Four Legged Scholars LLC – Aurora – Dog Obedience and Surrounding Areas
Are you struggling with a dog that barks on leash walks? Know this is a common issue, and you are not alone. We can absolutely help you.
Corrina and Gary came to us with a dog, Millicent, a boxer mix, that barked incessantly on-leash around other dogs. Leash walking had become unbearable for both of the owners.
After doing eight sessions with us, Millie is now able to talk walk at Sunny Lake Park in Aurora. Dog obedience is still their main focus.
We want to be authentic. Yes, Millie is much quieter and calmer on leash walks. However, there are times that she still reacts.
When you are doing dog training it takes much commitment, trust in the process and dedication. Millie’s behavior did not change overnight.
Generalization has to happen before there are almost no reactions.
This means that during Aurora dog obedience training, Millie has to see numerous breeds of dogs, numerous actions that dogs might be doing (walking, running, jumping, barking, jumping out of car, riding in a stroller, etc.) and in numerous locations. She has to learn all of the situations predict good things which in her case is chicken.
This is called counter conditioning.
We worked on giving Millie chicken every time she saw a dog. She then learned that dogs predict chicken. Once she got this, she became happy and less reactive.
However, if a scenario shows up that we haven’t worked with Millie yet, she may still react. In the video in this post, Millie sees a dog that all of us didn’t see until the last minute.
The dog suddenly jumped out of his owners car. You can see that Millie reacted by barking. However, the reaction was shorter and Millie calmed down much faster than she would have in the past.
The owners did a great job using the tools to help Millie. Increasing your distance away from the trigger (which is the other dog) will help calm your dog down. Once your dog has calmed down, you can resume doing counter conditioning while giving your dog more chicken.
We don’t want to give Millie chicken while she sees the dog and she is barking. We do want to give her chicken when she sees the dog and is relatively calm.
So yes, she reacted, and yes she learned that the dog still predicts chicken and that she can remain calm. The reason she learned this is because the owners were consistent with their training.
If they gave Millie chicken while she was barking then she may learn to bark instead. Instead, they used “target” to move Millie farther away from the other dog.
Then, they made sure to end the training on a positive note by letting her see the dog once again and gave her chicken when she was quietly looking at the dog.
Overtime, Millie will learn to hardly react at all. For now Millie reacts much less and when she does react she calms faster.
The owners know what to so that progress continues in a positive fashion. Yea to Aurora dog obedience!
Johanna Teresi, Aurora dog obedience trainer, Four Legged Scholars LLC – Aurora Dog Obedience
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