Preventing dog reactivity/aggression

So, I have some questions about what I should be doing with Edna.

Edna is about 1 year, not yet spayed, probably has had puppies before, and just came from a foster home with a male dog. (she's a pit bull).

She seems to have a pretty normal reaction to other dogs on leash. She shows interest, but doesn't care much if they're far away, and if they get really close (like...closer than 10 feet), she'll bark/growl and get kind of stiff. But, she'll walk away from them easily, follow commands, and doesn't obsess over them.

I've been rewarding her whenever she sees another dog and doesn't react, I'm also rewarding her for following commands after she barks at another dog. I don't know if at the point where she's barking, I should just be walking away ignoring her, or if I should be reassuring her/giving commands/rewarding her for following them?

She is a APBT thats par for the course. Sorry but thats life with most APBT. Its not something that can be trained out in most cases.

?? You can't train an APBT to walk on a leash past other dogs without reacting?? I'd have to disagree with that, because I've seen it done with dozens of APBTs. I'm just wondering if I should reward her for acting appropriately AFTER a reaction or if I should just walk away ignoring her entirely in that scenario.

IMO, you can train a dog a more acceptable behavior than reacting uncontrollably on leash, but you can't prevent dog reactivity/aggression in a breed that's known for that
Click to Calm has great exercises for this. One of my favorites is the one where the tightening of the leash = eyes on me (or something like that lol its been a rough day, please forgive me). That really helped with Missy because MY reaction; sucking in a loud breath, tightening on the leash, etc when we run into a loose dog was causing her to react But, I was able to train the both of us fortunately :rofl1:

Ok, that's fair....I'm not looking to prevent it, I just want to make sure I'm going about the right way teaching her what the appropriate way to react is. I don't expect her to let a strange dog run up to her or pass 6 inches away from her, but I expect her to be able to walk past another dog that's 10 feet away without barking or pulling towards it.

With Romeo (who is not an APBT lol but does the same kind of things) we used the distraction method

1. Every time he saw a dog and didn't react, lots of praise/cookie

2. If he saw a dog and started to react, we turned and walked away/made a funny noise/did tricks, and when he focused on ME and not the dog, he got a treat

Now when he sees a dog, he looks up at me for praise instead of focusing on them

You can't train DA out of a APBT.. I guess that's true. but I'm pretty sure you can train/manage their reactions on leash.

She may never be a dog park dog, but I think its perfectly normal/do-able to want her to ignore dogs on walks

Fran, that's what I'm doing, trying to get her to do tricks in order to distract her. And I've done that successfully in the past...but I also ALWAYS kept the dog I was working with far enough so that they didn't have a reaction.

I wasn't sure if she barks at the other dog, then I ask her for a trick and she does it and I reward her, if she'd think barking was part of the reward. I'm pretty sure she wouldn't make that connection, though? And now she's starting to turn to me when she sees another dog before she barks, so I guess it's working...

The best thing I've found is to do a lot of focus work so the dog will focus on you and not whatever is interesting.

Mine aren't DA, but they are freaky friendly and obnoxiously reactive, so we've done a TON of work on that. They generally do really well. I've worked with very DA Rhodies owned by a friend and I was able to teach "ignore it" to them. However I never ever take a chance with a dog I'm exercising or training, you don't know how a strange dog is going to react or if the nutbar human with the strange dog will lead their dog of unknown reaction up to yours or whatnot. So I generally pull off to the side and either keep going or do some OB with them so we're out of the way and they aren't getting excited about the other dog. Its kinda win-win. Plus whats nice is that both the DA and non-DA dogs I've worked with always feel comfortable letting me handle situations with a loose strange dog.

Even though I don't have pit bulls, I always carry a breakstick. I've actually had to break a loose Am Bully off my dog over a year ago unfortunately. She might have gotten killed if I weren't a fully prepared fan of the bully breeds. And there I was lecturing the irresponsible owner on bully breed ownership instead of flipping out on her... geeze...

I think as long as you ask for those tricks often when there's no barking as well, she should be able to isolate that it's just the tricks. If it's ALWAYS *bark-trick-treat* you'll end up with a behavior chain that requires the barking.

i think what you're doing sounds fine. i'd try to mark/reward for noticing the dogs as much as you can. catch her before she thinks to react. if she does react and is still capable of responding to a cue from you- awesome. if she's not, don't ask again- just get her some distance and let her calm down.