A primary way Brenda recommends to make the switch between hind brain and front brain is with physical contact. Now, I'm not talking about hitting or kicking, so don't get the wrong idea. She does a lot of rubbing along the body, and on the head. The rubbing is not the same as petting. The hand is flat, so you're not forming it to the dog's body, and you rub back and forth (not just in the direction of the hair). It's firm back and forth, with a fair amount of pressure. You rub all over the dogs back, down it's legs, and even on it's cheeks, from lips to ear. The cheek rubbing is easiest done with the thumbs.
The back away and emergency hold that I mentioned in the Leash Aggression post are good ways to flip the brain to front mode. But, as always, there's pre-work to be done before you can use any of these methods in a stressful situation. Many dogs are uncomfortable with touching, especially around the head and neck. We first need to desensitize the dog to the touching/rubbing by giving the dog a good rub-down several times a day. Rub their bodies and faces, while saying "good boy/girl" in a calm soothing voice. I think a video would be a great way to show this method, so as soon as I can, I'll post a video up here.
Practice the backaway during your walks. Practice the emergency hold, even when you're not in an emergency, because you want the dog to be accustomed to you reaching for his collar and touching his face in advance. We don't want the dogs taking their frustration out on us! Practice giving your dog a good rub-down.
If you see that your dog is about to flip into hind brain mode, you can prevent the transition by quickly doing a backaway, placing the dog in an emergency hold, and rubbing her face and body. In this scenario, you have prevented rehearsal, which you may remember me referring to in earlier posts. See, everything is related! When we prevent rehearsal, we begin to build new and different neural pathways, preferably to the correct behavior.
Practicing these maneuvers in advance can help us bring the dog out of hind brain mode as well, making them useful in so many different situations. It's so important for our dogs to be accustomed to being touched by us. Each dog has a different tolerance for being touched, so you'll have to start at a level that is appropriate for your dog. Some are highly sensitive even to the pressure of a collar. Others are very amiable to all sorts of physical contact. Once you start working on physical contact, and the dog realizes it's not threatening, using rubbing to manipulate the hind brain is quite successful because dogs respond to pressure. Similar to swaddling a baby, dogs feel safer when wrapped tightly: when they feel pressure on their bodies. The rubbing creates that pressure, and actually calms the dog down. Brenda Aloff believes that this releases dopamine and serotonin, calming chemicals, in the brain.
Use the rub-downs in just about any situation when your dog is anxious. Firm rubbing and a calm soothing voice. Look for calming signals from her as a sign that she's responding to the rubbing. Peyton most commonly shakes his body (Brenda refers to this as shaking the tension out) and licks/chews. You may see blinking, tension visibly leaving the face, etc (see the post that describes calming signals).
Wednesday, September 26, 2007
Front Brain vs. Hind Brain
From Brenda Aloff Reactive Dog Seminar
If you ever have a chance to attend one of Brenda's seminars, I highly recommend it
Hind Brain:
When our dogs are reactive, running on adrenaline, not rational, etc. This term describes my reactive dog, Peyton, every time he makes eye contact with a strange dog. Or even when he sees a squirrel in the yard. In this state, the dog is functioning on instinct, and probably doesn't even hear your voice. I think we've all felt the helplessness that goes along with hind brain dogs, not knowing what to do, and our dogs completely ignoring us.
Examples: Really excited dog pulling her owner around while running to every person every smell. Dog barking furiously at person/dog/squirrel/whatever.
Front Brain:
This is when our dogs respond to us, are "thinking", calm, etc. This is the state we need our dogs in to teach them and to make an impact, and for them to learn new behaviors.
Example: Dog sitting in a heel position looking at her owner. Dog walking on leash next to owner, not pulling or looking around anxiously.
The trick is to develop a method to switch our dogs from hind brain to front brain. Sounds easy :-P --See next post about rubbing and physical contact!
If you ever have a chance to attend one of Brenda's seminars, I highly recommend it
Hind Brain:
When our dogs are reactive, running on adrenaline, not rational, etc. This term describes my reactive dog, Peyton, every time he makes eye contact with a strange dog. Or even when he sees a squirrel in the yard. In this state, the dog is functioning on instinct, and probably doesn't even hear your voice. I think we've all felt the helplessness that goes along with hind brain dogs, not knowing what to do, and our dogs completely ignoring us.
Examples: Really excited dog pulling her owner around while running to every person every smell. Dog barking furiously at person/dog/squirrel/whatever.
Front Brain:
This is when our dogs respond to us, are "thinking", calm, etc. This is the state we need our dogs in to teach them and to make an impact, and for them to learn new behaviors.
Example: Dog sitting in a heel position looking at her owner. Dog walking on leash next to owner, not pulling or looking around anxiously.
The trick is to develop a method to switch our dogs from hind brain to front brain. Sounds easy :-P --See next post about rubbing and physical contact!
Thursday, September 20, 2007
Leash Aggression
Leash aggression is fairly common in IG's. Much of it stems from being "trapped" on the leash, unable to get away from approaching danger. Because of the feeling of being trapped, many dogs will preemptively strike out by barking and snapping. Many of these same dogs are perfectly friendly when off leash, or show no other signs of aggression.
Recently, Lifeline IG Rescue sent me to a Brenda Aloff seminar for reactive dogs. I was very lucky to have the ability to attend this two day seminar, as it has really helped me with my reactive dog Peyton. Hopefully I can convey the information so that it will help you as well! She has written several books and has videos that illustrate many of her techniques, if you want to research this topic more.
Another great resource for dog behavior issues is Patricia McConnell. She writes booklets about all sorts of behavior issues. Her book that deals specifically with leash aggression is Feisty Fido and is written in plain English :D. It's short and easy to read and understand.
The basic principal that both Brenda Aloff and Patricia McConnell work from is to instill a replacement behavior for the undesired behavior. In our case:
Undesired behavior = lunging, barking, snapping at approaching dog while on leash
Desired (replacement) behavior = look at you (eye contact), and watch you until the threat is gone
So, we want to teach our dog that every time they see another dog, they are to watch you. As Brenda says, "The answer to every question is look at me." Dogs, according to both Brenda and Patricia, do best with one or two solutions that apply to every situation, as opposed to different responses at certain times. Our ultimate goal is to replace the barking dog with a dog who looks at you when you encounter other dogs on your walks.
But I know what you're thinking, "Great, but what can I do until my dog has fully learned to look at me when they see another dog?" Brenda has some really great solutions to that question. She says that your first goal is to "prevent rehearsal", but given a failure or inability to do that, you always fall back on the "emergency hold". I'll get into both of those in more detail.
Prevent Rehearsal
This basically means that you want to keep your dog from practicing the barking/lunging behavior. You employ techniques that distract the dog, soothe the dog, etc; anything to keep the dog from rehearsing the bad behavior. Brenda suggests that if the behavior is never rehearsed, it is eventually forgotten. And lucky for us, the flip side is also true: the behavior that is rehearsed becomes the first response to a situation. (We use this in our favor to instill the desired behaviors.)
Emergency Hold
The emergency hold is ALWAYS your backup for an uncontrollable situation. It works if you are caught off guard, the level of intensity is too high to convince your dog to look at you, etc. To get to the emergency hold, you take your dog's collar with both hands and guide the dog to sit/stand in front of you, facing you, and kind of hold his head between your legs. This forces the dog to face you, and then you can rub his cheeks with your thumbs.
Human Behaviors
There are a few steps we need to take to get ready to fix the leash aggression.
No more walking on the extendo-leash. Sorry :-( But you don't have good control over your dog when they're wandering every which way they please. Get a standard 6-foot leash.
No more letting your dog pull to the end of the leash and run back and forth trying to get ahead of you. Keep most of the leash in your hand, giving the dog a few inches so they're not choking, but basically they have to stay at your side or slightly behind you. This gives you control of your dog in advance. If the dog can lunge 6 feet towards a threat before you have control, you have already allowed rehearsal and lost valuable time in getting your dog's attention back to you. (When you're on a walk, the dog's job is to walk, not to sniff, wander around, urine mark, etc. Potty walking is different: the goal is pottying.)
Pay attention! This is the one I have the toughest time with :D When I'm walking, I tend to zone out, get in a rhythm, and then BOOM a dog is in front of me and Peyton is already upset. Pay attention to your dog, learn what his warning signals are. Peyton's are: tail goes up, ears go forward, eyes bug out a bit, and the big one: he turns BRIGHT PINK! I'm serious, bright pink under his short white fur. Spotting these signs is key because the next step is barking/lunging. (And the goal is to prevent rehearsal, so we distract the dog as soon as we see warning signs.) Keep your eyes up for other dogs walking or running loose, and start your behavior work early. In other words, don't wait until your dog is freaking out.
Please don't yank your leash when your dog is lunging barking any more. It basically teaches them that other dogs = pressure on my neck. We don't want any negative consequences associated with other dogs being in the vicinity (it makes the other dogs scarier). We don't want our dog thinking that other dogs being around means that bad things will happen.
Baseline Training and Behavior
We have some pre-work to do before our dogs magically look at us every time they see another dog. We are going to practice practice practice in low-stress situations, preferably not around other dogs.
Eye Contact
This is the behavior we want to instill, so practice eye contact with your dog. Give a treat/praise when your dog looks at you. Build up to them looking at you for a long time, like 30 seconds. Watch them as you walk, and give treat/praise when they look up at you. You can even practice this while on the couch watching TV ;-P
The Back-Away
I learned this at Brenda Aloff's seminar. The basic gist of it is that you back up a few steps as your dog positions in front of you, facing you. This is a nice easy way to get your dog facing you and looking towards you. It is very handy when a threat is in front of you because you turn your dogs body and focus away from the threat. To teach the back away, start by walking 2 steps forward, pausing, rocking back, and then take a step back. At first, you may have to manipulate your dog's body into following you by taking him by the collar and guiding him with you, or physically moving his back end into place. But as you practice, the dog will learn that the pause/rock means you're about to back up and will learn to come with you. This is also the first part of the emergency hold sequence. Practice this over and over, and then back away periodically on your daily walk, so your dog is used to it occurring anytime, anywhere.
The progression of the back away is that you end up at: holding your dog's collar, stroking their cheeks, forcing them to look at you and not at the threat, and calmly, soothingly telling them good boy/girl. (Remember, no excited voices because that elevates the energy and you want them calm.)
Practice practice practice! Walking every day gives you plenty of opportunity to practice the back away, eye contact, and the emergency hold. So walk with treats and your dog as the main focus.
I will be adding pictures and videos in the very near future, so stay tuned!
Recently, Lifeline IG Rescue sent me to a Brenda Aloff seminar for reactive dogs. I was very lucky to have the ability to attend this two day seminar, as it has really helped me with my reactive dog Peyton. Hopefully I can convey the information so that it will help you as well! She has written several books and has videos that illustrate many of her techniques, if you want to research this topic more.
Another great resource for dog behavior issues is Patricia McConnell. She writes booklets about all sorts of behavior issues. Her book that deals specifically with leash aggression is Feisty Fido and is written in plain English :D. It's short and easy to read and understand.
The basic principal that both Brenda Aloff and Patricia McConnell work from is to instill a replacement behavior for the undesired behavior. In our case:
Undesired behavior = lunging, barking, snapping at approaching dog while on leash
Desired (replacement) behavior = look at you (eye contact), and watch you until the threat is gone
So, we want to teach our dog that every time they see another dog, they are to watch you. As Brenda says, "The answer to every question is look at me." Dogs, according to both Brenda and Patricia, do best with one or two solutions that apply to every situation, as opposed to different responses at certain times. Our ultimate goal is to replace the barking dog with a dog who looks at you when you encounter other dogs on your walks.
But I know what you're thinking, "Great, but what can I do until my dog has fully learned to look at me when they see another dog?" Brenda has some really great solutions to that question. She says that your first goal is to "prevent rehearsal", but given a failure or inability to do that, you always fall back on the "emergency hold". I'll get into both of those in more detail.
Prevent Rehearsal
This basically means that you want to keep your dog from practicing the barking/lunging behavior. You employ techniques that distract the dog, soothe the dog, etc; anything to keep the dog from rehearsing the bad behavior. Brenda suggests that if the behavior is never rehearsed, it is eventually forgotten. And lucky for us, the flip side is also true: the behavior that is rehearsed becomes the first response to a situation. (We use this in our favor to instill the desired behaviors.)
Emergency Hold
The emergency hold is ALWAYS your backup for an uncontrollable situation. It works if you are caught off guard, the level of intensity is too high to convince your dog to look at you, etc. To get to the emergency hold, you take your dog's collar with both hands and guide the dog to sit/stand in front of you, facing you, and kind of hold his head between your legs. This forces the dog to face you, and then you can rub his cheeks with your thumbs.
Human Behaviors
There are a few steps we need to take to get ready to fix the leash aggression.
No more walking on the extendo-leash. Sorry :-( But you don't have good control over your dog when they're wandering every which way they please. Get a standard 6-foot leash.
No more letting your dog pull to the end of the leash and run back and forth trying to get ahead of you. Keep most of the leash in your hand, giving the dog a few inches so they're not choking, but basically they have to stay at your side or slightly behind you. This gives you control of your dog in advance. If the dog can lunge 6 feet towards a threat before you have control, you have already allowed rehearsal and lost valuable time in getting your dog's attention back to you. (When you're on a walk, the dog's job is to walk, not to sniff, wander around, urine mark, etc. Potty walking is different: the goal is pottying.)
Pay attention! This is the one I have the toughest time with :D When I'm walking, I tend to zone out, get in a rhythm, and then BOOM a dog is in front of me and Peyton is already upset. Pay attention to your dog, learn what his warning signals are. Peyton's are: tail goes up, ears go forward, eyes bug out a bit, and the big one: he turns BRIGHT PINK! I'm serious, bright pink under his short white fur. Spotting these signs is key because the next step is barking/lunging. (And the goal is to prevent rehearsal, so we distract the dog as soon as we see warning signs.) Keep your eyes up for other dogs walking or running loose, and start your behavior work early. In other words, don't wait until your dog is freaking out.
Please don't yank your leash when your dog is lunging barking any more. It basically teaches them that other dogs = pressure on my neck. We don't want any negative consequences associated with other dogs being in the vicinity (it makes the other dogs scarier). We don't want our dog thinking that other dogs being around means that bad things will happen.
Baseline Training and Behavior
We have some pre-work to do before our dogs magically look at us every time they see another dog. We are going to practice practice practice in low-stress situations, preferably not around other dogs.
Eye Contact
This is the behavior we want to instill, so practice eye contact with your dog. Give a treat/praise when your dog looks at you. Build up to them looking at you for a long time, like 30 seconds. Watch them as you walk, and give treat/praise when they look up at you. You can even practice this while on the couch watching TV ;-P
The Back-Away
I learned this at Brenda Aloff's seminar. The basic gist of it is that you back up a few steps as your dog positions in front of you, facing you. This is a nice easy way to get your dog facing you and looking towards you. It is very handy when a threat is in front of you because you turn your dogs body and focus away from the threat. To teach the back away, start by walking 2 steps forward, pausing, rocking back, and then take a step back. At first, you may have to manipulate your dog's body into following you by taking him by the collar and guiding him with you, or physically moving his back end into place. But as you practice, the dog will learn that the pause/rock means you're about to back up and will learn to come with you. This is also the first part of the emergency hold sequence. Practice this over and over, and then back away periodically on your daily walk, so your dog is used to it occurring anytime, anywhere.
The progression of the back away is that you end up at: holding your dog's collar, stroking their cheeks, forcing them to look at you and not at the threat, and calmly, soothingly telling them good boy/girl. (Remember, no excited voices because that elevates the energy and you want them calm.)
Practice practice practice! Walking every day gives you plenty of opportunity to practice the back away, eye contact, and the emergency hold. So walk with treats and your dog as the main focus.
I will be adding pictures and videos in the very near future, so stay tuned!
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