This is a post for the Admin, as you seemed interested in my posting a new thread on the process I used.Administrator said:
To begin, the reactive dog is stationary, with or without the owner, tied to a secure line so there's a defined barrier (such as the end of the lead or leash) that he cannot cross. The non-reactive or person will be who walks back and forth.
Well, as for the program, it works like this. First you have to find the dogs reactive zone. This is the area where your dog isn't fully reactive and lunging, but the place where the dog starts becoming a bit aggitated by you being too close. What you will be doing is walking up to that point, and just stand there until you get a good behavior, then walk away. You repeat this over and over until the dog is no longer aggitated, and then the next time you do it, you come about 1 step closer, and draw a new line, then repeat. With more reactive dogs, you might find that 1 step closer may be too much. In this case, you might only move closer at 3-6 inch increments. Yes, a dog can tell you are 3 inches closer, much more than a person could.
Now you might ask if this encourages the bad behavior by walking away? No, it doesn't. That's Operant Conditioning at work. Basically, what you are telling the dog is is that if you want me or this dog to go away, you will have to be good, or give a good behavior, such as a head turn, walk away, blinking of the eyes, laying down, etc. Anything that is a good behavior that you want to shape the aggression into. Some dogs you will have to start as far as 30 yards or even farther, and some only about 5-10 feet. And if you think that the process is boring, well, then it's working, lol. You do not want the reactive dog to be reacting, just at a point that's close to it where he can actually think, and doesn't go over the line. Sometimes this process takes an hour, and sometimes as long as 3-4 hours. And it's always good that if you have success and the dog is a really reactive dog, you may want to do a second session a day later. But if you have great success on the first try, like I did with Betty and Nell, then you want to keep the dogs together, playing for a while, to reinforce that dogs are good. Then you can repeat this process with other dogs until the reactive dog starts to generalize, and not be reactive to any dogs.
Now that we covered the first part, now to go to the next, what happens when you get close to the reactive dog's safe zone? What I mean by safe zone is the barrier in which he cannot cross, such as the end of his leash, or lead, whether he's tied out in the yard or attached to an unmovable object or attached to the wall. When you are getting close to this point, you will notice something changing in the dog. This is called the Switch Over. What you will see in the Switch Over is the reactive dog starting to act differently. It will be like, do I really want them to go away? Would it be funner if they would just stay and play with me? This is what you are looking for, the Switch Over is what you want. It's the ultimate goal. When you are getting close to the barrier, if you are using another dog, you will sit the dog at the barrier, and when the reactive dog gives a good behavior, walk away again. Do this a couple times. Then the next step would be to get a good sniff, nose to nose. If you do, immediately walk away. Walk up again, get a good sniff, and walk away. Do this a few times. Then you can proceed a little closer and let them sniff the side of the head and ears, then walk away again. When you walk away, you are going back to your original starting point. Once you get a few good sniffs in, then you are ready to try walking side-by-side, allowing the dogs to get a couple sniffs, and walk away again. Since I had no other person, I had Betty on her 15ft lead, and we walked the parimeter, let them sniff a couple times, then we walked away.
Then the next step I took with Betty was I kept her on the lead, and let Nell off the leash, and let Nel go at her own pace. Nell went to the perimeter a couple times, got a couple sniffs and walked away. Then, when she felt comfortable, she actually went into the perimeter and Betty got behind her, sniffed Nell's behind, and Nell slowly circled around and back out of Betty's perimeter. She did this a couple times. And the whole time, I was near Betty's lead so if anything happened, I could quickly respond to Betty. But all went great. After Nell was going in comfortably on her own, then I let Betty off her lead, and they've been playing ever since. I let them play in the yard for about 2 hours, then let them in the house, and they continued to romp all over the house, lol. Nearly destroyed my bed covers, lol. But they were having a blast.
Now, at any time during this process, you can take breaks whenever you want. You do not need to run straight through. Also, when you walk away, you don't always have to come right back to the line. You can wait a fwe seconds or a couple minutes, depending on how you feel the dog is doing. Also, you do not want the reactive dog to get the zombies, as in fall asleep. He can lay down, but he must always be alert. If he zombies, it may be time for a food/water break, or a short walk. The nice thing about this program is you go at your own pace, and take breaks as you feel is necessary, or just want to. Breaks will not cause an interruption in the process, as long as you end it on a good note, with a really good behavior and walk away, you are ready for the break. Don't end it on a bad note, try repeating one more run and if it's a good run, then take your break.
Then the last thing, if you walk up to your line, and the reactive dog does nothing, just sit there a couple minutes. If he still doesn't do anything, as in just stares at you or the dog, just walk away and repeat. This will happen on occacion, where the dog will be zoned out. You just break this zoning by walking away and repeating.
Well, there you have it. It works very well. And it works for anything, dog-dog, dog-human, dog-child, dog-skateboard, dog-bike, dog-anything. Also, if you don't have an aggressive dog, but a dog that over-greets and is wild and jumpy, you can do this process in reverse. What you do is you only get closer if the dog calms down. Then if the dog becomes excited, walk away. Works very well.
So, what do you think? When you complete it with one dog, then you can work on it with another dog. After a few dogs, the reactive dog will then start to generalize, and have no problems with any dogs. They had a video of this on the DVD that they worked with a dog that was highly reactive and aggressive to other dogs. They did this in a store, not sure if it was PetSmart, or something like that. They did this process with 3 different dogs, by the time they got to the 3rd dog, he had very little reaction at all. Then, after all 3 were walking, they had 3 other dogs, which they did not know were coming around the corner, and the dog went up to the 3 new dogs and greeted them with a friendly greeting, and continued walking with the other dogs. They could not believe their eyes. It was a total success. And with all the study they have done on this treatment, they found that the process is permanent. With all their trial dogs, none have ever reverted to a bad behavior, even under stress and change of location. Other programs that use Classical Conditioning, as in when the dog gives you a good behavior, you reward them, many dogs revert back to their old behavior when under stress, or something major changes in their lives. The reason it doesn't with the new program is you are shaping the bad behavior into a good behavior, and the other programs just works on trying to decrease the bad behavior and increase the good behavior. If you shape the bad to the good, then there's nothing to go back to because you left the aggression as it is and didn't try to decrease it. Instead, you re-shaped it.
Let me know if this makes sense to you. And if you have any questions, feel free to ask.