Dog Training & Health

[Canine Crazy]

What a handsome boy!

Reactive dogs are fearful dogs. They put on a big show but, in their heart of hearts, they are terrified soles. In your video, Frankie’s shoulder hairs appear bristled. His ears are back with the approach of a car from behind, and the ears pull forward as vehicles pass. His tail starts out down but it goes up where it remains indicating a growing escalated state. He appears significantly more alarmed by the vehicles behind him than those across the street – the cars across the street appear to be of lesser concern. You might try walking toward traffic and evaluate his response.

Does Frankie demonstrate reactive behaviour when you have the distance of two lanes between him and moving vehicles?

I’d suggest you use distance to help Frankie. Walk in an open field parallel to road so that he can still see the cars and continue to feel safe. Distance away from the road (and the cars) will help Frankie accept moving cars. Over several months, gradually decrease the distance between Frankie and the road (moving cars). Frankie will tell you if you are decreasing distance too quickly.

My Don Sullivan set arrived today... I'll let you know how it goes!

I’m sorry I didn’t read your post sooner. Here is a reporter's insights on Don Sullivan and his training methods: http://community.seattletimes.nwsource. ... oughlove03

While still in his home town in British Columbia, Mr. Sullivan maintained his website www.dogtrain.com; on that website, Mr. Sullivan indirectly (subtly) disclosed his use of aversive techniques, and he justified using harsh methods on dogs. He also had a television show called "doggin it!" which was quite successful – a cute theme song complimented all positive stuff program. Dog owners flocked to his business to learn more. Unfortunately, the techniques used on the television show were not the same techniques used with clients. Shortly after testimonials started appearing on Craig's List, Kijiji and other forums, Mr. Sullivan packed up his family and his snake oil and headed south. And now he promotes himself as "The DogFather". I wonder if he is still living in his van...

Mr. Sullivan, like many aversive enthusiasts, subscribes to an unsettling understanding of The Koehler Method of Dog training (1962). William Koehler pioneered canine behaviour philosophies (in my opinion, Koehler was a genius in his time); his book offered many ways dog owners could outsmart any dog. Koehler also included one or two paragraphs in his book where, if the exhausted handler proved all other efforts futile, and the handler believed their dog's vicious behaviour would mean certain death, as the last ditch effort to keep this dog alive, Koehler recommended the handler hang the dog until the dog had no "fight" left. Mr. Sullivan was seen to perform hangings on many dogs, in front of many people, when he believed the dog was noncompliant under distractions he believed the dog could manage.

Mr. Sullivan makes no apology for the detriment he has inflicted on dog owners and their four legged friends. His new website continues to justify his yank and crank training program. By stating results are based on the handler’s ability to punish at a level the dog can understand, the inevitable poor training results land squarely on the handler for not punishing hard enough.

I see Mr. Sullivan has found nerve to knock Cesar Millan's treadmill idea on his website; however, it looks like Sullivan picked up Millan's cure-all collar gimmick. And despite Sullivan's convincing diatribe, I am fairly certain Sullivan’s derisory understanding of dog behaviour has not improved. I have to give the guy credit though -- he's a great salesman.

Be mindful of Frankie’s reasons for behaving badly. Watch Frankie to evaluate the distance he needs, and respect this distance. Frankie will know what you are doing for him through your actions, and trust will grow.

CC

[HeatherMack]

Wow!!! Brain overload! Thank you very much, CC, for your help and information. About the cars, I do get where you're coming from, but believe me Frank doesn't care how far away they are when he's having a bad day. When he's having a good day he will ignore them if they are something like a football field away.

He used to live out (during the day) in a compound right near a busy road with cars passing all the time and he was okay with them back then. I don't know if he hates them because they remind him of being in rescue or if it's something else.

I wasn't going to come back online until I'd tried out the Don Sullivan thing for at least a week but (a little worryingly) I couldn't stop myself.

So... I spent from 2:30pm to 5:30pm watching the Don Sullivan DVDs today. And... it made me like Cesar even more actually.

I watched and I listened and I took it all in. Some bits were interesting and other bits I've heard before. It was mostly very repetitive, actually. Pretty much his answer to everything is to yank their collar until they stop. But he seems like a nice enough guy, I guess.

I just walked Frank with the command collar. I corrected him something like a thousand times. This process is going to take a LOOOOOOOONG time; if it's going to work at all.

A dog ran over to us and I did the correction. Sullivan said to increase the strength that you snap the lead at until they respond to it. I got to the point where I was snapping AS HARD AS I COULD, and I'm not a weakling. I couldn't have snapped it any harder than I did. He just kept going. His neck must be killing him now, I know my arm is.

He's not like any of the dogs that were shown on Sullivan's DVD (Or Cesar's either for that matter.) Take for instance the aggressive dog that they had standing in the busy street with strangers just walking over to him to stroke his head. If that was Frankie he wouldn't get better and better he'd get worse and worse, until he passed out probably. He'd be writhing about and leaping up and scratching and barking etc. He is very temperamental and very quick to get to that red zone. But saying that.... maybe it would be interesting to just try it. AAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRGGGGGHHHHHH!!!!

I don't know if this is the right way to go with Frankie but I'm intending to carry on with it for a few weeks/months if possible and see how it goes.

On the DVD there was a section on lots of problems but out of all of them: Bolting, pulling, licking, jumping up, separation anxiety, counter surfing etc etc, The ONLY ones that applied to Frank were the aggression and the car chasing. Everything else he is perfect at already.

I just am feeling, right at this moment, A Completely Useless FAILURE.

[meezermom]

Heather, you are not a failure and neither is Frankie... if there was an award for most bull-headed person trying to help a dog, you would be my nomination hands down! You are certainly as stubborn as Frankie is and I wonder if he knows it! Frankie may simply have something "broken" inside him that will not let him be normal like other dogs but still may give him a chance to be normal in his own world. I really would love to see Cesar take him on to see if his methods would really work... Has any vet suggested Prozac for him?

[L.L.A.]

I've not heard of Don Sullivan before, but now I just did some web surfing and found a site that has something that looks like an infomercial on it. And then from what CC posted, it seems to me that he is mostly "traditional style" training (like Cesar Milan, for example, and dating back to Koehler and earlier)

Everyone is certainly entitled to their opinion, and I think it's a good idea to not just take people's word for something but to explore it on your own first which is what you are doing by trying it out.

I admit I'm not a big fan of these traditional training methods. I don't care if other people prefer them, but personally after I tried it I found that it's not for me.

Let me also try and clarify at bit how these traditional methods (and sounds like Don Sullivan is included) approach Frankie's behavior problem compared with the "positive methods".

Positive methods - if Frankie is reacting like in the videos you took of him, the aim is to realize that he is not acting up on purpose, he is not trying to challenge your authority or be defiant by balking, rearing up on his hind legs, biting the leash and so on. He is simply reacting out of fear, fear is a powerful emotion and can over ride anything else int he dog's mind. Certainly it seemed to me that in the video of walking along the road Frankie was reacting out of fear. Thus, positive methods, which is probably what you have been doing all this time, aims to change the dog's fearful response and make him less fearful through de-sensitizing him and counter-conditioning a new emotion. This is best illustrated in the booklet "Cautious Canine" by Patricia McConnell.
http://www.dogwise..../itemdetails.cfm?ID=DTB586

And summarized here
https://www.msu.edu/~silvar/fear.htm

and also shown in many of the videos on this site:
http://abrionline.org/videos.php

the idea is that you try to get the dog to no longer be afraid of that thing anymore. then if he's no longer afraid, then by default he wont' be acting up anymore.


One of the "traditional methods" approaches, is to flood the dog to get rid of the fear by forcing the dog to be immersed in the fearful stimulus for a long time without being able to escape. Sort of like forcing a person who has fear of snakes to remain in a room surrounded by snakes. Cesar Milan does this, but it is considered by many to be inhumane because it induces a very high level of fear in the animal and doesn't always work (in which case the animal would simply have been subjected to mental torment for nothing). I think it's no longer practiced in human psychiatry either because of the ethical reasons (though I could be wrong about this).

The second way the 'traditional methods" deal with behavior like Frankie's, is to use obedience training to tell the dog to do something besides reacting. The idea is to tell the dog "No, you must not react to the car, I disapprove of you lashing out at cars, you must do as I say which is heel/sit/stay/ etc" ....While this can also be done with 'positive methods' too, the difference is that in traditional methods, failure to obey a command is often followed by an aversive consequence or correction.

While I'm not here to argue against the use of corrections for obedience training in general (since I do think there is a time and place for corrections), I do think that if there is ever a time to NOT use corrections, it is when the dog is fearful or panicking and reacting due to that fear. The dog is not acting up because he wants to challenge your authority, rather he is simply unable to control himself because of his fear. He could be trying to escape because he's scared and if prevented from escaping (because of the leash) then it is natural he would fight the leash or rear up on his hind legs and so on. It's the "fight/flight" response.

My personal opinion is that it is unfair to correct a dog for showing fear responses (since he is not being "willfully disobedient" he is simply too afraid to control himself and do as told). And also that correcting in this circumstance is likely to worsen the dog's fearful/negative associations and thereby worsen his fear reactions even more in the future.

Another potential risk is that it could successfully suppress the fear reactions, meaning the dog no longer acts up and now does as told which is to walk quietly, but it has not made the underlying fear go away.

for example, I found two videos on youtube, both show beagles that were aggressive to other dogs but now as a result of the different approaches to dealing with it, are no longer behaving aggressively to other dogs.

This first dog still looks uncomfortable and fearful even though he is not acting up. He is not aggressing to the other dog but his body is tense, ears are back and eyes are wide, he is panting and licking his lips (which are signs of anxiety). At one point in the video he is given a leash correction, thus I think it's pretty accurate to say that they used 'traditional methods' on this dog to deal with his aggression by teaching him to suppress his aggressive behavior. But the dog's underlying fear or dislike of the situation, is clearly still there.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qHBdhk0B ... re=related


This other beagle, according to the sidebar of the video, overcame his aggression (fear) through the "positive" methods. i.e. the dog no longer feels fearful in the first place so he no longer reacts or behaves aggressively. You can see that the dog's body language is relaxed - his tail is wagging, he is no longer fearful
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A8MqAs97 ... re=related



In both cases, the dogs - both beagles for easier comparison - were aggressive to other dogs but now are no longer behaving aggressively. But the difference is that in one case the dog is still feeling fearful/uncomfortable and the unwanted behavior has just been suppressed. In the other case, the dog is no longer feeling fearful so the behavior by default goes away.

Many people feel that in the first case - suppressing aggressive behavior by using physical corrections - is dangerous because the dog hasn't really been 'cured' and may now feel even more fearful than before and thus can be a ticking timebomb. IF the dog can eventually get past his fear, then that's great, but it could have the opposite effect too.



Again, this is just my opinion and you don't have to agree, you are entitled to try out any techniques on your own rather than taking other people's word for it. (that's how my own opinion was formed, which is by trying things out). But just thought I'd give my view here anyway!

You may find that the Don Sullivan approach works for you, if so then that would be great. But if you are having to give a thousand corrections, AND you are correcting as hard as you physically can and it is not working, then it may be counter-productive.... maybe check that the collar is properly fitted and positioned properly, or maybe you may want to set up the exercise when Frankie is less wound up to begin with, work below his threshold before he has "lost his mind". for example a strange dog running up to him is definitely way too much and his adrenaline would probably make him immune to any correction you could possibly give. (However, just because he is feeling immune to it, doesn't mean that it couldn't still be doing damage to his trachea if over the long term you have to correct often and hard. This is another caution....)...

Again, I think you should be commended for working so hard and trying anything and everything for Frankie, you have certainly gone to great lengths for him and are continuing to do so. And, more importantly, you are keeping an open mind and trying different things. keep up the good work!!

[HeatherMack]

It makes me so sad how having Frankie has changed me as a person. Before I took him on I would have been absolutely appalled if I'd seen anyone tugging on their dog's lead like I was doing yesterday. I was so completely against physical discipline.

But after I'd had him a while my kind and gentle nature just got sapped away. And what's saddest of all is that other animals I interact with can sense it, and they don't trust me like they used to do. Animals just used to be content around me, like they knew they were safe with me. Now I must emit some kind of stressed, angry vibe because they just respond to me like any other human now.

I don't know what to do for the best with this Don Sullivan thing. I know that I can't expect miracles and that if I want it to work it will take time. But, like you say, I don't want to put him through it if it's going to do any physical or emotional damage to him. I'm sure the collar is on right and everything, but he's just not responding to it. He responded the first two times I did it yesterday. First when we walked by two teenagers and second when a car went by. I thought, hurray!!! It's working! But then that dog ran over to us and he didn't care that I was correcting him as hard as I could, he didn't care that it was hurting him, he just wanted to get to that dog.

I kind of want to chuck the lot of it out the window...

I corrected him with it this morning for fixating on some ducks and his lead broke! It was a regular rope lead and the clip snapped and exploded into bits, which surprised Frank long enough for me to grab hold of him and get his slip lead on.

I agree with C.C so much in my heart! Just use kindness, patience, understanding, distance. That's what I want to do!! It's just not possible to avoid him getting upset.

I never thought in a million years that I would ever treat any animal so harshly and it really makes me so mad that I feel I have to, which obviously makes things even worse, as Frank can sense that I'm mad.

What should I do??? Is it a bad idea to continue this harsh correction technique or do you think he will respond in time? Is it worth carrying on?

Don Sullivan says that the gentle leader is a "useless" piece of equipment, but I'm sure Frank's neck certainly appreciated it a helluva lot more than anything else that I could use.

LLA, MEEZERMOM, C.C, THANK YOU ALL SO MUCH FOR ALL YOUR HELP AND FOR TAKING THE TIME TO CARE ABOUT FRANKIE. You have no idea how much it helps having other opinions to think about.

Just Thank you! X

PS, Meezermom, had a friend ask Frank's vet about prozac and he said he wouldn't recommend it for Frankie.
And LLA, those sites are EXCELLENT, thank you very very much. That's probably the route I should be taking.

[meezermom]

Honestly?? I really don't think harsh correction is going to do a great deal here either... Mainly because Frankie will not respond to it.... He is powerful and my guess is those neck muscles are so strong, he wouldn't even feel anyone giving him a harsh correction..... I wouldn't even know what type of lead I would use on him! He is so dang powerful! In a real and happy world, I would say Frankie would eventually respond to gentle corrections and affection but I am not so sure it will really happen now. I don't know that anything will truly get through to him.

[HeatherMack]

I just heard that song by The Darkness "Growing on Me"! That's totally mine and Frankie's song! I always think of him when I hear it, it describes how we were when I first took him perfectly

Anyways... I'm a Libran which apparently means I'm naturally a very indecisive person who longs for balance!!! But I'm making a decision here and I am not going to carry on using Sullivan's control collar. I have more control with the headcollar, and that is what we are comfortable with. So I completely wasted 46 quid!!! Coz I can't return it used. Grrrr.

I know, I know, I know that I'm supposed to pick a method and stick at it and I can't expect things to work straight away and that it's confusing for Frankie to change my reactions to his behaviour all the time... But this afternoon I walked him with his halti on and no muzzle (Carried it with me in case of emergency) and took some biscuits and carrots with me. He was so much better for it. I used kind words only, no corrections, no loud voice, just gentle, gentle, gentle. He felt better, I felt better, Tara felt better! It was a nicer walk than we've had in ages.

When we saw another dog I moved aside and when he went for it I held his head up to clamp his mouth shut with the halti. When he stopped I praised him and gave him a biscuit. Same when he went for the sheep. I tried my best to be patient and I think we did very well.

He is going to be completely different the next time we walk but I am going to just do this consistently from now on and see how it goes. The only trouble is that he does have to wear a muzzle when we're in busier areas and the halti doesn't work as well when he has his muzzle on.

But I am not going to be harsh with him anymore. (That's the plan anyway!) Violence is pointless. If he's going to be bad forever I'll just have to deal. I'll just have to keep my fingers crossed and keep hoping that with time he'll come around.

Again, thank you very much. Happy thoughts only, starting....... NOW!!

[HeatherMack]

[meezermom]

I will say he sure does look very happy in the picture.......and as for that set up you bought, try selling it on Ebay! That is what it is there for!!

Make sure the Halti you have is plenty strong and check it for wear and tear. Then as long as you are not in an area where is muzzle is required, I would try doing with out it....I have heard there are differences between the Halti and the Gentle Leader......maybe someone here can tell if that is true and if so, which is better! Maybe Frankie just needs you to feel calm and he will...He may just be really good at picking up your mood and transferring it! Don't worry, you will make mistakes and you will backslide but in the end you may have discovered exactly what is right for him! Also, remember there is magic in very thinly sliced bits of hot dogs!!! Even some cooked chicken liver in a plastic container in your treat pouch that you can smoosh a bit between your fingers for a quick lick! Hang in there....something will all of a sudden connect with him and he will get it....

[L.L.A.]

Heather don't feel bad, you had the best of intentions when trying the "traditional" methods (Don Sullivan). Desperate times call for desperate measures.

Since you asked our opinions - my personal opinion is I would ditch the Don Sullivan approach or any traditional corrections-based approach, because there's just too much risk of it actually making Frankie's problem worse. Also for non-expert trainers (which means most people!) correcting a dog for displaying aggression leads to a very real possibility of the dog re-directing his aggression onto you, meaning you could get bitten if Frankie is going nuts and you are correcting him. Furthermore, for many people, giving corrections naturally puts US into a negative frame of mind, it is hard to be emotionally neutral when giving a hard correction. This negative energy is something you don't need! I would go for the "positive methods" approach because it is a lot gentler on the dog and is actually addressing the root cause. I see you've already made that choice, which I think is wonderful!


The positive methods approach - desensitizing and counter-conditioning - take a long time, and they can be tough to do because you have to work below the dog's threshold the entire time while preventing as much as possible, setbacks. The road can be long and discouraging, but every small improvement is meaningful because it is means that Frankie is actually getting better. And that's also why it's good to have a support group whether online or in-person! I would really recommend joining a reactive-dog forum or list. (an example is the "click to calm" yahoo list). Of course we are still here for you! But sometimes it is really helpful to talk with people who are right now in the same situation you are.

Also, since aggression (and it seems to me that Frankie's is fear-aggression) is such a complex and dangerous behavior, it would really help if you could see a positive methods trainer or behaviorist to help you draw up a plan, troubleshoot your technique, and evaluate Frankie's progress.

As for the head harnesses - I've only used the Gentle Leader, I haven't used the Halti. The difference from correction collars is that with the head halters, the dog should be accustomed to it so that he doesn't find it aversive or negative (I believe Frankie is already accustomed to his). Then, unlike prong or choke collars, they work not by causing discomfort/pain that the dog wants to stop, but by mechanical leverage so pain is not involved. That's one reason that many people consider head harnesses as better tools for dealing with aggressive dogs than correction collars. Another reason is because the head harnesses allow you to physically turn the dog's head away so that he can't fixate on things so it helps break the cycle of reactivity. (this should be done BEFORE the dog has gone over threshold, if necessary by taking the dog further away from the stimulus, but even if he's over threshold and going nuts it still allows you to more easily regain control of him.)

This site has some (free) online videos on how to deal with aggression using the Gentle Leader. It may be helpful to see if this is similar to how you've been dealing with Frankie's reactivity. You have to scroll down the page to see all the videos, but there are several titles with the words "aggression" or "reactive" in it and the videos are about 5 minutes long each.
http://abrionline.org/videos.php


By the way, that picture of him is great!!! He looks so happy!! He is a handsome boy!