Not bolting to other dogs

[Marlene]

Hi, can I please have some advice on how to train my 16 month to not get so excited and run off when he sees another dog.

Apollo is super playful, he loves dogs people.

My issue is when we approach a park or even on the street ( he is on lead), he gets super excited and pulls to get to the dog.

Walking on the street is ok I manage it with treats and a heal, but I feel his energy.

When we get to a park where I let him off leash he just bolts to another dog, at this point he doesn't know I exist.

The problem I have here is although his not aggressive, other dogs warn him off with a growl, as they may not want to play with him and he keeps going in to play.

Of course I get to him and leash him again then leave the park, but I want to be able to bring him there and he interacts with us as apposed to dogs that may not want to play.

Basically I would like him to play when I say go play and stay and leave others alone when I ask, as I see with other dogs.

I will add when we take him on bush walks off lead he listens to our recall most of the time but not 100%>

What steps do I take to teach him calm when in these situations.

I have so many teqniques I read about but not sure which to begin with.

 

 

[JMFS]

You're having the same issue I will be having.  Esther is the same way, to the point of being a barking insane mess when a dog is even on the television!  I play dog YouTube videos often, but she goes absolutely mad when the dogs start to move and heaven forbid they bark or run.  Yikes!

I will not take her inside the dog park initially as I know she's going to have the same troubles yours does.  She's going to be overzealous and some dogs can handle that, most cannot.  She bit Abbi to the point of puncturing Abbi's neck so I'm being extra cautious to do this right.  Esther is scrapper, but never Starts the fight.  She's sure going to finish it, though.  Or try.  No one wants that and I want her to enjoy her time at the dog park as well as have others enjoy her time there.

What I plan to start with is counterconditioning her response when she sees another dog.  Instead of getting all excited and wanting to run over to them, but getting frustrated because she can't (barrier frustration), I am going to do the "look at that" game and give her a reward every time she looks and reacts calmly.  A sweeping tail wag or silence, for example.  When she's finally no longer barking at dogs on the screen (good grief this child has issues, lol), I will take her to the dog park but Not inside.  We will walk around the fenced perimeter playing the "look at that" game.  Slowly but surely we'll decrease the distance as she exhibits calm behavior.  I expect to have to increase the distance again as they almost always do 1 step forward, 2 steps back.  We have to go at their pace, not ours.  And this training is Booooring and repetitive, I'll set you up for that expectation right now.  However, when you're finally able to go past other dogs without a Tasmanian devil on your leash it will all be worth it!  The Real pleasure will be when you see someone else dealing with the same problem, lol.  There's a sort of satisfaction in having your dog behave while someone else's is being a handful.  😆 Oh, we'll also practice this at Lowe's and Petsmart.  When we were at Petsmart the last time there were no dogs there so training was super easy, lol.

The training does work.  Esther used to bark at the neighbor's dogs and pull me towards them, or rush to them when off leash.  Here's a picture of how far we are from their yard - this is not even showing the sides they have available to roam.  I have a Lot of work ahead of me with this little monster.  Please ignore the nose marks distorting the view.  Dogs . . . you wash it, they put the marks Right back up.

[Adrienne]

 

Apollo is super playful, he loves dogs people. My issue is when we approach a park or even on the street ( he is on lead), he gets super excited and pulls to get to the dog.

If he is friendly and playful then this likely fits the description of barrier frustration as Jennifer pointed out. Here is a read on that:

https://www.braintraining4dogs.com/members/archive/barrier-frustration/

Attention heeling on walks can help with that:

https://www.braintraining4dogs.com/members/brain-training/obedience-101/heeling-attention-heeling/

Walking on the street is ok I manage it with treats and a heal, but I feel his energy.

Try exercising your dog with play, training and brain games prior to the walk to drain a bit of this surplus energy. 

When we get to a park where I let him off leash he just bolts to another dog, at this point he doesn't know I exist. The problem I have here is although his not aggressive, other dogs warn him off with a growl, as they may not want to play with him and he keeps going in to play. Of course I get to him and leash him again then leave the park, but I want to be able to bring him there and he interacts with us as apposed to dogs that may not want to play.

He is now an adolescent and this behavior is not atypical for this stage: https://www.braintraining4dogs.com/members/archive/survive-dogs-adolescent-stage/

He may approach too boldly or in a pushy, too direct way that other dogs do not like. I would keep him on leash considering that one day he might meet a dog who won't be tolerant of this behavior.  He should also not be left off leash if his recall isn't very reliable that he can't be called away from approaching a dog. This is too advanced training for him right now.

It may help to work him on leash and do recalls, make him responsive to smacking sound, https://www.braintraining4dogs.com/the-airplane-game/the-smacking-sound/, look at that, https://www.braintraining4dogs.com/members/brain-training/university/look-at-that/attention heeling https://www.braintraining4dogs.com/members/brain-training/obedience-101/heeling-attention-heeling/ and leave it https://www.braintraining4dogs.com/members/brain-training/obedience-101/take-leave-it/and sit/down stays https://www.braintraining4dogs.com/members/brain-training/obedience-101/stay/

Then, you can practice with longer leashes until he is very reliable and only then progress to off leash. If he's prone to be too direct with certain dogs or there are dogs who are a little grumpy, if you can find one or two play mates to organize play with, it may be better than going to a park with many unknown dogs. 

I will add when we take him on bush walks off lead he listens to our recall most of the time but not 100%>

This is good, it sounds like he needs to work more in learning to respond to training under more distracting environments. Once he's more responsive, you can train a "go play" cue where you first ask him to sit, you unsnap the leash and say "go play!" as you make a gesture with your hand sending him off. 

Then you can use your recall to call your dog away from certain dogs (always be very generous in rewarding this), leave it to prevent him from approaching certain dogs, down stay to keep him nearby you like when you are doing something and want him to not move, smacking sound to keep him focused on you at certain times, attention heeling when you must walk past dogs. 

[Marlene]

21 hours ago, JMFS said:

You're having the same issue I will be having.  Esther is the same way, to the point of being a barking insane mess when a dog is even on the television!  I play dog YouTube videos often, but she goes absolutely mad when the dogs start to move and heaven forbid they bark or run.  Yikes!

I will not take her inside the dog park initially as I know she's going to have the same troubles yours does.  She's going to be overzealous and some dogs can handle that, most cannot.  She bit Abbi to the point of puncturing Abbi's neck so I'm being extra cautious to do this right.  Esther is scrapper, but never Starts the fight.  She's sure going to finish it, though.  Or try.  No one wants that and I want her to enjoy her time at the dog park as well as have others enjoy her time there.

What I plan to start with is counterconditioning her response when she sees another dog.  Instead of getting all excited and wanting to run over to them, but getting frustrated because she can't (barrier frustration), I am going to do the "look at that" game and give her a reward every time she looks and reacts calmly.  A sweeping tail wag or silence, for example.  When she's finally no longer barking at dogs on the screen (good grief this child has issues, lol), I will take her to the dog park but Not inside.  We will walk around the fenced perimeter playing the "look at that" game.  Slowly but surely we'll decrease the distance as she exhibits calm behavior.  I expect to have to increase the distance again as they almost always do 1 step forward, 2 steps back.  We have to go at their pace, not ours.  And this training is Booooring and repetitive, I'll set you up for that expectation right now.  However, when you're finally able to go past other dogs without a Tasmanian devil on your leash it will all be worth it!  The Real pleasure will be when you see someone else dealing with the same problem, lol.  There's a sort of satisfaction in having your dog behave while someone else's is being a handful.  😆 Oh, we'll also practice this at Lowe's and Petsmart.  When we were at Petsmart the last time there were no dogs there so training was super easy, lol.

The training does work.  Esther used to bark at the neighbor's dogs and pull me towards them, or rush to them when off leash.  Here's a picture of how far we are from their yard - this is not even showing the sides they have available to roam.  I have a Lot of work ahead of me with this little monster.  Please ignore the nose marks distorting the view.  Dogs . . . you wash it, they put the marks Right back up.

Thank you, I used to take him to the dog park to desensitize him. But stopped Bec I felt bad I will begin this training again.

[Marlene]

21 hours ago, Adrienne said:

 

Apollo is super playful, he loves dogs people. My issue is when we approach a park or even on the street ( he is on lead), he gets super excited and pulls to get to the dog.

If he is friendly and playful then this likely fits the description of barrier frustration as Jennifer pointed out. Here is a read on that:

https://www.braintraining4dogs.com/members/archive/barrier-frustration/

Attention heeling on walks can help with that:

https://www.braintraining4dogs.com/members/brain-training/obedience-101/heeling-attention-heeling/

Walking on the street is ok I manage it with treats and a heal, but I feel his energy.

Try exercising your dog with play, training and brain games prior to the walk to drain a bit of this surplus energy. 

When we get to a park where I let him off leash he just bolts to another dog, at this point he doesn't know I exist. The problem I have here is although his not aggressive, other dogs warn him off with a growl, as they may not want to play with him and he keeps going in to play. Of course I get to him and leash him again then leave the park, but I want to be able to bring him there and he interacts with us as apposed to dogs that may not want to play.

He is now an adolescent and this behavior is not atypical for this stage: https://www.braintraining4dogs.com/members/archive/survive-dogs-adolescent-stage/

He may approach too boldly or in a pushy, too direct way that other dogs do not like. I would keep him on leash considering that one day he might meet a dog who won't be tolerant of this behavior.  He should also not be left off leash if his recall isn't very reliable that he can't be called away from approaching a dog. This is too advanced training for him right now.

It may help to work him on leash and do recalls, make him responsive to smacking sound, https://www.braintraining4dogs.com/the-airplane-game/the-smacking-sound/, look at that, https://www.braintraining4dogs.com/members/brain-training/university/look-at-that/attention heeling https://www.braintraining4dogs.com/members/brain-training/obedience-101/heeling-attention-heeling/ and leave it https://www.braintraining4dogs.com/members/brain-training/obedience-101/take-leave-it/and sit/down stays https://www.braintraining4dogs.com/members/brain-training/obedience-101/stay/

Then, you can practice with longer leashes until he is very reliable and only then progress to off leash. If he's prone to be too direct with certain dogs or there are dogs who are a little grumpy, if you can find one or two play mates to organize play with, it may be better than going to a park with many unknown dogs. 

I will add when we take him on bush walks off lead he listens to our recall most of the time but not 100%>

This is good, it sounds like he needs to work more in learning to respond to training under more distracting environments. Once he's more responsive, you can train a "go play" cue where you first ask him to sit, you unsnap the leash and say "go play!" as you make a gesture with your hand sending him off. 

Then you can use your recall to call your dog away from certain dogs (always be very generous in rewarding this), leave it to prevent him from approaching certain dogs, down stay to keep him nearby you like when you are doing something and want him to not move, smacking sound to keep him focused on you at certain times, attention heeling when you must walk past dogs. 

Thank you so much, I will start with these above tips.

How true it is when I thought it should be easy now, you have reminded me of the adolescent age. 

 

[Marlene]

On 6/13/2021 at 1:35 AM, Marlene said:

Thank you so much, I will start with these above tips.

How true it is when I thought it should be easy now, you have reminded me of the adolescent age. 

 

Hi again, with the above training, for eg when I am walking Apollo and he starts pulling with excitement knowing that where we are walking too has dog friends there, I will practice the heeling/ look into my eyes also the sit and calm behaviour as we attempt to get closer.

But is there a time limit on how long you can do this for as they may become super frustrated.

And do I not allow him to eventually play with the dog friend if he can't intially just be calm enough for me to even take off the leash.

Also yesterday I was at an oval he saw a dog friend approach, I had him on leash and he started pulling and jumping around wanting to play with his friend.

In this circumstance I was already at a park,. Trying to train focus with him, which was hard as all he kept doing is looking around waiting for a dog to come)

Anyway he got too strong for me and took off and I fell. I didn't hurt my self.

He played with the dog but I feel he was too rough, and being the bigger dog he would stand over the smaller dog, so I leashed him again and had him sit/ down position  and waited for calm, the other lady leashed her dog as well so she couldn't come to Apollo either and excite him. 

When he showed calm we let them get closer, when he stood over her  I pulled him off again and so on.

He definitely calmed down, but there was no off leash time after this, 

In this case, because he initially pulled and showed no calm at all once I got hold of him should I have taken him away and not allowed any interaction with the other dog.

This is where my confusion starts, they need socialisation but are reacting inappropriately to start with.

I am looking into training, but there is a wait due to lock downs we keep having in Melbourne/ Australia.

So having to do it on my own for now. 

 

 

 

[Adrienne]

Hi Marlene,

Please see my observations/tips in bold under your questions.

"Hi again, with the above training, for eg when I am walking Apollo and he starts pulling with excitement knowing that where we are walking too has dog friends there, I will practice the heeling/ look into my eyes also the sit and calm behaviour as we attempt to get closer.

But is there a time limit on how long you can do this for as they may become super frustrated."

 

As with most training, it is best to practice initially indoors in a quiet room and then move gradually to the outdoors using intermediate areas (like the yard, front porch area, driveway) and to start with short sessions and gradually increase duration. Better to make the exercises easy -peasy  initially, setting the dog for success ( in an error-less fashion) and just aim for a little success and call it a day, rather than turning the training boring or frustrating. 

 

You can even start with the LOOK AT THAT exercise if he loses his mind upon seeing dogs on walks, so to gain a little glimpse of responsiveness, in other words a little starting point that can help you with asking attention heeling on walks. Here is the guide for that: 

 https://www.braintraining4dogs.com/members/brain-training/university/look-at-that/

 

If you have volunteer friends who have calm dogs, it can help create "setups". You can practice them having their dog at a certain distance, and if Apollo pulls, you may stop or even  turn around and walk several steps back, and if he walks nicely next to you, you progress walking ahead and feed some treats along the way if he'll take them to reward walking nicely.  A loose leash basically is your accelerator that gets him closer to where he wants to go, a tense leash is your break. 

 

If you notice signs of frustration, you have likely progressed too fast (he needs to learn to be calmer in less excitable setups) or are making the sessions too tedious and long.  For walking politely around dogs, I prefer doing attention heeling rather than sits which can increase frustration since all that excited energy must go somewhere.  I prefer to leave the downs and sits for when a dog has already been around the other dogs and their excitement has gone down a bit so that they are a little more in a "thinking state."

And do I not allow him to eventually play with the dog friend if he can't intially just be calm enough for me to even take off the leash.

Yes, this is good. I would make sure though to feed treats every now and to reduce a bit of the frustration. In other words, if a dog is really eager to meet another dog, we risk being perceived as the obstacle who is holding them back. If we feed treats though to reward little signs of progress like sitting or acting calm for us to remove the leash, we are increasing our value to our dog's eyes (who may eventually possibly desire to be more with us than with other dogs) while also making us appear less then an obstacle. 

This type of impulse control requires lots of practice and training. This often entails being more around dogs in calm settings than excited ones. I personally prefer to use the perimeters of dog parks for training, and organizing walks with other calm dogs, and allow play only once the dogs have proven to be calmer around dogs over time. 

 Sometimes, even though our dogs sit before being sent to play, they are still too over threshold (like a dog may learn to sit  before being unleashed, but may be shaking or whining in trepid anticipation). When there is still too much underlying excitement, this excessive excitement may inadvertently become part of the behavior chain of walking up to the area and sitting to be unleashed.

 

At your dog's age, it also helps to do more impulse control training and frustration tolerance exercises:

https://www.braintraining4dogs.com/members/archive/impulse-control-frustration-tolerance/

Also yesterday I was at an oval he saw a dog friend approach, I had him on leash and he started pulling and jumping around wanting to play with his friend.

In this circumstance I was already at a park,. Trying to train focus with him, which was hard as all he kept doing is looking around waiting for a dog to come)

Anyway he got too strong for me and took off and I fell. I didn't hurt my self.

I am so sorry to hear your dog caused you to fall. Are you using a front-attaching harness of regular collar?  A front-attaching harness can give you better control until he learns to be a little calmer. A head halter can help too, but it needs some conditioning time. Here both are discussed:

 https://www.braintraining4dogs.com/members/archive/pulling-on-the-leash/

He played with the dog but I feel he was too rough, and being the bigger dog he would stand over the smaller dog, so I leashed him again and had him sit/ down position  and waited for calm, the other lady leashed her dog as well so she couldn't come to Apollo either and excite him. 

When he showed calm we let them get closer, when he stood over her  I pulled him off again and so on.

He definitely calmed down, but there was no off leash time after this, 

In this case, because he initially pulled and showed no calm at all once I got hold of him should I have taken him away and not allowed any interaction with the other dog.

This is where my confusion starts, they need socialisation but are reacting inappropriately to start with.

Was Apollo standing over doing the "T posture" thing where the dog places himself perpendicularly at a 90 degree angle in respect to the other dog? Or was he trying to actually mount the other dog? 

[Marlene]

Sorry for late reply, no he wasn't trying to mount him.

He stood over him as the dog was small at fits under him.

When he does this. I immediately pull him off.

Since writing to you, I have been practicing the above and am seeing progress.

I have been using a collar instead of harness and have been getting a better response.

Tomorrow we also start obedience training in a group environment, so hoping this will help with the over excitement.

When he reaches the end of lead I have been calling turn around or sometimes I just stop and he knows to come back to my Side.

This is working great, you can see his mind ticking, and his walking has improved, when he sees something exciting I just keep stopping turn around and move closer when calm. If his not calm we don't progress.

[Adrienne]

Glad to hear that you are seeing progress!

Yes, with the standing over, also known as "T-posture" or "perpendicular posture" it is a good idea to intervene by cueing the dog away (using smacking sound or some other cue to redirect the dog). 

Here's the thing:  Dogs should be prevented from rehearsing "standing over behaviors" which can turn problematic over time and risk becoming overtime default behaviors used in all encounters with other dogs.

In general, dogs do not do too well meeting directly face-to-face. This puts them in a potential adversarial position that can be perceived as intimidating. They do best meeting side-ways walking in an arch-like curve rather than head on. Leashes also interfere with natural communication. 

It is best to keep meet and greets among dogs brief and break them off after a few seconds should the dogs fail to do so themselves. It may work best to happily cue the dogs to disengage rather than use the leash to pull the dog's apart. As seen in the video below, if the encounter was kept briefer and perhaps without the leash jerk, things may have gone differently.