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We brought sweet Cassie home on 3-14-14, she is so delicate, smart and precious...except when we go on our walks! She barks and lunges at everyone she sees, my patience is wearing thin and I don't know how to help her. I have never had an experience like this with any of my other dogs.
I realize her barking and lunging is part fear based and part wanting to know who these people are, but people recoil and that brings on more barking and lunging. It's a vicious cycle. I've tried jerk and release, avoiding places where people walk, practicing walking with her and making her step back and sit.
I know she is quite capable of acting normal because when we went to the beach and the dog park there were lots of people and dogs and she behaved beautifully.
I am getting nervous because the apartment complex is really quiet and she has such a loud high pitched shrill bark that I know the whole complex can hear. Frequently I have to walk my dogs before the sun rises and after 8 pm and it's becoming such a disturbance it's starting to stress me out.
I did read an older thread that had some advice, but I was hoping for any updated or newer tricks of the trade.
I'm about at the end of my leash....
Cassie: Female (spayed) 8 months old. May not have a good history with men, I was told the man who brought her and her brother in was kind of rough with them. They also did not come with collars or leashes, so my guess is they were never walked out in public.
No advice but tons of empathy. (I have a brand-new rescue myself and am struggling with various issues.) Good luck! (And look at that face!! How cute is she?!)
No advice but tons of empathy. (I have a brand-new rescue myself and am struggling with various issues.) Good luck! (And look at that face!! How cute is she?!)
Thanks Nifty! I read your post earlier, I feel for you! Best of luck to you as well.
Try a plastic squirt bottle filled w/ plain water, that should curtail it - if she's barky inside as well as outside, you want to give her a chance to stop it on her own before spraying her - just tell her "NO!" - once or twice she's squirted, she will likely stop pretty fast, they want to please. The problem w/ squirting is if you overdo it, she may come to like the water and think of it as a game.
Yours is young and prob. new to everything - it'll work itself out in time, Im sure - maybe puppy classes would help. She's a very pretty pup but I can understand your concerns, while mine are basically quiet (and middled aged), if one sees a person merely walking across the street, she'll start barking and sometimes even lunging - thankfully she's also small and will generally stop as soon as she's reminded to stop - but it is annoying - I can see her barking if it's a skateboarder going by or a bike rider or a jogger but someone walking past on the other side of the street and totally ignoring her - not good. Fortunately she's very people oriented and if someone actually comes over to us, she'll wag her tail and is thrilled - but the barking sure doesnt encourage them to want to pet her at all, lol.
Our puppy is the same way. We have been taking her to the pet store to have a somewhat controlled environment. It has helped her calm down quite a bit.
One trainer recommended giving treats to other people so puppy realizes that they are well meaning.
Our puppy is the same way. We have been taking her to the pet store to have a somewhat controlled environment. It has helped her calm down quite a bit.
One trainer recommended giving treats to other people so puppy realizes that they are well meaning.
Thanks veuvegirl---Her visits to the pet store have actually helped, she does behave better with each visit, I'll continue to do this.
@Honeycrisp I'll definitely try the squirt bottle.
She is adorable! You can teach the "watch me" command and reward with treats if she is food motivated. Once she knows the command and will hold her look at you you can use it the moment you spot her perking up interested in something tell her watch me and reward it especially at first. " Leave it" is another command that once they learn it can be used. It may help to take a class that the instructor teaches these commands as then you do get to practice around others and she gets use to other people and dogs being around.
The more she rehearses this behavior, the more ingrained the habit becomes. Ideally you'd start by working with her under threshold, which means at a distance away from her "triggers" where she is focused on the triggers but not to the point of barking and lunging. You can do both classical and operant conditioning. The classical conditioning would be associating a treat or something else she loves with the appearance of her triggers. So you have Cassie at a distance, a person comes into view, you give Cassie a treat. This way she will begin to form a positive association with her former triggers. The operant conditioning comes in when you specifically reward the behavior you want. So if Cassie is ultra focused on the trigger and then for a split second she takes her eyes off the trigger and sniffs the ground - reward! Anything other than fixating on the trigger is rewarded in the beginning. Once she catches on to the game, you steadily raise your criteria as to what will earn her the reward until eventually she is required to observe calmly for extended periods before she gets the treat.
Keep in mind that when you use punishment to deal with this type of issue you run the risk of escalating the problem. Your dog is feeling anxious / fearful / uncomfortable when she is confronted with her triggers. If we then punish her when her triggers are around, we are creating an even more negative association - now her triggers predict punishment so she will fear / hate them even more than before.
You say she is great at the dog park and the beach. Is she off leash there? This might be a simple case of leash reactivity. Try a front hook harness and watch this video for some tips to get you through your walks while you are still working on this issue:
I will tell you that I have had great success using a short cut with reactive dogs - I simply shove freshly cooked chicken in their faces as soon as we see their trigger approaching and I keep rapidly feeding the chicken as we pass the trigger, praising the whole time. Has reduced barking and lunging dramatically in just a few sessions and then we gradually wean off the chicken as the dog realizes she is safe on walks and forms new, positive associations with former triggers. If you try this simple technique and the dog is not taking the food - get some better food and/or create more distance between the dog and her triggers.
My dog who has gone to heaven had the same issue. I took her to an excellent trainer, who explained it was "leash aggression".
This was the solution the trainer gave me: change from a neck collar to a harness with a front leash ring attachment. Do the "look at me" command with treat when encountering other dogs being walked on leash (as described above.) Desensitization as described above. Go on walks with friends with their leashed dogs.
The trainer explained that part of the problem was that because I began to dread the barking and growling, I began to get anxious when other dogs came near, and my dog was feeling my anxiety which made her worse.
The trainer also said that many goldens she had worked with also had a "greeting compulsion", and that was very true of my dog. My golden really just desperately wanted to say hi to the human walking the other dog, and the dogs on leash were in her way. And interestingly, the other dogs we met seemed to understand that she was no threat and didn't respond aggressively to her.
Honestly, she never did ever get much better on leash, which was probably my fault.
But she was totally fine meeting other dogs off leash. Isn't that odd?
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