Fun with Dogs!

Sorry for the blatant blog neglect.  As most of you know, I have two dogs who do not get along:

Bonanza Jellybean about whom most of the posts on this blog have centered: 5 year old, presumed genetically fearful, female Australian Cattle Dog.  Jellybean’s fear issues are centered on new people and at this point she presents as a completely normal dog right up until the instant anyone attempts to actually put a hand on her.

Britney: 8 year old, female Jack Russell Terrier who loves all people but has become increasingly worried about dogs in the two years since the issues between she and Jellybean began.

Up until 4 months ago both dogs were loose in the house as long as I was present.  I have done enormous amounts of work on teaching these two girls to, at the very least, simply ignore one another.

Because of an incident 4 months ago when I awoke to the girls mid-battle on top of my face, they have not been allowed any access to one another since.  Despite the fact that there was no blood shed or puncturing during that incident, there was absolutely no cause that I could pinpoint for it which frightened me as previously the cause had been fairly easily identifiable (one or the other dog becoming aroused be an external stimulus, one dog being upset by the other dog’s interactions with me, etc.)

As a result, I have been extremely focused on resolving this situation for the last few months and recently a discussion about this with my dogs specifically and generally with other people’s dogs has raged on the Clicker Solutions Yahoo Group.

I just recently purchased and read Fight! A Practical Guide to the Treatment of Dog-Dog Aggression by Jean Donaldson which I have found extremely enlightening primarily because it lends some credence to my personal feeling that the aggression between Brit and Jellybean is largely due to how Brit chooses to react to Jellybean.

I now believe that Brit has some proximity sensitivity and minor resource guarding issues.  She is unable to settle when she has a desirable object such as a bully stick with other dogs nearby even when she is in a crate. 

I have previously done a lot of BAT (Behavior Adjustment Training) with Jellybean for her fear of new people and have made a few attempts at the parallel games from Leslie McDevitt’s Control Unleashed with no genuine headway in changing either dog’s opinion.

Yesterday I began the exercises for proximity sensitivity from Fight! with Brit and it really was somewhat enlightening to me.

A friend of mine brought her new, young Australian Shepherd to a park to be Brit’s decoy dog.  Brit and I remained in my vehicle while my friend and her dog got positioned and when Brit saw the aussie exit the min-van she erupted in her now typical bark/scream/growl vocalizations.  The exercises are similar to the beginning stages of BAT although focus more on counter conditioning using food and toys than on distance as the reinforcer.  Brit always wants to be a part of everything so I don’t think distance is what she wants; I believe she wants other dogs to only approach her calmly so proactively rushes the other dog to warn him/her off if s/he is not doing so.

The schedule in Fight! has the decoy dog sitting calmly well away from the subject dog.  As the handler and subject dog approach the decoy, the handler treats the subject dog for noticing the decoy (ala Look At That) with the goal being that the subject dog sees the decoy dog and automatically looks happily to the handler for the expected reinforcer.    Donaldson has the exercise broken down beginning at 20 feet away and eventually in 6 stages, moving to within 6 feet of the decoy with no meeting taking place in the first session.

I used steak as a reinforcer and every second or third repetition I would give Brit a couple of short frisbee tosses as a balance break.  Meanwhile, my friend was reinforcing her aussie for being calm in the presence of me and Brit especially when Brit moved erratically to catch the frisbee.  Both dogs were so relaxed as we closed out our session with no reaction from Brit when the aussie got up to move away from her position that we allowed them to meet and sniff in a very organic manner.  Leads were completely loose and each dog could easily have moved away from the other but chose to touch noses and investigate rears.  Each dog was praised and treated for remaining relaxed.

We moved to the side of the path where people enter and exit a dog run within the park where Brit apparently taught herself LAT (Look At That) as she would very clearly give a brief glance at dogs approaching then immediately look back at me to see if she would get more steak.  I began with a verbal marker of “good” at each glance towards another dog but switched the good to her refocusing on me after 5 or 6 repetitions.  Because I did not want to create ‘only look at Mom at all times’ situation, I did randomly revert to marking the glance at the other dog.

As we moved toward the area near the path, Brit reacted strongly to a large dog going into the park and I was barely able to regain her attention but we walked past that very same dog as we were all leaving and she pranced, with loose body language, right by him in the parking lot at maybe 10 feet away with no reaction at all.

I knew that Brit’s reactions to Jellybeans behavior were a huge part of this issue but I had not worked Brit separately on the problem enough to really identify what Brit’s issue really was.

My hope is that by working on Brit’s reactions to other dogs in general that one day I can reintegrate the two dogs into the house with me present.