Kirsten called me with regards to her 3 year old neutered Jack Russell / Dandy Dinmont mix named Bob.
Bob had decided that a selection of visitors will get a nip when they try to leave the house. Bob’s other party trick was to nip some people after they’ve stroked him.
Kirsten had previously enrolled the help of a behaviourist with limited success.
A few nights previous to my visit Bob had bit and drew blood from Kirsten’s sister when she picked him up.
Bob’s party trick was to nip people after they’ve stroked him.
Bob shares the house with 2 other dogs - Tiser, a 4-year-old Border collie and Murphy, a 13-year-old senior citizen mix breed.
Kirsten stays with her husband John and daughters Jade (15) and Gemma (18).
I arrived at the house and was met in the garden. Kirsten had locked Bob away for safety.
My instructions were to release Bob and I would enter the house wander around doing my body language stuff then walk out the house with Bob and work with him.
I entered the house and Bob came running out barking and snarling. I initially walked past him ignoring him but when he came at me I faced him up and made no mistake in letting him know that I wasn’t going to tolerate his bad manners and disrespect.
Like all traditional bullies Bob ran away when confronted by someone who would challenge him.
Kirsten put my 6ft lead on Bob and I walked out the house with him. Again Bob attempted to exert his dominance by running in front of me through the doorway. I corrected him. We then went outside and I performed my usual body language turning and waiting while clicking and treating him. Bob responded really well. After a few minutes I started stroking him and he was fine. A few minutes later and I had Bob in my arms. This had been an absolute “no no” and would normally constitute a biting offence in Bob’s book so it was a sure sign that he understood who was pack leader. I also done some drive and focus work with Bob - he responded in typical terrier fashion with an abundance of enthusiasm.
We returned indoors and everything was much better with Bob. I was explaining my methods to the family and during the conversation Kirsten instructed Tizer to lye down. He received firm commands 4 times before he went down. I suggested that clicker training was a better solution and I sat on the floor and was working with Tizer. Of course at this point Bob wanted to be part of the action. I decided to click and down Bob and Tizer. This was a mistake on my part because Bob recognised my sitting on the floor as a “fall from grace” and thought he could assume dominance.
Bob decided to try and have a nip at me. I corrected him immediately and got off the floor. Next thing Bob was guarding Gemma. I recognised this instantly and walked over to him. He attempted a nip at my feet and he was confronted. This time he reneiged and ran out the room. However within a few minutes he was back in, standing, guarding Kirsten. I challenged him and once more he ran out the room.
This shows the importance that dogs put on stature and head position.
I spent a long time with the family and walked them through my theories and methods.
Bob is showing signs of protective and aggressive behaviour. These signs are being permitted to happen due to a lack of leadership.
I get the feeling Bob is a care substitute and is receiving leniency that is being interpreted as equality within the pack.
Bob is bad mannered and disrespectful. This is due to his elevated pack status.
Bob is bad mannered and disrespectful. This is probably due to his perceived elevated pack status. Bob really thinks he’s equal to everyone in the house (possibly with the exception of John) and feels the need to protect.
The implementation of my usual behavioural rules is paramount in reaching a solution with Bob.
The following advice was issued:
- Implement control mechanisms at feeding time
- No sharing of sofa or bed
- No acknowledgement when entering the home
- Always walk through doorways before Bob
- Do not allow Bob to follow Kirsten around the house.
Do not allow Bob to guard the family (i.e. stand or sit in front of them) when visitors are in the house.
I advised the following training goals to help Bob
Bob needs to learn the place command so that the family can isolate him and stop him getting into dangerous positions (i.e. guarding Kirsten or Gemma) when visitors are in the house.
The family needs to learn how to get Bob’s focus quickly. This will allow aversion and stop aggression towards other dogs etc.
Visit 2
Things had been going pretty well and Bob had been behaving much better. Bob was no longer permitted to lye on the bed or sit on Kirsten’s knee. The family had been doing the gesture eating and in general Bob was beginning to calm down and be less protective.
The family had invested in 2 beds, one for Bob and one for Tizer and they had been working on getting the dogs to go to their beds.
I walked into the living room and Bob came off his bed to see me. This upset Kirsten because she had worked so hard with Bob and was keen to show off his talents. I played this down because Bob was put under extreme pressure with me entering the house and I didn’t think he was ready to be tested with this type of distraction.
I asked for Bob to be put in the back room and had a discussion with the family on how things were going and what their expectations where.
We got Bob back in the living room and I displayed my way of clicker training to get Bob to go to his bed and then let the family have a try. To be honest Bob was really good and was happy to perform. In general Bob was making great progress.
Visit 3
The next issue to address was Bob’s aggression towards other dogs. I brought my stooge dog Lu along to act as a decoy. I asked that Bob was brought outside the house and given time to settle before I appeared with Lu. Bob instantly went off on a tantrum when he saw Lu.
I decided to take charge so I put Bob on a 15ft line and walked away from the other dog. As soon as he came with me I rewarded him. Bob soon caught on that if he stayed with me there was a reward in it for him. However Bob reverted back to his bad behaviour as soon as he received his reward. I relate to this as “Show me the colour of your money before I do anything”. This is a result of food bribery not a food based reward mechanism. To combat this I insisted that Bob gave me extended focus after he received his treat. In true Bob fashion this was no problem and was behaving really well within five minutes.
Bob and Lu shared some treats in the back my car showing no signs of aggression or bad manners.
To top off the session Bob and Lu shared some treats in the back my car showing no signs of aggression or bad manners.
My advice was to perform loose lead training for 10 minutes 2 or 3 times a day and slowly introduce distractions. Bob needs to learn to walk with his handler under minimum distraction before the dog aggression problem can be tackled properly.
I’ll update the blog as training progresses but I’m very happy with the progress of this feisty wee chap.
I’m going to write a post on loose lead training. I use this method constantly to reinforce a positive reward system and it works particularly well with clicker training.
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