# How long to see improvement in dog reactive dog?



## mad (Sep 2, 2014)

I realise every dog and every case is different so I guess I'm just asking, in your experience how long did it take to see an improvement in a dog reactive dog?

Here are our circumstances - 

We have recently rescued an adult dog named Rufus. He has some dog reactivity with stranger dogs. He is fine with our other dog Lily and with dogs he knows, he is also fine with another dog if we walk along with them for about a minute or so, usually even less time. It is just his initial reaction to seeing another dog, I believe he is scared. If he is off-leash he will rush towards the stranger dog, barking, once he gets there he does absolutely nothing or just barks at them from a little distance. Obviously now we realise he does this we call him back before he gets near other dogs and put him on-leash as I realise not every dog would react well to this. If he is on-leash he will bark at stranger dogs. Once he has been in any dogs company for even a little while he is absolutely fine with them if they are ok with him.

I have started to give him lots of treats when we see another dog in the hope this will change his feelings from being scared to feeling good about other dogs. I also know a few friendly and a few calm dogs from walking Lily and have enlisted some help for our new dog to just 'hang-out' and be rewarded for staying calm with these dogs. He does not play with them but will ignore them and play fetch with me, which is fine, I feel like it is all good experience for him to see that other dogs are not scary.

Lily is extremely friendly with other dogs, she will also not react at all if another dog barks at her, just continue to walk past them normally, but we had her from a puppy and socialised her a lot so that was easier as we were starting with a relatively clean slate as opposed to trying to reverse feelings of fear. Lily doesn't seem affected when Rufus barks at another dog and I hoped some of her confidence would rub off but I don't think that makes a difference.

Is it possible that I will never get Rufus to change his feelings on initially seeing another dog? Or will it just take lots of time, consistency, ups and downs and patience? and if so how much time? 

I also expect even if we get to a point where Rufus is calm when seeing another calm dog there will still be times he barks at less calm dogs. I don't expect to ever completely rid him of his reactivity and I don't mind if he never plays with dogs other than Lily but it would be nice if we could see another dog in the distance without him rushing towards them, being called back and being put on-leash or walk past calm dogs on-leash without him barking. I guess I'm also asking if that's a realistic expectation? Or do some dogs never improve? And is what I'm doing enough?

Thanks for reading


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## WesS (May 12, 2015)

Yes it can be made better. Much better. Takes time. And slowly closing distance to other dogs where you are rewarding, yet dog not reacting. More to it than that. But if you are in contact with right people this leash pulling etc. without a doubt can be alleviated completely.


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## CptJack (Jun 3, 2012)

It can and will change. How long varies, and you will have setbacks. I've been working with ,u dogs reactivity pretty passively bit consistently for about six months. She now settles after the initial reaction, enough to work with me in classes. But she has the initial reaction upon seeing a fog for about 2-3 minutes even time, if we have weeks off ze has to take a week or two to regain her brain, and if another dog reacts a her bets are off.

This is enormously better than when we started. Another year I figure she'll be pretty much where I believe I can get her and want her which is ignoring other dogs who aren't rude jerks and right in her face.

But I'm really passive in working on it. As in I only 'set up' situations in as much as she is in group classes. Otherwise I mostly just... Don't, directly, because I'm lazy and it doesn't work for her anyway.


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## gingerkid (Jul 11, 2012)

mad said:


> I also expect even if we get to a point where Rufus is calm when seeing another calm dog there will still be times he barks at less calm dogs. I don't expect to ever completely rid him of his reactivity and I don't mind if he never plays with dogs other than Lily but it would be nice if we could see another dog in the distance without him rushing towards them, being called back and being put on-leash or walk past calm dogs on-leash without him barking. I guess I'm also asking if that's a realistic expectation? Or do some dogs never improve? And is what I'm doing enough?
> 
> Thanks for reading


It is totally a reasonable expectation! It will just take time. How long, really depends. If you are 100% consistent at preventing him from getting beyond threshold and working on desensitization (getting closer without reacting) and counter conditioning (offering a preferable behavior to barking when seeing another dog), you'll likely see some improvement in several weeks, but it wasn't until ~6 months after we'd been working on it that we noticed real improvements, and were able to walk past dogs across the street without having to shovel treats into his face to stop him from barking, hah.

Snowball also used to rush strange dogs off-leash, however with more exposure greeting friendly off-leash dogs, he no longer rushes dogs that we encounter on walks, an instead walks up to the calmly like is polite. In our case, part of the problem was me - I would get so nervous and agitated when we were approaching another dog - I would usually stop when I saw another dog approaching so I could watch them greet each other. One day, I noticed that it was only the dogs I stopping to watch that Snowball was rushing up to... (we encountered some dogs we'd met several times so I didn't bother to stop and watch them b/c I knew they'd be fine together). The next time we went to the park, I continued walking calmly past all of the dogs that we saw... and Snowball didn't rush a single one. Nowadays he no longer charges strange dogs (although he will run to head them off if they're charging US).


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## mad (Sep 2, 2014)

Thanks guys, its good to know that we probably will be able to improve his initial reactions even if it takes a bit of time.


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## mad (Sep 2, 2014)

Quick questions, if Rufus sees a dog and I call his name or make attention noises and treat him for paying me attention, is he getting rewarded for giving me attention on his name/ noises and not being CC'ed to the other dog at all or if the treats keep coming while the other dog is in sight and stop when it disappears is it rewarding for attention and CC'ing at the same time? 

Also its near impossible to get him to not go over threshold because I can turn around to create distance and there's another dog coming the other way and also most of the time he is over-threshold when he sees another dog way, way off in the distance, like if we got any further away you couldn't see it. If he is over-threshold, so barking but will then respond to his name and treated and then I can hold his attention with treats is this actually doing anything? 

It's so hard to get it all right, it was so much easier with our puppy  I worry that I wont be able to make him a nice relaxed dog on a walk ever.


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## PatriciafromCO (Oct 7, 2012)

Darien was sadistically tortured daily, r, broken bones that never where tended too.... what saved him was not to bother him with that he didn't like people, he reacted on dogs too but not to the same extreme, but I didn't bother him about that either.. Communication and team work skills all surrounded around OB skills. That is what he could do and excel in. Never going to make a dog like something you can't train it in them... so your not failing if they never like something, it's really their choice... But as you said focusing on your skills is what yall can do... he was a dog that no matter how strongly he felt,, if he had a job to focus in on instead he was a perfectionist in it.. He excelled in a structured environment, a environment that had rules that everyone abided by that he could count on. Felt safe that there was rules to know what to do, instead of just having to fend for himself the only way he knew how that would work for him.. "being reactive to make it go away" He was very good at letting go, but I would say we were at our best for being reliable by 3 years old.. Especially when a strange dog that my Mentor was kenneling was out on his free run and I walked out the back door with Darien and my other guys not knowing and Darien and the strange dog collided around the corner of the house and Darien came back to me for us to go back inside to wait for our turn.. Or when he busted down his baby gate in the basement and came upstairs being afraid of the thunderstorm and cuddled up on the couch with a bunch of people for comfort who hugged on him and kissed him not realizing it was Darien lol lol and Darien was greatful for the comfort... lol lo llol ... he did let it go , but until he did on his own we worked on us...

I will never train Adele to like J and not try to rip her throat out again... But I can accomplish Adele to work with me and focus on me and her given task/job and not spend every waking moment of her life focused in on J and waiting for an opportunity to get at her. Adele has her place and she is a perfectionist as well in doing her task and her job.. But she may never like J unless Adele changes her own mind and I am not spending my time trying to convince her of it.. I'm working on skills for us that Adele has other things to look forward to, that have nothing to do with J.. even when J is right there it's not about J... It's about Adele and me... that holds her attention and focus on what we are doing that is rewarding.


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## CptJack (Jun 3, 2012)

Dog reactivity and dog aggression aren't really the same thing.

Dog aggression, you don't train out. Sometimes, you don't train out dog reactivity either, but it's not an inborn desire to hurt another dog - it's insecurity and fear, or it's over exuberance and frustration. You can build confidence and security, and you can work on self-control. THOSE are the reasons you work with reactive dogs the way you do, and permanently separate and manage dogs who are dog aggressive and 'out to get' another dog or dogs. It's different, entirely. (this re: Patricia).

All that said, a lot of who you work with reactivity is going to depend on the dog. For me and my dog, look at that and treats did nothing. What DID work was giving the dog a job to do that wasn't reliant on the presence of other dogs. Basically making her look at other dogs and then away from them just made her more obsessive about the other dogs. I trained to ignore the other dogs. Ie: Get her under threshold and work obedience/tricks/play - anything that is focusing on me and making the other dog background noise. I don' tlook for them, seek them out, ask her to look at them or look away from them. If she reacts, well, she reacts and we manage. If she's reacting, clearly she's over threshold and you don't teach a dog ANYTHING in that state. 

So, I guess my only real take-away advice from you is if you reach a point where he's starting to react, get him out of the situation in whatever way necessary, but you've lost the opportunity to teach, so don't even bother. Calling his name and aksing for other behavior and getting it though? That's gold.


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