Expert: Alan J Turner, SATS LL1 - 10/18/2006

Question
Zoe is a 1 yr old border collie mix.  Her mother is a full breed border collie, and the sire is unknown.  Zoe looks and acts like a border collie, except, she's brown/black/tan.  She weights about 35 lbs.  I've had her since she was 6 weeks old, and she's been exposed to many dogs in our household.  She loves children.  She was raised with a 90 lb golden retriever, whom she loved, until he died when she was 4 months old.  Once, when walking her at about 4 or 5 months, she was attacked by a small terrier.  The terrior broke free from its owner, and chased Zoe around my legs, snapping at her heels.  There were no injuries, and I didn't think much of it until more than a month or two later when at a pet store, a small terrier approached Zoe, and she showed me for the first time her fear aggression.  In all other areas, Zoe is the perfect dog.  Smart, obedient, loving, friendly -- except to strange dogs.  I immediately started her on obedience training. We started with beginner, and are now in intermediate, and she does very well.  The trainer asked me a few weeks ago if I'd considered obedience competition.  She slowly gets used to the other dogs in the class, and as long as they ignore her, she eventually wants to be their friend.  And we started visiting the local dog park -- just hanging around outside for weeks.  Eventually, we went inside, and she has done relatively well.  Sometimes, she'll find a dog to play with.  But, if any dogs approach her too directly, she tucks her tail and snaps.  Especially is she is surrounded by several dogs, even if they are not aggressive, just overly friendly.  She has not bitten any yet, but I know intuitively her behavior is being rewarded whenever the other dogs back down, and I'm afraid she will get worse.  We can walk away from these dogs, and later find a dog that Zoe will play with, but, I would like to know how to handle the situation when she feels threatened.  SHould I remove myself?  Should I take her collar gently and make her lay down so she accepts the other dogs as dominant?  The obvious answer is to stay away from the dog park, but I really want to work through this issue... mostly so we can walk the street without her being afraid of dogs we meet.  

Thanks.

Answer
Dear Margaret, Thanks for the question -sorry to hear of your troubles. I'll start off with a quote from my website.

"It's important to note that dogs who pick and choose which people or which dogs to attack are not any more difficult to help than dogs that attack every dog or every strange person. In both examples the triggers are identifiable, but in one example some people or dogs are not always triggers. The treatments are relatively identical in both examples."

The fact that Zoe is well trained and the fact that you recognize situations which are triggers is excellent!

>But, if any dogs approach her too directly, she tucks her >tail and snaps.  Especially is she is surrounded by several dogs, even if they are not aggressive, just overly friendly.>>>

Your goal for treatment to teach Zoe to remain calm in the above quoted situations. You can do this in many, small, very controlled steps or cycles. One of your main obstacles is to find helpers with friendly dogs that can be led towards Zoe at various speeds. Before I elaborate, I want to share some of my thoughts.

Dog parks - dog parks can be great or not so great. It depends on the social skills of all the dogs. Suppose another person's dog has poor social skills and approaches your dog with threatening body postures. Suppose your dog uses a dog-acceptable method of saying "hey you're making me nervous - I don't want to play with you". Your dog does this with body language, tail position, ear position, leg position, et cetera.

Suppose the first dog continues to approach and your dog uses the next level of dog-legal language to avert a physical confrontation. The first dog ignores all the
signals and encroaches on your dog's personal space. The situation escalates until it is resolved with agonistic behavior or even aggressive behavior. Whose dog was at fault? Which owner should have intervened before the meeting erupted into a confrontation? Should we expect our dogs to always accept every approaching dog as a friend (regardless of the level of assertiveness of the approach) and turn the other cheek?

Personally I don't take my dog to public areas where he will be exposed to strange dogs that may have diseases, may be aggressive or any number of undesirable traits. I do not ask my dog to trust a strange dog that is charging towards him- simply because I don't trust strange dogs! Perhaps that is a side effect of my occupation. . . I also believe that we should not expose our dogs to any environments where they might have legitimate reasons to question our requests for them to remain calm.

I realize this is not the case in training class or other organized events. I expect my dog to listen to me and remain calm. I agree that you should take steps to teach Zoe to remain calm when asked.

The book, The Cautious Canine by Patricia McConnell, is an excellent resource for your situation as is the book, Fight! by Jean Donaldson. I prefer the first one as the second one requires lots of help from other dogs.

Now-here's what you’ll do to start helping Zoe. You will need a helper with a leashed friendly dog that will heel on command. In addition, Zoe should have a history of play with this first helper dog. This dog I'll call Spot is already Zoe's friend.

Assuming Zoe can remain calm at this distance, ask the helper (with his or her dog) to stand 50 or 60 feet away (about 20 steps). This distance may be greater or less than 50-60 feet. It must be outside the threshold where Zoe stats to react. This distance will vary depending on the environment, the other dog and Zoe’s current state and will fluctuate with each session. The main point is that you must start at a distance where Zoe can see the other dog but is not reacting.

You have Zoe on a short lead and ask her to sit. Tell Zoe "here comes Spot". This is your helper's cue to lead Spot two paces towards you, turn around and return to their starting position. While this is happening, you tell Zoe how great she is for not reacting –( “Good girl” works nicely for this or occasionally you can give her a treat with the Good girl praise). Take a very short break (at least as long as it took for the helper to approach, turn and walk back to the starting area). This is one cycle. Repeat but the next cycle the helper takes four steps (after you announce“Here comes Spot”) towards Zoe before turning and walking back to the starting point. Rest. Announce. Repeat – next have the helper take 6 steps, then 8 steps, then 10 steps, so on until the helper is walking right up to you and Zoe and Zoe is not reacting. Keep in mind this first dog is one that Zoe trusts and does not react to anyway. This exercise is used to teach Zoe what you want from her.

Perform many of these exercises with many dogs. Adjust each cycle so that Zoe is exposed to just one little bit more of the trigger. For example, you could ask the helper to take two steps the first cycle, take two steps the second cycle but walk faster the second cycle. You might use treats each cycle if Zoe is having a difficult time of remaining calm. The instructions I just wrote differ somewhat from the books I mentioned, but the idea or theory is the same.

Here is a summary from my web site:
“The dog is carefully exposed to low levels of the triggers (stimuli) for the unwanted responses during many short cycles and the dog's non-reactive behaviors are reinforced. As the exercise progresses, each cycle is adjusted so that the dog is exposed to a slightly higher level of the stimuli than the previous cycle. The end result is a dog that is no longer aggressive or fearful in the presence of the stimuli, but is calm and relaxed in the presence of the stimuli.”

Buy the books, incorporate the announcements, cycles and the rests (in-between cycles) and you should succeed. Along the way you may make several adjustments. I can’t really coach you on-line, but McConnell’s book gives more details. Happy Training!
AT