IT'S MAKING ME GENUINELY SAD the number of dogs that are struggling with loud bangs on walks at the moment. Between bird scarers, people shooting wildlife and local HS2 works, everywhere we go there are bangs of varying volumes and quantity.
Molly grew up in this area with bangs surrounding her but a negative experience with a local firework in someone's back garden has understandably made her highly concerned about them.
The truth is we can't stop dogs from having a startle response. These bangs are sometimes LOUD and once they've been primed to fear them by an overwhelming negative experience it can become a real fear that can spread quickly if not dealt with appropriately.
I took some time out to see if I could get Molly in a better place with the bangs by introducing basic counter conditioning with her - when you hear a bang, I will be overjoyed and you will get food! I took this video to show the gist of what I did for our CC dog walkers. Since this video I've been on walks with Molly and have found that when she hears a loud bang she now looks at me, gets a treat, and we carry on. She is still able to seemingly ignore the quieter bangs.
We are not able to explain in words to dogs that these bangs are not a danger to their life. We are not able to stop them from getting startled when one suddenly appears out of nowhere. All we can really do is support them in their dealing with the noise intrusion and try to make it a positive interference on their walk as much as we can.
DISCLAIMER: there is a link between noise anxieties and pain and this must be appropriately looked into as no amount of counter conditioning will help a dog who is genuinely feeling pain in their body that is exacerbated by their own startle response.
This is a mild case of noise anxiety in that the bangs weren't sending Molly into panic. She was visibly highly concerned, but if the dog is genuinely in panic this counter conditioning approach will not work. You'd need to add desens
Marley learning to stay cool, calm and connected to a person, with a dog he hasn't met yet close by 🥹
When I first took Marley on I had no idea what emotion underlied his reactivity. It's becoming more and more clear it's sheer excitement that boils over into frustration when on lead. I even saw a helicopter tail today when looking at Berni. Lots and lots of joy!
I focused today on giving Marley good experiences of saying hello to a new dog. I was elated to see that he was still able to focus on me and engage with me when a new dog was just over there, as this in itself is a big improvement to the dog that was so over stimulated he couldn't take food even if you put it right in front of his nose.
(You can see he's also looking to the right and disengaging from stimuli there too, that was a slow moving work tractor. He's vehicle reactive too so he was doing double the work here!).
I'm doing choice based disengagement training at a distance. The more he experiences for himself that disengagement is a successful coping skill, the more he will rely on it in more and more stressful situations. Then when we are both ready we walk towards the buddy dog, you can't quite hear it but he's also given the cue "go say hi" to mean "ok we can approach now!".
We kept the greet to three seconds long. Long enough for him to feel rewarded to get to the dog, but also short enough to be able to practice disengaging and walking away and focusing back on me again. A hard thing to do for some dogs who get really enthused to be around other dogs!
In an ideal world I would be able to call him away after 3 seconds without needing to use the lead as a guide but we are early early days here and today was just about him learning what works to get to the dog: stay connected with your person, go in quietly and calmly, and wait for the cue.
After a few practices of this we walked together and Marley got to just spend time around buddy dog Berni as he absorbs a LOT from other dogs a
This gorgeous waggy tailed boy is still looking for a home after a devastating loss in the family.
He enjoyed a walk with us today in his happy place - the quiet countryside! We so enjoy our walks with Sid he's such a happy chappy.
https://www.facebook.com/share/p/FkSXkjdQLMsY5fnk/ here's his post to read more about him and his needs. Please read the post fully before contacting one of us.
We will find his special someone but his dad will never be forgotten 🙏🏻 So much love between them, such a devastating loss.
This beautiful video by client Henry is an excellent clip of what the scent activity 'sprinkles' should look like.
It isn't just throwing treats around and leaving your dog to frantically rush around trying to find them! Don't throw the treats around at all! ❌
The trick is in spreading the little bits of food when the dog isn't in view ✅ so they just walk out calmly and come across the food bit by bit. Henry is a busy minded dog and very easily excitable. But putting the food out this way has set him up to succeed in finding it a soothing calming sniffy activity.
Sprinkles is an excellent support activity for your dogs during this busy season. Give them a break from the busy festivities and make sure they have somewhere to sleep at all times undisturbed 🐾💜
Today as we hunker down in this storm I want to give a really warm shout out to my clients, Meeko's people.
Meeko's people have been weathering a storm of Meeko's reactivity for a sustained period of time now. It has taken a LOT of work, a LOT of different input, a LOT of mental gymnastics, a LOT of trials and veterinary input to get to where we are today - starting to embrace more real life scenarios, rather than just focus on highly controlled dog-dog therapy approaches.
Have we got to the end of the road? No. We've got a little way to go yet but there's one thing Meeko's people have NEVER wavered on - doing things without the use of ANY aversives whatsoever. That isn't something I've instilled in them - that's what they came to me with.
Everything we've put into Meeko's journey so far has been about understanding him and helping him take steps in the right direction. It's not been about blindly forcing him to cope with things he can't cope with by punishing him. They don't want that for him. He's a rescue who has been dealt some tough cards. None are his fault. So why blame him?
I recently saw a professional label a client's dog as a [profanity] on social media and highlight how dogs like these should be treated. It baffles me that still in this day and age we lack basic respect for these (sometimes highly) emotional beings who can really really struggle in our human-centred world.
Meeko's people have not once turned on him in order to accelerate progress. They are quite an inspiration to me in shouldering this storm and doing so with such respect of him and his emotional world. They've embraced every professional who has made an input with an open mind and open heart. But at the core of it is deep deep love of Meeko and a genuine wish to see him succeed, but not at the cost of his comfort and wellbeing.
Genuinely inspirational clients are what makes this job my passion. Thank you for being you. You're everything he needs & more 🐾💜
AN EXAMPLE OF HOW PHYSICAL PAIN CAN INFLUENCE BEHAVIOURAL CHOICES
I am sharing two clips here for you to compare. The first clip is Meeko drinking as he always has done, the second clip is Meeko drinking now he's on pain meds. There are very clear differences in how he's disengaging from the water bowl. (Different bowls, different positions but the behaviour is generalised to all water bowls in the home). In the first clip he is clearly struggling to turn in a circular motion to move away from the bowl. In the second clip, he is able to circle round. Why is this so important?
Meeko gets "stuck" face to face with dogs. One of the social skills he lacks is physically disengaging from dogs. This difficulty is hardly surprising when we look at how much he struggles to even turn away from a non threatening thing like a water bowl. Add anxiety on top of that and no wonder he gets stuck and escalates very quickly. It would have caused him pain and discomfort to turn and move away.
We are trying to really open up our minds in this industry now to understand that dogs are more than just things that need to be trained to obey. They are thinking, feeling, and that includes pain. We could focus our energy on trying to train Meeko a disengagement but that is unlikely to be successful when he's showing signs of being physically unable to do a disengagement movement even with unemotional things like a water bowl.
It may seem like just a strange quirk your dog has but absolutely EVERYTHING is relevant when you are looking at severe behaviour difficulties. A problem has been identified with Meeko structurally and these clips to me are so enlightening and makes everything make sense. No wonder he's been getting stuck. And as I said, add strong emotion on top of that and it is unquestionable that pain has been affecting his social behaviour.
Thank you to Meeko's people for letting me share these videos to highlight just how pain and behaviour is linked, in ways more than jus
Can you put your hands in your dogs bowl? ❌❌❌
Can you call your dog away from a resource? ✅✅✅
SUCH old fashioned and harmful advice it is being told to stick your hand in your dogs bowl whilst they're eating to buffer against them guarding things from you.
It's more likely to CREATE problems that advice, than buffer against it.
Lily is a Romanian rescue who has been starved in kill shelter whilst heavily pregnant AND lived on streets scavenging for herself. Both those things can prime a dog to become very anxious about their resources being interfered with and simply showering them with more resource than they know what to do with is not going to solve the problem either.
Lily has always been left alone to eat. I put it down, walk away, and that's that. Recently she's started picking up the lickimat she's eating from and chewing it up to get to the bits stuck in the corners. I *could* just change to a bowl that won't get bits left but actually there's no harm in me using this as a learning opportunity for Lily.
I want her to know I'm NOT just going to swoop in and take things off her.
But neither am I going to approach and "swap" because just that proximity can be a trigger for some dogs. I actually want to concentrate on her practicing walking AWAY from things so I can ask her to go elsewhere whilst I pick up the mat without her standing right there.
In the video you'll see me approach but stay at a distance, call her name, then count. Lily knows the counting game. We've played it inside and outside the house. She knows that when I'm counting it's worth coming over to me and leaving whatever you've got behind. You'll be rewarded for that! You can see she doesn't even have to think about it. The counting game has been so reliably and well rewarded there's no hesitation at all. Sure mum, I'm coming.
Because we've done this so much you can actually see she's starting to move BEFORE I've even started the game! If I approach her when she's got
HOW I'M BUFFERING AGAINST REACTIVITY AROUND MY HOME
So many dogs struggle with reactivity when in the immediate vicinity of their home. Lily's breed mix means she's likely predisposed to this sort of territorial-specific reactivity. 10 weeks into adoption now this is one way I've been buffering against any reactivity developing around our driveway, front door and back gate.
Too often we quicken our dogs on around these zones with a "come on let's get in" or "you've already had your walk quickly now". Here Lily has just got out of the car, home is the opposite direction to where she's looking. So many of us absentmindedly hurry our dogs on in situations such as these when allowing the dog time to assess and process is so important.
Lily is given the time to have a look about once we are out of the car. We might see people, we might see cars, we might see dogs... It's all a bit unpredictable. Sometimes she wants to look for longer than other times. But only after about 3 minutes do I start to ask the question about moving on with a gentle shifting of my body position. She generally turns around to walk in when she's ready to, if not I call her in.
That's 3 minutes of my day. But for her it's an opportunity to CALMLY observe the goings on in this often highly charged zone. That's 3 minutes to stay under threshold with everything she sees. That's super valuable time.
Hurrying our dogs on all the time is really really exacerbating their potential for reactivity. We don't realise how simple the answer often is. Slow down and give them time to fully process what they are seeing. PARTICULARLY in zones where reactivity may be likely.
For those who are aware of the typical "Rommie plant" as well that expert Meesh Masters coined - giving your dog the time to just stand and observe will help buffer against them starting to feel they need to plant and refuse to move on with all your pleading. Ultimately if you give them a little of what they need they won't need to st
Our reactive walk today 🐾💜
Two new faces joined us this week, whilst a few regulars were away. This meant the newbies could settle into a smaller group so we still managed to create the lovely calm walk our regulars are used to.
Such a chill way to spend a Sunday morning - thanks all for coming. You were all outstanding as always 🥰🥰
The little anxious whispers of canine body language.
There are many body language signs of minor anxiety in dogs and it's easy to get a hold of a good infogram or two nowadays to start to learn about this.
NOTHING is as good though as slowing down clips of your dog and looking out for what signs you can see them showing themselves because not all dogs will use the same signs.
Lucy is a lip licker, that's her go to behaviour when concerned. Raggy will droop his head. Behaviour star Wilf ⭐ here is an avid head turner. In just this slowed down clip of a few seconds Wilf turns away multiple times. Watch his ears as well. They are also communicating anxiety by one or both twitching/being held backwards. (He's just getting to know his two new friends and Raggy rolling around on the floor in front of him was a bit perplexing 😂).
It is SO IMPORTANT to recognise these signs of minor anxiety and stress. By recognising it we can respond to it, or at least not make the current challenge any harder. Minor anxiety of a dog stepping a little out of his comfort zone is ok. That's where change can happen. But we need to know when to stop pushing and just give the dog time to process the current difficulty level. We need to be able to recognise whispers of anxiety to do this.
Wilf was fantastic yesterday - even with an off lead dog temporarily inviting themselves into our session - he was able to shake it off and carry on with the task at hand. That shows a very very high level of resilience which is a new thing for Wilf 👏🏻👏🏻🐾💜
A training & behaviour service based in Buckinghamshire, committed to force free, relationship focused training.
