Anxiety in public, reactivness and lunging...

That's fantastic! What a good boy! I love making those wonderful breakthroughs.
(At least some of the credit is due to the trainer, though )

Bottom line, we both agree that too much control diminishes drive.

It depends on the type of agression. If it is fear based a correction would increase the stress and anxiety in a dog, creating even more issues but otherwise a good correction can work wonders. As long as the dog is not fearful at whatever is making them agressive, there is no root, that is only the dog making decisions for itself, instead of accepting your leadership.

i agree showdawgs.

How would you work with a fearful dog, Purdue?

but even if it is fear based a correction would work. you have to overwhelm the dog with the correction. It has to override what they are doing that is bad. for example, sly's aggression was fear based. he would go to the end of his leash and bark and lunge at other dogs, constantly stressed over their presence because he didn't know to act around them, but a good correction stopped all that. He now can have a dog walk under his nose and will not pay any attention to them. no fear. no worries. he pays no attention to them.

So you shut your dog down, suppressed the fear, but didn't cure it. Your dog has internalized his fear, not gotten over it. If a child is terrified of snakes, and freaks out over them, and the parent physically corrects the child. The child may no longer manifest his fear of snakes (the fear of correction is more immediate and real) but the child is still afraid, even if he may learn that he must look happy (but if you can read body language, in children, or dogs, you will see the truth) to keep his parents happy. But you can never over come fear, through more fear.

ignore the dog's fearfulness. the dog will be fine if you let it be fine. it will come out of its shell eventually, and will mostly likely not need to hard of a correction. it will feel the leadership and begin to trust you as its master. Do a stress agility course like richling said in previous posts to build the dog's trust in you. It will eventually become a very confident dog.

a kid might be fearful of something, but it will eventually have to face its fears without running away or attacking. For instance, since you want to talk about kids, if a kid hates being around a bunch of people you take him to a place with a lot of people to get him used to people he can walk around and you let him sort it all out, but if he were to lash out at someone talking to him you would correct him right then and there. Eventually he will get used to having people around and not worry anymore.

same with a dog. it has to face it fears head on because only then can it move forward. it cannot run away and cannot fight. It has to get used to it. and the owner has to think about that moment, not about the dog's past. the dog will move on if you move on and you let it move on.

How would you correct a child, Purdue?

I'm curious to that, too, Nikki.

And as to helping a dog get over its fears, you can do it gently without force. Physical force and harsh corrections are simply not needed while training and being with a being that, in addition to respecting you, should be respected themselves.

And how is this different from working to get any dog weaned off treats so they never need them? You still have that misconception that once treated, always treated. I find that sad. And despite what your trainer says, it is entirely possible to do away with treats completely. It takes the same amount of dedication and skill as it does to wean a dog off a collar.

And you still haven't answered a single question I put to you in that PM. I guess you don't have Richling there to feed you the answers.

Well i must say this has become a very intresting topic, especially on the topic of drive building which I have only ever heard of briefly here and there.

Just so we can keep the thread going i'll add in a small week one progress report for Duke and a quick outline of what I've been doing for anyone intrested.

In an attempt to not over do it and completely loose Duke's attention I've been keeping sessions very short and random throughout the day with alternating rewards in an attempt to keep him guessing.

I use treats and verbal praise on walks as rewards, and a basketball as a reward during games.

The on walk part is pretty staright forward I usually at the beginning of our walk before we run into anyone practice gaining attention by doing a few emergancy down stays and short 5-10 second watch me's. Once we get to a populated area every so often i'll quickly ask for an emergancy down-stay and watch me,click and then offer the corresponding reward.

The funner part of training comes while out back. Duke has a ridiculous affinity for basketballs. I think he would die and go to heaven if I got him a machine that would all day long simply spit out basketballs everywhere as he likes to chase them down, run next to them, nip them to herd them wherever he thinks he can make the basketball roll and then pounces on it, savagely mauls it and occasionally ends up popping it ( the 4th one went yesterday ).

During these training sessions i get much much more focus simply as he's working for something he truley loves. Much like when we first begin our walk I usually let Duke have one free kick, take down of a basketball before starting. Once we begin I pick up his favourite basketball to begin and hold it behind my back and tell him to get into a down-stay-watch, click and then throw the ball. After that I'll give him another free kick and this time asking him while he's further away ( I usually judge distance based upon how responsive he's being that way so on a good day maybe up to 40-50m but on a bad day only 5 or 10m) and again tell him to get into a down-stay-watch, this time making him hold it for 30seconds. Depending again on how resposive he seems at that point I will either end the session then and let him have a few more kicks to maul his basketballs before going inside or if i'm confident in him that day just for the added challenge I'll get him to stop while in mid chase of a basketball to get into an emergancy downstay and watch for about 5 seconds and then click and let him immediatly resume. (Keeping in mind Duke and I have been doing offlesh distance training for quite some time now and I would never ever ask a dog to do such a thing If I weren't 100% confident that he would listen and risk ruining quite a bit of control).

So have I seen much of a difference in day to day situations?

Nothing dramatic yet which I expected but while on a normal walk I find he no longer raises his hackles or growls at other people or dogs. This was the first area I wanted to target as in general he has always been more aggressive while we sit for a smoke vs walking and thus it seemed easier to gain confidence with him in. Also when we do sit for a smoke he only barks about half as much and I can easily get him to stop by getting him to sit and then get back into a down stay to watch me, click and then constantly praise and treat until the person or dog is gone.

Down the road I'm hoping he will realise that these are not things to fear so by the time his natural gaurding instincts actually kick in ( Please correct me if I'm wrong but I believe *most* breeds with gaurding instincts do not develop these until 2-3 years of age) that I will have a much more stable tempermented, confident dog who will only react aggressively in a circumstance that demands in and nothing less.

Kayla

Hey purdue, do you know how postive trainers 'correct' dogs? Cause mine do get corrections (I call them consequences)

And If my kid (and yes I had one) had a real phobia (deep seated fear) of large crowds of people I would not flood them by taking them to a busy area. (that could cause long term damage-proven not opinion) I would desensitize them, so they felt no fear.

I am personally afraid of lightning. Standing my in a field as lightning cracks all around, would not make me less afraid. And no matter how hard you hit me I would still be afraid. Now I suppose if you hit me enough, I might still stand there, If I had a collar around my neck, I might beg to be let go (same as dog appeasement behaviors, which to the uneducated might look like a happy dog, ie low wagging tail, panting 'grin')

Kayla, it sounds like you're doing a great job. My own personal experience is that for a few weeks the going was pretty slow. Yes, I was able to regain attention, but it so quickly went back to the stimulus, it was not being maintained and his body posture still indicated a high level of stress. But in the past two weeks or so the difference has been really dramatic, something has clicked and I think that something is that he is beginning to be able to cope with his fears better on his own, and to start to just get over them. Now, I get the impression that your dog's issues are greater than mine (for Conrad it's other dogs, not people--and only certain other dogs for some reason--larger fluffy ones, especially if they are black), so it may take a bit longer for you. But on the other hand, the fact that he has a larger number of things that he fears also makes the training more intensive for you. For us, we only get the opportunity to really practice this intermittently--maybe once a day, sometimes twice, sometimes none at all. It just depends on the vagaries of whether or not other people are out walking their dogs the same time I am. So it took a long time to get the behavior really entrenched and for him to begin to see a pattern: other dogs=good things!!! For you, you get to practice a lot because there are so many more opportunities. So there's a glass-half-full for ya!

This morning again Conrad did a great job, though a beagle who was really raising holy heck (the more the other dog expresses stress, the more Conrad reacts to it) was a difficult task for him and we stayed pretty far away and I decided to not set him up for failure by trying to walk past that situation--we went the other way.

i think this is one of the saddest things i've ever read.

I'd also like to see the correction strong enough to overwhelm Conrad in the midst of a panic attack. It would have to be something so strong and awful that the neighbors would be calling 911 for animal abuse if they saw it.

When Vic and i went to an art fund raiser at this vet's place i experienced my first panic attack with him. Since he had been a month in a kill shelter and longer in a rescue shelter i guess he had issues with the dogs that were penned outside. THey were rescues there (why we were doing the fundraiser) and were raising quite a ruckus. My daughter was with me thank goodness because there was no way to pack up and leave. She manned my table while i delt with my more then upset dog. Other cars were parked behind us and tables were set up everywhere. Vic was wild eyed and in full flight and fright. WE walked, fast and furious in circles first far away, and then gradually closer and closer until for one he was worn out, (not as much as i was) the whole time i kept him moving, i kept talking low and calm. I won't say he ever relaxed while we were there, but he did finally accept the situation and realize i was not leaving him, nor was he going in a pen. First i had to remove him to where the noise was less deafening, but by circling back he was able to see, leave, see, leave,had time to think, but had to concentrate on where we were going as well... and he begin to get ahold of himself. I don't know if this helps, but i thought i would write it anyway. By the end of the day we were able to go out and experience the agility course they had set up for demos. I don't think correction is something you can just say...I SAID SO SO BE IT> it has to be incorperated while you deal with the emotion. It takes time and some understanding of putting yourself in the dog's place and thinking what would help you cope.

WHen we did the down stay with distraction i knew i would have to do something drastic for my high strung pointer. We went to the hardware store and experimented with one thing after another until i found what truly put him in bolt mode. It was the metal trashcan so i bought the metal trashcan and we brought it home. In my mother's kitchen i set it up and put him in down stay about 3 feet away. My mother and grandaughter tossed rocks, hangers marbles, in that trash can and at first there was no way Vic was going to stay in the room let alone in a down stay. But i kept bringing him back and putting him down then backing up and squatting down in front of him stay stay stay. WE must have done it a dozen times when something clicked inside his head. He was looking at my face and i was saying your fine..your just fine..its' ok...stay stay stay. and all the fear drained away. His eyes locked on mine, his mouth opened a little and he began to relax. Sounded like the world was coming to an end right behind him and he no longer worried about it. From that point on he trusted ME to let him know that nothing bad was going to happen no matter what it sounded like. By doing this inside we had some control on his safety, by repititon we were able to desensitize him to his greatest fear. IF for no other reason the pets for life test was the best thing i could have ever put my dog through. We also practiced with umbrellas (the reason he failed the test the first time) and i carried rattly plastic bags in my leash hand. Something that almost made him jump out of his skin the first time i switched hands with a bag that i was carrying. Anxiety is something that takes time to work on, that takes experimenting different angles and taking different approaches. WHen we finally took the pets for life test the second time they dropped a large metal salad bowl right behind him. HE just looked at me and laughed. He didn't even flinch.

I enjoyed your whole post smkie, but that line ^ was my favorite.......it made me SEE him in my minds eye