Hi everyone!
Meet Hank, his owners came to me as he is very dog reactive and also fixates on people, bikes etc.
He Was a big puller on the lead which made him extremely frustrated which is also part of the reason he was reacting to everything!
So firstly had to sort loose lead walking to remove any lead frustration from him pulling which allows Hank and especially his owners to be calmer in situations and to have much more control over him.
We introduced a clicker to clearly mark good behaviours and choices. As Hank would react to a dog from the other side of the field we had to change the way he saw other dogs and improve his engagement with his owners so they could guide him to make the correct choices. Therefore from a safe distance, as soon as Hank saw a trigger we marked it with the clicker and his attention came back to his owners instead of fixating on the trigger.
In the second video is Hank gets a little correction for fixating on the dog and his attention comes back to me. Then Hank has another look and makes the correct choice by breaking his focus which we reward ๐๐ฝ I never want a dog to avoid their triggers as they wonโt learn what we need them to do in those scenarios, he made the wrong decision firstly then the correct one second time around this is when he will learn๐พ
More to come from Hank and his owners as he has made big progress in a matter of weeks! We are continuing to progress with his engagement with his owners and improving his threshold to allows us to get closer to his triggers ๐
More to come!!
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