more in a "detective way" than inappropriate considering that when dogs meet each other they don't shake hands like we do, but rather sniff their private areas to learn more about each other.  It could be that because perhaps he doesn't see her around too much, he is more eager to learn about her and sometimes there may be too a little anxiety component and sniffing her reassures him that she's a member of the household-so to say and so it's all good. 

We can address this behavior by redirecting to another activity which can also help form some positive associations with your daughter in case he's a bit alarmed by her returning to "homebase" when she's upstairs.  So here are some ideas:

-Since your dog has learned hand targeting, your daughter can try to ask him to target by presenting her hand in front of him so he can be helped to make a good choice, and then a treat can be tossed at a distance to reward the hand target so that she can walk away. If he walks back to her after eating the treat, she can keep on asking for hand targets until she gets to where she needs to be. You may need to have your daughter practice hand targets with him if she hasn't participated much in training him perhaps starting with asking it when she's sitting on the couch and then standing, and then nearby the stairs, and then after going up the stairs and walking down a few steps, and then graduating to coming down all the steps, and then coming down the stairs randomly during the day. 

-Alternatively, your daughter may do the same exercise but instead of hand targeting she may ask him to sit as she's walking down the last step and he approaches her and then praise and reward tossing a treat at a distance from her. Rinse and repeat.

-You can also train to go to his mat when your daughter comes downstairs, although I feel that he may do better with hand targets and sits for now until he seems more relaxed with her coming down the stairs. Since he is a recent addition it may take some time for him to adjust to your home and household members until he can be fully relaxed and feel entirely "at home." It sounds like you are doing a good job desensitizing him to things and make sure to use counterconditioning too (giving treats to create positive associations  and change the emotional response) so to boost the process https://www.braintraining4dogs.com/?s=counterconditioning

When your dog offers sits and downs, as long as he's leaving whatever you arre working with that's fine. Take baby steps.  Here's a little demo on leave it:

 

[SianNewman]

Adrienne, thank you so much for the quick reply and great advice. We will give those ideas a go starting at the weekend properly. My daughter likes the idea of giving him a treat too. 

We have had a much more successful 'leave it' session tonight. I'm sure this is no surprise to you but Brenin is really enjoying this training, I actually think he needs it. He was a failed sheepdog and was left behind when the other dogs went out with the farmer. Brenin's father (who he lived with and was the primary sheepdog) died a week before we adopted him and the farmer decided to rehome Brenin as he didn't want a pet and couldn't train him to be a sheepdog. I don't really know much more than that but he was not in good mental or physical shape when we first met him.

Thanks again, it's so valuable having this resource as there are no certified dog trainers living in this area of Wales. In all honesty, Brenin does have a long way to go. I'm working mostly on trying to assess whether he is under or over threshold and if I don't know, assuming that he is over. I'm sure I will be back for more advice!

Sian

 

[Adrienne]

You are very welcome! Brenin is very lucky to have found such a dedicated family like yours.

I am sure he loves the training, these working dogs thrive so much when we give them a "job" to do and their brains are kept active. My father-in-law too had a failed sheepdog. In this case, he was a little too harsh in giving him directions with his booming voice and I feel this sensitive dog just shut down and gave up trying. I got to do some training with this dog and you could see how life again had some meaning to him. It's like a switch turned back on and life was all good again. These work-in-progress dogs can provide a lot of satisfaction as we watch them bloom. 

To tell whether he is over or under threshold it helps to keep an eye on him and establish a "baseline" so to say of what he looks like when he's relaxed. Watch him carefully when he's home and in a calm state. Then, watch him when he becomes alert of something. Then watch him when he starts getting more worried about something. Video captures of these different emotional states can help identify his emotional states and it also helps watching such recordings in slow motion. 

This may help identify some signs of stress:

https://www.braintraining4dogs.com/members/archive/signs-fear-stress-dogs/

Feel free to post anytime you have questions.

Best,

Adrienne

[SianNewman]

Will do 😀

[Adrienne]

Sounds like a plan, 

Happy training!