How We Fix FEAR REACTIVITY in Dogs

hey everyone in this video we're talking about fear reactivity in dogs so what it is what to look for how to know if your dog has it and then also how to solve it and we're going to be going through a case study with Hira the German Shepherd who is fear reactive towards other dogs so let me go ahead and show you a before and after clip of her so we met up at the park for the evaluation and for every dog that she passed by she would exhibit this reactive behavior and when she reacts I want you to notice the tone the picture for bark and then I want you to notice her body language as the other dog passes oh yeah so this is her after the one hour reactivity session you can see we got orbit my dog just running around in the background being arousing and she's exhibiting very positive responses here right very neutral responses which is what we're looking for here we're doing some close passes because she's never been able to walk past another dog alright so before the session I first you first need to understand what the three term contingency is I want to explain to you this first because this is a very useful framework to understand the behavior of your dog and sort of patterns that they work within dogs are very pattern based animals so once you start to notice these patterns in your dog you can begin to change these behaviors relatively easily okay so let's go ahead and go through the three-term industry so this is just a useful behavioral framework here let me Define each thing so the stimulus is whatever the dog is presented with right the novel thing whatever it is behavior response is the response that they select in response to the thing stimulus and then it's meant the behavioral response the behavior is met with the reinforcer or Punisher so a reinforcer is something that increases the likelihood this Behavior will repeat again in response to stimulus a Punisher is something that decreases the likelihood this Behavior response will repeat in response to the stimulus right let me give you a quick example stimulus squirrel behavioral response chase the squirrel chasing for dogs it's self-reinforcing so chasing in and of itself is reinforcing for the dog so that's enough for the behavior response to increased likelihood of repeating next time they see a squirrel but let's imagine your dog gets the squirrel and kills the squirrel whoa very positively reinforcing right so now the likelihood that that behavioral response chasing the squirrel will repeat again in the future is very very high right this is why you know if you have a dog who has killed Wildlife before you know how big of a problem it is and how you know difficult it can be to change it because your dog has gotten so much reinforcement from that behavior right and so that sort of understanding the three terms of tendency here I'll give you another example let's say the stimulus is to um the stimulus is the Amazon guy coming and dropping off your package behavioral response bark at the Amazon guy what happens well The Barking is self-reinforcing for dogs so what you'll notice too is dogs have these self-reinforcing behaviors things like um things like run like things like chasing barking right digging all these things are self-reinforcement chewing right self-reinforcement behaviors but then they also have other reinforcing behaviors so let's say in the Amazon guy situation Amazon guy bark at the Amazon guy met with reinforcement because they're barking but also the Amazon guy leaves so negative reinforcement right and so if you've watched the how dogs learn to think video you know that there are positive and negative reinforcement positive and negative punishment so negative reinforcement in the form of the Amazon guy leaving so the dog in that situation just learned that okay when the mailman comes I can bark at him and then he goes away right mission accomplished and so that's sort of understanding the framework here start to notice these patterns right another example stimulus you come home all excited Behavior response jump on you met with reinforcement right oh my gosh Hi and then you pet them right I missed you so much and all this reinforcement happens and then your dog jumps on other people of course right uh let's say stimulus um stimulus is another dog behavior response is to run up and say hi to the other dog let's say the other dog doesn't appreciate that doesn't appreciate your dog running all up in their Grill let's say that behavior is punished the other dog corrects your dog right gives them a snap for running into their space well in that situation your dog was just punished for that specific behavior the other dog punished your dog for you right and so the stimulus running up to the other dog behavior responses to get all up in their Grill was punished right so that's less likely to happen next time they see another dog all right and so understanding this framework is just very useful when dealing with dogs in general but especially with reactive dogs so let's explain to you what theory activity is well on the surface let's go ahead and fit all the puzzles pieces of the puzzle inside inside here right so for fear reactivity the stimulus is the other dog behavioral response is to react to bark lunge and freak out at them it's met with reinforcement how well what happens when a fear reactive dog is barking and lunging at another dog what happens well Mom and Dad take them away the owners of the other dog take them away and then the fear reactive dog doesn't have to engage with the interaction right they don't have to meet the other dog they can just avoid it right and so that's what happens that's the reinforcement that the fear reactor dog gets from from this Behavior so now understanding this Behavior understanding how they get the reinforcement from it you now have to ask yourself okay why are they selecting this behavioral response why is it what is the root cause because what you have to understand about reactivity is reactivity is a symptom of some underlying problem right it's always there's always a root cause behind the reactivity it's never like just reactivity for no reason at all right there's something behind it there's some reason your dog is selecting this and so now you have to sort of dig a layer deeper right figure out what is it exactly well the reason why I knew that Kira was a fear reactive dog before even asking them any questions is I could see it in her body language right the way she was reacting the way she was doing it was very similar to other fear reactive dogs that I've seen right I've seen these same patterns before the same ways of reacting so a very characteristic thing for the fury active dogs is the type of bark that they're releasing right so if you watch the before clip again you'll see that her barking was more of the bark right it's sort of that it has that tone to it that's very characteristic of fear reactive dogs all right I also saw in her body language as we were passing other dogs as dogs went past she was sort of going to avoidance mode right should we go to the other side of the Handler very quickly not all fear reactive dogs will do this but she was doing it which was a big you know sort of sign to me right and so after seeing her do that with multiple dogs at the park that day I was like okay she is probably a few reactive dog so then I started asking some questions when did she start showing this Behavior does she have any dog that she's friends with right so she's used to every dog that's just around around that she sees walking by right and I started getting more information and I found out that for her this would happen towards almost every dog that sort of they just walked past dogs that she didn't know but she also had dogs that she didn't know that she got along with just fine right so I knew that okay it's not a it's not it's not like a socialization thing right she has other dogs that she knows that she gets along with and she plays with right it's not a socialization thing this is a fear reactivity thing so in reality what this is is other dogs strange dogs just make her a bit insecure she doesn't quite know how to handle the stress of being in close proximity to another dog right she doesn't know how to deal with that and so this is how she's learned to cope with that stress right she's learned that okay instead of just instead of having to engage with them or anything like that I'm just gonna put on this big show mom and dad will take me away the owners of the other dog will take their dog away and I won't have to deal with it Christ is averted right and so that's what she's thinking here and so understanding this now we have sort of two separate things right we have like the root cause and then we have the reactivity right we have the reactivity and we have the root cause right so what is the root cause for hero well the root cause is you know insecurity um insecurity some nerves right a little bit of anxiety in there I'll say anxiety slash fear right these are all just typical um typical causes for fear reactivity behavior and then we have the reactivity which is you know all the Barking lunging you know polling Etc all right okay so you got these two things here right you got the root cause and then you have the reactivity so the reactivity we can fit within this framework we got the other dogs the hand responses to react it's met with reinforcement so now if we want to change this Behavior right we can change it but then we also have to address the underlying cause as well so let me go ahead and show you how we change this this pathway this contingency right so I'll draw a line here and then I'll give the the real example here which is what we actually did in the session so when we first begin training all right the stimulus is the dog all right the stimulus is another dog behavioral response is to react and then that is met with reinforcement right this is this is what her pathway looked like dog react reinforcement dog react reinforcement this is just the loop that was like ingrained in her mind right every time she saw a dog she would just do this now what we have to do is we have to change this pathway okay we have to change her behavioral response in response to the stimulus so how exactly do we do that well we have to get rid of this one because this is not a productive behavioral response reacting as another dog is not productive because she gets reinforcement from it so if we want to remove this Behavior we have to apply a Punisher that is greater than the level of reinforcement she gets from the behavior of reactive right so here's what we did we punished the behavior of reacting right with the leash you'll see it in the video right so we punish the behavior of reacting now what does that do well when you punish a behavior you create a whole in the dog's understanding right because in the past the doc has always understood that whenever I see the dog I react and I get reinforcement that's just always what I do that's what I do right and this has just been rehearsed again and again and again so when you come in and you punish a behavior the dog has already been doing again and again and again Doug doesn't know what to do what should I do the dog is lost right okay I always use behavior and it always leads to a good thing for me now I'm not supposed now at least to win a bad thing for me what am I supposed to do now right the dog is lost and so what you have to do is you have to come in and fill this hole right so you're going to fill this hole for them with alternative behaviors that you prefer right and so what is that well we change this dog neutral Behavior neutrality leads to reinforcement right so now we start to change this pathway so what do we do every time the dog reacts every time she sees the dog and she reacts it's met with punishment undesirable outcome for the dog every time she sees the dog and doesn't react remains neutral in that context let's imagine you know she sees the the dog she sort of looks at them looks away looks at them looks up at me doesn't even pay the many peace of mind all of those neutral behaviors we are going to positively reinforce profusely okay lots and lots of positive reinforcement here so we are just really just laying it heavy on the positive reinforcement right there because we want to build this black and white Clarity for the dog right of what is and what isn't acceptable behavior in response to the stimulus so we're really making it clear as black and white as it can be no no no confusion for the dog right there is no no room for confusion at all for black and white that's what we need let me explain to you why we need that since we know the root cause of this whole reactivity situation is you know insecurity some nerves a little bit of fear and anxiety right we understanding that understand that Hera of this talk in this situation but all fear reacts with dogs just have an inability to cope with the stress of being around another dog right so they've learned to cope with that stress in this way the reactivity way and so what we're doing is we're coming in and we're applying structure in this situation we're giving her rules and Frameworks to follow and then enforcing consequences both good and bad for following those rules and what this does is it takes the choice off of her shoulders right now this is not something when she sees a dog this is not something that she has to deal with right anymore she doesn't have to deal with the other dog because now we're making her a deal we're saying to hear a okay I'm Gonna Keep you completely safe you're not gonna have to engage with that dog at all right if you've watched the relationship video right we're not letting our dog engage with strangers and stuff so we're making a deal with her we're going to keep you safe a hundred percent We're Not Gonna force you to engage with random strangers and dogs out on walks we're not taking you to dog parks none of that stuff you don't have to deal with other dogs that you don't like but on the flip side you have to follow all rules you must behave yourself when you are faced with another dog that's the deal we're gonna keep you safe but you can't act like an idiot and start reacting at them for no reason right that's not how this is going to work so we create this deal with her right and we give her this structure this framework to work with it we give you these rules to follow and then we enforce those rules both good and bad right you don't react great things happen you're I'm your favorite person we're gonna play we're gonna give treats we're gonna give affection and praise all that stuff best stuff in the world right lots of positive reinforcement if you make the right choice if you make the wrong choice bad things happen very black and white right and so we eliminate the choice on her part which is what these fear reactive dogs need all right the fear reactive dog has too many choices they lack structure right they go outside and all of these things are around them and they feel like they have to fend for themselves and respond to all these things on their own and we don't want that we want to bear that burden for them right and what you'll see with the theory active dogs is once they realize that we got the handled that we can handle it you don't have to worry about it we got it that's when you see the huge weight on their shoulders just release and they're like finally somebody's got the under control and I can just follow them right because that's what they need they need a leader at the end of the day someone who can guide them through those stressful situations and show them how to cope with the pressure in a productive way cope with the stress rather all right so that's sort of fear reactivity and that's what we did in the session so understanding the root cause is important because it it changes what we have to give for the dog right and understanding this as well now we have some useful things that we can do once this reactivity is no longer an issue right so if she's insecure she's a little bit nervous she lacks some confidence well maybe we can do confidence building exercises the obedience is going to be really important for her because it's going to give her the structure that she needs to work within right maybe we have to restructure the relationship if you want to learn how to do that watch the video on how to restructure the relationship right um maybe she has some anxiety some fear so we have to build her confidence maybe we can take her on obstacles right take her to a playground at night help her overcome those things show her that she can overcome stress right so all these little things we can start doing on the back end as well to further cement this new way of being right but that's what fear activity is that's how we fix it so let's go ahead and jump into the session question and you'll see all of this stuff in action all right today what we're going to do is our primary goal is going to be to solve the reactivity and we want to see probably in the first session you'll see like an 80 reduction in the reactivity and then it'll be up to you to maintain it going forward and just be consistent with her so let me first explain what we're going to do and why we're going to do it so our goal for her at the end of this session is to be able to walk past like other dogs we'll use him as a dog he'll be like the easy control dog um we want to we're gonna use him as the trigger so at first he's just gonna be laying down good boy good he's just gonna be laying down on his place board like that and then we'll just work her around and then we're going to make him more and more rousing all right so before you know it he'll be like running right in front of her and barking and playing tug and we're just gonna push her right we're gonna challenge her and then we're going to show her how to make the right decisions and how to handle that stress so the reason why she reacts it's more of like a defense reactivity it's like a fearful anxiety-based reactivity the other dog just makes her a little insecure and so she reacts as like a defensive mode right and it really is like if you really want to boil it down it's just an inability to cope with the stress all right so she can't cope with the stress of the other dog being there and that's how she's learned to cope with it right which is not the most productive way I'm coping with it right we would like her to in stressful situations look to you guys for guidance right that would be the most ideal whenever she gets freaked out or worried um all right so that'll be the primary objective today sound like a plan yeah all right so here in these clips we're working on the loose leash walking and we're also I'm establishing a relationship with her right so the loose leash walking guys I can't stress this enough but it's the most important thing when training a dog especially a reactive dog it's what puts the dog in a receptive state of mind it establishes a clear line of communication between you and them it positions you as something your dog cannot ignore it's everything it changes the mindset of the dog so you have to have the loose leash walking before you begin The Obedience before you begin a training session before you begin a reactivity session you have to make sure you have the loose leash walking down okay so can't stress it enough loose leash walking is everything here you're seeing the owners work through the loose leash walking um yeah it's very important guys can't stress it enough it's often the difference between a reactive dog and a non-reactive dog is the loose leash walking alone right the reactivity can be substantially diminished just through the loose leash and that was the case with Hira now she did react a couple times in the session and you'll see those as we go through it right when orbit was especially arousing but and we corrected those properly but the loose leash walking really puts a big damper on the reactivity as a whole so make sure you have your loose leash walking down we're about to start the reactivity section of the session but the thing that I want to you guys before so when a dog is fear reactive and they're putting on this big show right when you eliminate the reactivity when you cut through it all when you remove it you are left with the raw emotion of the dog you are left with the root cause so what a fearful anxious dog right for fear for fear reactivity the root cause is the insecurity the fear and anxiety so when you remove the show that's what you're left with and that's what you'll see in the body language of the dog right you'll see they look kind of scared right they look insecure they look unsure and that's where it's your job as the Handler to come in and start building them up showing them how to cope with that stress leading them through the stress right being that figure in the life you can guide them through it and show them another way out right giving them Alternatives right that's your job now as the Handler you don't leave them in that state and that's what you'll see in this video right so once you eliminate the reactivity you're left with the root cause and the root cause is now the thing that you're dealing with Okay so let's go ahead and jump into the session so what we're going to do now for the reactivity is I'll go ahead and take the leash and I'll work through it and I'll explain to you what I'm doing as I'm doing it but first off I'm just going to be walking around here I am on a loose leash that's it okay if she reacts let me go ahead and explain to you how to fix reactivity remember in the how dogs learn to think video we have the three term contingency the stimulus response and reinforce our Punisher Okay so stimulus response bark met with a Punisher okay so I'm going to punish that behavior and it's going to be quick right and it's going to be effective so if she barks I'm going to punish it with no pop and what you're what are you going to see if I punish it correctly you should see immediate suppression in the behavior so it immediately comes to an end if you say no and then pop and she keeps barking you didn't punish the behavior what you probably did accidentally was negatively reinforced it right so if you another way to think about pressure is you can think pressure existing on a scale right and at some point there's a line that you cross where it goes from negative reinforcement to punishment right and so you have to cross that line with the dog and actually punish your behavior so we'll punish a behavior if she reacts if she starts to fixate and build up I'll start to punish that as well to correct the mindset because it's the same thing it's rooted in the same problem just uh-huh I cut it at the it's like a weed get it from the root right uh-huh yeah and then what I'm going to be doing is rewarding alternative behaviors because when you punish something like reactivity all you're doing is creating a hole if you only punish the reactivity it's going to keep coming back and it's going to come back with a vengeance right because she's not going to know what to do right and so what we have to do is show her what to do and we do that with positive reinforcement all right so we're going to be reinforcing things like calm passes looks disengagement engagement up with you all of these sorts of behaviors and you'll see me Mark and award them as we go okay yeah all right we just want to build the clarity with her another way to think about it is we want it to be very black and white in her mind of what is and what isn't acceptable behavior the more black and white we can be the faster she's going to figure this out right it's the gray area that people exist within that causes a lot of issues right so we're going to be super clear with her lots of Praise when she's good lots of treats lots of food punishment when she's bad okay it's going to be very clear all right should be clear for you guys too watching okay come on place not you all right so we're just gonna walk him around here walk her around him at a distance here good girl yeah good girl nice good freaking over he's feeling whiny today good girl good nice one nice Salon good girl good okay right there what did I do I made a little bit of pressure and saw where her mind was at what are you thinking about doing walking up over there in kind of suspicious right so I just made a little bit of pressure on the leash and got a chance to see where her mind was at she just gave right into it if she didn't correction right girl good good girl nice one nice one girl good girl good girl good and you see also how she's just comfortable engaging with the environment and stuff even just like around him it's all good what's that oh yeah yeah this is definitely difficult she's definitely trying good girl I know it's hard I know it's hard an important lesson here is just that the world is stress right dogs are everywhere can't walk around without seeing one right so you've got to learn how to deal with it we've got to show her how to deal with it it's kind of like our our job good girl okay now I'm gonna do something a little bit more difficult I'm going to walk straight towards him and then I'm going to u-turn okay good okay now I'm gonna make it a bit snappier on the u-turn good good girl good you can see in like our body language this is difficult right she's like damn this is hard right and that's all good it's all good you have to work through the stress right stress is a part of learning this is difficult not meant to be easy right if it was easy she wouldn't have this problem right good girl it's just our job to show her through it to guide her through it to not leave her lost in the stress good girl good nice one nice one very good girl very good girl it's like right there I saw her fixing that dog I'm gonna refrain from touching her right in that moment sometimes it can set the dog off we can use this other dog I'm gonna U-turn this one see see how she's kind of like this right there you turn a little bit there okay so that just paints a very just basic clear message if you're more focused on all this stuff you can't be focused on me right here we go same thing wow good girl good girl nice one very nice caught that one all right let's walk straight to jump yes good girl very nice very nice you're doing so good they're doing good you're doing good good girl good girl nice one nice one you see how she's like kind of avoiding almost she's like kind of avoiding him right instead of walking that side she kind of came around me and all that it's all good all good avoiding is fine avoiding is fine right now right now right in the future she won't always be doing that but right now it's totally fine yeah good girl very nice just working her through it working her through it down very good very good really nice one really yeah good all right let's go let's go good yeah good girl what a good girl what a good girl what a good girl so I'm just leading her through the situation I'm like I got it let's go right and she's like all right I don't know but I trust you let's do it right boom work her through it good stuff right there trip that yet mm-hmm good it's like the moments of disengagement right because in the past you would just fixate and then blow up right now she's just choosing not to so definitely reward that yeah that that that Mark the chirp just captures that it's like a screenshot right so get marked that and then it buys you time to get your award right right there nice and right here I just want you to stop with her yeah and just give her some meaningful affection meaningful right girl all right now comes the difficult part so we'll try to get her to react here she probably will no Swift okay very Swift good girl good good and now she's avoiding right she's like okay I don't even want anything to do with it that's fine foreign nice one all right and the important thing is here we're not going to leave we're staying right here right go ahead make another decision want to react go ahead if you don't though right there what are you doing just kind of like drifting towards that direction what's your intention there right what's your intent what are you thinking about right good girl good yes good girl nice one go ahead and walk around right so we're not we're not leaving the situation we're not avoiding it right we're staying right here right and you're gonna I know you can handle it that's also my energy right I know you can do it and I'm gonna help you get through it good girl very good you can watch totally fine yeah yeah yeah there's a difference between watching and like when she starts mm-hmm good girl nice one good you're a good girl nice good girl yeah watching's totally fine other dogs here are fine right looking fine barking at them not fine lunging at them no all right we're not doing that good girl so remember I said the black and white now we're building that Clarity right good girl very good very nice very nice all right you see how loose the leash is too this is so she can make her own choices I'm not micromanaging her I'm not giving her any commands right now I'm letting her make her chips go ahead choose right and it's the choices it's this type of training right letting the dog make their own choices and then reinforcing or punishing those choices that allows you to have a dog like that later where he's not going to just come and run up to her randomly right that's just like not gonna happen right and he was a very reactive dog right as a puppy he's barking at every dog that walks past and every person and all that right it's the same sort of deal but he just learns how to make his own choices now it's like knows how to cope with it good girl very good nice very good very good all right move around good girl yes there we go that one right there she like she like saw him kind of run like towards him around she looked here and then she looked back up at me she gave out that little but then she looked back up right so I can tell that she's trying she's making a genuine effort right good girl nice one girly yeah nice one very nice good girl so we're not avoiding it we're not hiding her in obedience we're not trying to block her we're just we're literally just letting her make her own choices haven't given her any commands good girl totally fine right see what she does wow good girl that was okay she made a good choice there yeah she thought that was really difficult dog running right in front of you that's pretty hard good girl wow good girl she's like okay I'm pretty sure I got this figured out that dog doesn't concern me but if I start paying attention to it not so good things happen but if I just ignore him if I just do my thing and focus with you and engage with you good things happen all right that's it and so that's what we want her to learn like other dogs they don't even matter they don't even exist right in the beginning you'll have to do a lot of this like reactivity training but as you keep doing it she starts to generalize and learn that this just applies to all dogs all the time right good girl nice one nice one good all right let's go ahead and have you take the leash here thank you for filming here I tried to keep a good shot for you sweet good so yeah just keep that leash loose let her make her own decisions very good hello nice one there you go good what kind of food did you say uh I'll say I'll send you the link okay yeah yeah I'll text it to you uh-huh yeah this is definitely difficult never had to do this before very challenging yeah you can see just in her body language like she's still very surprised she's not very open not very relaxed yet that's okay we'll be looking to bring more of that out in the trending and this will change with time as well [Music] girl it's all right instead of chirping you can just give her um give her praise and maybe a little bit of affection Right good girl very good all right so this is pretty difficult for her but she's doing very well so now we're gonna do is we're gonna do some sidewalk passes and that'll be the last thing that we do um and I'll just show you guys how to handle that all right ready okay we're just gonna walk right past your mindset is we're just gonna walk past it's like you don't even have her right that's gonna be your energy you're just walking past me right all right heal Mark and reward [Music] oh all right turn around now we're gonna do it again you can be on this side this time again huh okay just see what size she wants to be on heel mark an award oh good job buddy now good heal all right another pass we'll do one more I want you to be a big celebration at the end all right good boy nice one all right we'll cut it up there yeah yeah now it's time to change with this here what we just went through is this is a very isolated event right she learned that in this specific context on this day in this park with this guy here and this dog she can't react right so now it's up to you guys to maintain that with her maintain and hold her to those same expectations because you guys are about to go into the real world now with new dogs reactive dogs who bark back at her right all of this crazy stuff unpredictable nature right not controlled setting so you guys have to be prepared to handle those situations okay so just to recap The Game Plan when you guys are walking her you see another dog you're not going to hide and avoid and cross the street and none of that stuff anymore I'm going to let her make her own choices now you have some tools in your toolbox okay you have a couple things if you notice let's say you're about to cross paths the other dog is approaching she starts to fixate she starts building up getting that you know that energy about her you can do a u-turn right you can walk fast correction as you turn okay that paints a very clear picture you paid more attention to other dogs you're not paying attention to me that's not good for you right so she'll always be in her head so that's one tool you got in there another one is the actual passes right you know how to punish the reactivity with the leash right you saw me do it a couple times there right it's quick it's Swift you mark it with a no the timing is perfect and then you see an immediate Extinction in the behavior in that moment okay and then we don't leave we stay there to build the clarity with the positive reinforcement and the praise to let her know what it is that we do want right so you have to have both if you don't have both it's going to start to fall apart all right you guys got it yeah she does tend to pull quite a bit in the potty yeah mm-hmm I'm just like summarizing yeah yeah okay as we're going through the program starting today forward you want to make an effort to try to take her out to new places and new things and try to test her right so where do you guys live again Issaquah okay so when you get home just zoom out on Apple Maps and look at all the green okay and then zoom in and look at all the parks around you and get a good list of all of them right you can have a day where you just drive around and you'll find parks like this that are just like patches of grass very random right but you can just come here and work in a new environment and then pass a few dogs in that session right and then boom very good and then take it up go home all right that way you start to teach her to generalize this right yeah exactly exactly super clever yeah you got to take her out what's that yeah nothing nothing crazy you know yeah yeah exactly but stuff like this is perfect stuff like this is perfect yep pass a few dogs here and there occasional dogs not too busy got a lot of space to work with very good so that's what a fear reactivity session looks like now does this mean that her inferior activity is completely gone the answer is no right after that first session it's you see about an 80 reduction in the reactivity and to get it to that last hundred percent it requires lots of consistency from the handlers on their part right because dogs are Kings of context so in that session she contextualizes that on this day in this park around this guy around this dog I'm not allowed to react but right what happens when you take her on a walk and some new dog pops up you take her to the park and all these dogs in new situations right you have to enforce the same system of consequences here and hold it to those high standards and create that black and white picture for her in order for her to generalize that this applies to all dogs and all places all of the time right so generalization is important here to get there you must be consistent the biggest mistake that most handlers will make is they are not punishing the dog properly when they think they are all right the little pops on the leash or whatever are not actually punishing the dog doesn't deem them as punished as punishing right so that's a common mistake the next common mistake is people are not reinforcing their dog enough right so people focus too heavily on the punishment but they're not reinforcing the dog enough and I'll tell you that both are important but this you're gonna do this a lot more right you shouldn't have to be punishing your dog come like constantly all of the time because if you're doing that you're not actually punishing them if you punish them you would see a reduction in behavior and then once you punish them the bulk of what you should be doing is positively reinforcing so every time you go on walks have treat back every time you go to the park have treats on you right every time because you want to be able to capture those moments to build that Clarity for her right you don't want to be caught lacking with your dog okay so consistency is key uh hold them to the headstands when it comes to the reactivity and then also you're going to work on the sort of the root cause of the issue so if this is the root causes you know you're going to have to do things like building your confidence you know building her trust relationship with you so there now is the time now after this session which comes back to the next session we're going to start working on The Obedience foundation and The Obedience will give her more structures to work with them you know Builder confidence will show her how to overcome stress in the obedience training right and it's a great place for the dog to progress to and then hopefully this becomes just a non-issue by the end of the train right and we'll give you updates on that so that's fear reactivity that's how we deal with it if you like this video drop a like on the video subscribe if you want to see more videos like this and then uh check out our website if you want to train with us online or in person all right see you inside the training

Channel: Hamilton Dog Training

Views: 285,205

Keywords: dog training, dog trainer, hamilton dog training, balanced dog trainer, balanced dog training, fear reactivity, fear reactive dog, dog reactivity, dog fear reactivity, fear agression

Id: CYQNQDN3VKg

Length: 49min 5sec (2945 seconds)

Published: Fri Feb 03 2023