The Ego of a Hovawart Expert

When I was invited as a Hovawart expert to speak for a group of new Hovawart owners a while ago - it was before Tilde - I was asked the question what could be done to stop certain bad behaviors, like jumping up and mouthing.

We Have A Winner! Grisha Stewart's Book About BAT

And the Winner of Grisha Stewart's book about BAT is ....

Christy Johnson!

Congratulations! I hope you enjoy reading the book and putting BAT into practice.

Giveaway: Grisha Stewart's Book About BAT

This being our second giveaway, I gave it some thought, what kind of products I actually liked to give away, and I decided to continue down the path of products we have used ourselves and which really helped us in one way or the other - like the FITPAWS Balance Disc in our first giveaway that helped Kenzo so much in his injury therapy.

This time, we are therefore giving away a book that made a huge difference for us:

Behavior Adjustment Training, by Grisha Stewart, M.A., CPDT-KA

... for Free!

It Could Have Been My Dog

Once you had a reactive dog, you'll never see things the same.

I can see around corners, have a set of eyes in my back, and are constantly on my toes. Ready to step in front of my dog at any moment. I rent a holiday-place as isolated as possible, avoid other dogs, and scout the paths I want to hike for escape routes. The best moment of a walk is when we made it home safe and nothing bad happened. I am misunderstood, get blamed, and called names, and couldn't care less about it.

Off Leash: The Careless, The Clueless and The Judges

It seems like ages ago Viva was fear aggressive towards almost every other dog. She lunged, showed teeth, growled and barked, even to dogs far away. When an off leash dog came close despite all her warnings, she could lay shivering on the couch the rest of the day. I remember, just after we adopted her, how clueless I felt about what to do. Thankfully, BAT - Behavior Adjustment Training - was the answer for Viva.

Today, Viva is far from what people would call a "social" dog, as she rarely goes beyond a sniff exchange. But neither is it my goal to have her engage in play or other social contact as she rarely wants that. The important thing is she now has the social skills to communicate to off leash dogs she really is not interested to meet them, without asserting to aggression.

Working with BAT did me a lot of good too. I am studying dog body language of every dog we are about to meet to judge how Viva would react and learned a lot from that. Can we pass by on a short distance? If not, how much distance would we need? Dogs that mirror Viva's calming signals, like looking away and starting to sniff something on the ground, have a good chance Viva will allow them a sniff, might they want that.

An excited youngster with a lot to learn, is no threat either, although she will tell them to bugger off when they would try more than a sniff, as they usually do. Viva does give the message on an appropriate level, making it a good lesson for the youngster as well. Her only nemesis are still the dogs that zoom in on her, and have a stiff stance. They send her over the threshold once more. Her message is clear, don't even think about getting closer. Still work-in-progress on that one.

Do you really want to meet us?

Would such a dog try to come close, I usually drop the leash on Kenzo. He will firmly yet politely convince the other dog it is probably not a good idea to continue to approach Viva. He is her biggest help.

The best possible scenario is, when it concerns a dog that was allowed a sniff, the other dog makes a play-bow right after the sniff. Something only the dogs with the most savviest social skills will do. It rarely happens, but it will trigger Viva to engage in some play and gain her a new friend. It was also exactly what Kenzo did, first time they met.

Along the line, I found out I can get a lot of clues studying the body language and habits of their dog owners as well, at least the ones that always have their dogs off leash and thereby could cause some trouble for us. I call them the Careless, the Clueless and the Judges.

Thankfully the majority of people that have their dogs off leash, are not Careless, Clueless or Judges, and do show empathy when they meet us on their paths. They make Viva's life so much easier. They leash their dogs, when they see we go leashed or when they see us trying to avoid them. Or they recall and have their dog to heel. At the minimum, they also study Kenzo and Viva's body language, to measure what is coming up the road ahead of them.

The first are the Careless. They seem to show no interest into what their dog is up to. They talk on their cell or are occupied with other things. A Careless owner with a dog that displays a stiff stance, are a risky cocktail. I make a U-turn when I see them come.

One of the Careless we've met, with a young exuberant dog bullying others on every opportunity he could get, really baffled me. When he noticed his dog was speeding towards us for a rump, he must have thought: "Ah great, he found somebody to play with", and sad down on a bench to make a phone call. After a body-check and a tumble Kenzo was laying on top of the dog. He just doesn't accept impolite greeters. The guy almost dropped his cell.

Then there are the Clueless. They are very into what their dog is doing yet they don't seem to get a message, and their dogs usually don't listen to them. When I feel that Viva would not like to meet their dog and try to create some distance or avoid them, they follow us, usually while shouting: "My dog is friendly!". It is hard to get away from the Clueless or try to explain it is not a good idea. Luckily they hardly ever have dogs that come with a stiff stance or zoom in on Viva, so I can relax more now, would they catch up with us. And as soon as Viva does her "one sniff is enough" bark, it also usually sends them packing, while rolling their eyes.

The worst are what I call the Judges. Self-confident, with a walk like they own the world. God's gift to the off leash dog scene. We are walking on their path. Whatever will happen next they're right and I'm wrong. Would we meet, we'll usually get scolded for being something inferior, and nothing is their responsibility.

When one of the Judges would have a dog that displays a stiff stance, that means real trouble. When we meet this combination, we get the hell-out-of-dodge. I remember once while getting away, such a couple met another dog when I looked over my shoulder, they found another dog to bully, commented by the Judges with: "They must find out of it among themselves". Their favorite sentence.

Small Victories

While I work with Viva's "main" issues, like fear of dogs and sudden sounds, I don't give other, smaller issues, a lot of thought. One of those is her dislike of the water hose. I guess I don't have to control everything, so if she dislikes something as trivial as a water hose, that's fine by me. And with the bigger issues pending ... I always have a first things first attitude. And of course, my gender prevents me from multi-tasking.

It is good to know that even when you have plenty of lame excuses like I do, you can still be surprised with progress.

When we return from our daily walks, I play a little with Kenzo and the water hose, and use it to fill up a small pool Viva likes to cool her paws in. She always keeps her distance, wait until I lay down the water hose, and then rushes into the pool.

You can imagine the look on my face, when suddenly Viva showed up very close to the water hose while I was filling up her pool. All I did was stay quiet - and took out the camera:

"Oh my, this is really awfully close"

"Hmmm, it doesn't seem to do me any harm..."

"Let's do it then"

"That was not bad at all"

"I can do this!"

These small unexpected victories are the best. Just like her earlier nice behavior at the groomer's. I like to think it is because of all the work we put in, it improves her so much, that she can take the smaller battles herself. But maybe it is despite my efforts, and Viva can do it a lot better independently, without me prodding. Either way, I love it.

Look at That, Not at Me

No time to look at you, I am looking at that

Dogs learn from each other and copy behaviors of each other.

For Viva I hoped she could benefit from Kenzo, observing how he interacted with other dogs, and how he handles situations that would otherwise impose fear on her.

The exact opposite happened. Viva is making good progress – thanks to BAT (Behavioral Adjustment Training) – but Kenzo is going in the opposite direction. They are copying alright. But it is Kenzo that is doing the copying, not Viva.

Looking back, Kenzo’s change in behavior already started to develop ever since our very first encounter with an off-leash dog together with Viva. Viva snared at her, and the other dog snared back. Kenzo stepped in between the two ladies before it could escalate any further. He did not snare or growled, just moved in between them while making himself as large as possible. The other dog left. I thought it was just Kenzo being his diplomatic self, like he has done so many times before.

This scenario repeated itself with other dogs. And then one day Kenzo decided to act in a preventive way, and moved in between before the other dog could reach Viva at all. And in small increments, he became a little more persuasive as well. Without me noticing it - I was glad for the help while in the background trying to somehow keep Viva from going berserk -, he was learning a lesson I did not want him to learn. Aggression can pay off.

In the mean time Viva became a lot more relaxed due to the progress we made with her BAT training. She became so much more relaxed that I could start doing some “Look At Me” with her on our walks. When another dog approaches, I can use it to have her focus on me. She can still respond to a “Look at Me” only meters away from another dog.

Kenzo gave “Look at Me” a different meaning. For him it was a signal another dog was approaching – which in itself was correct - and he made himself ready to scare them off for Viva. Instead of looking at me, he would scout the surroundings for any dogs and locked in on them as a guided missile system. No matter how much I tried training it with Kenzo separately, on a walk together with Viva, Kenzo mistook it for a warning that danger is approaching.

Now I found myself in a situation where Viva was improving, but Kenzo was clearly in a downward spiral. Not something I would have expected, to say the least. And I needed to fix it fast.

I discussed it a lot with my Twitter pals, and while I chatted about it with @kimhalligan1 and @positivelydog, I got some great advice. According to @positivelydog  Kenzo was an info-seeking dog and with them “Look at That” (LAT) works better. That meant I actually had to reward him for looking at the other dog, instead of trying to have him to look at me. She sent me this LAT video from Leslie McDevitt – author of “Control Unleashed” - and off we went to try it out.

It was easy to train, as I can reward Kenzo for what is natural for him. When we are on a walk these days, we are just asking for a “Look...”. Viva looks at me, and is rewarded. Kenzo scouts the horizon, finds the dog, I praise and he looks at me for a reward. Jackpot!

It is such a small thing when you think of it, but it makes a huge difference. Having regained focus of both Kenzo & Viva once more we can move forward again as a team. The negative downward spiral Kenzo was in has been stopped. 

Viva's long road to rehabilitation: reactive behavior

that is close enough, please!

When we adopted Viva, the local shelter warned us for her aggressive behavior. As we soon were to find out, she would lung and growl at any dog in sight.

How it was possible her first meeting with Kenzo went well remained a mystery for us in a long time. But more about that later in this story.

As you might remember, Behavioral Adjustment Training (BAT) was brought to our attention by dog trainer Irith Bloom and blogger/author Edie Jarolim and we started making some progress. So where do we stand now?

I'm cool when you are cool

Training different BAT setups enhanced Viva's vocabulary of calming signals. She also feels confident enough to use them in a lot of situations. We can pass any other calm dog on a distance of around 5 meters (15 feet) and her normal response would be to look away and ignore the other dog. She has no wish to come up and greet. But that is also not necessary. Just that she chooses to tackle the situation with these calming signals instead of agression, is wonderful.

One of the good things with BAT in Viva's case was that it took the edge off of things. Which allows us to use other techniques like counter conditioning and desensitizing - see Debbie Jacob's explanation of this training jargon. Something that had no effect on Viva at all before BAT.

Some of the calm and well-socialized dogs she has gotten to know in the neighborhood are allowed to come and greet. In Viva's world that means the exchange of a sniff. That will do for Viva. Thereafter it is all turning away and ignoring. Again a good display of Viva using her newly adopted social skills.

Unusual setups

We still have a lot of progress to make trying to approach a more "excited" dog. From a distance Viva will try some lip licking as calming signals, but she still will not feel comfortable to approach closer than a distance of 10 meters (30 feet). Although she will not lung or bark at them anymore if we come closer, she is clearly outside her comfort-zone. I always make sure never to go over her threshold, praise her for the lip licking, and turn around.

To help Viva further we found a great BAT setup with Kenzo's friend the Yorkshire terrier "watchdog". Because he knows me from all the walks me and Kenzo did past his property, he barks excited, and runs up to the fence, ready to meet us and receive his treats. I watch this with Viva on a safe distance and we have made it into our 5 meter barrier where we even were able to do "look at me". I throw some treats at the Yorkie too.

Play bow

Our biggest concern are off-leash dogs. We have become quite savvy in avoiding other dogs, also when they are off-leash. But unevitably some come up and meet. The good thing is that she doesn't lung at them anymore head-on. When the other dog ignores her after the sniff she allows them to leave in the best of health.

Amazingly, the best the other dog could do is to make a play-bow. That calms her down tremendously and she will fully accept the dog. I had to rub my eyes the first couple of times that happened. She will do some tail wags and grins to the other dog. Suddenly we realized, it was also the key Kenzo used in their first meeting together, and explained why she accepted him from day one. Just luck? or another display of Kenzo outsmarting me once again on the social dog front?

Too much

Anything else than ignoring after the sniff or play-bows clearly sends her in distress and she will start focusing on trying to convince the other dog to leave. She will take a more confrontational stand, and will snap them in the neck or back if they keep on coming back. Those meetings send her stress levels sky-rocketing. She is clearly very unhappy the rest of the day, and can start with a heavy panting that goes on for hours, like some kind of constant state of hyperventilation. After such an encounter we usually take it calm for the next couple of days. Make some short walks and ensure there is not even another dog in sight.

Our biggest challenge is of course other reactive or aggressive dogs. I think I am now able to spot them from a great distance and the tactic is simple: get the hell out of Dodge! We are absolutely not ready for a meeting, on any distance, with one of her equals.

***

"Viva's long road to rehabilitation" is a series of updates how Viva is doing almost one year after her adoption:

• the work-out
• reactive behavior

Viva into BAT

We were warned by the local shelter about Viva. She doesn't "like" other dogs. Reason unknown. We let Viva meet Kenzo, our other Hovawart, under supervision of a dog trainer of the shelter. This turned out very well, so how bad could it be?

Viva watching dogs in distance on beach
During the first time we spent together with Viva, she told me which dogs she didn't like. Any dog that is not immediately sending her calming or playing signals, is met with reactive behavior. She did well with dogs that had great social skills, explaining why she accepted Kenzo. We were able to make some more friends that way. But overall she launched at them, growling and showing her bare teeth.

Way over my head

I must admit this was going way over my dog skills. I started getting advice and read a lot of blogs and books what to do in such a case. This quickly got us started with a counter conditioning and desensitizing approach. Exposing Viva to low levels of fear (other dogs far, far away) and giving her treats, learning her a positive association: dog means treat.

Good timing is of the essence her. Maybe it was just too difficult for me, but I was only allowed to do this on very long distances to other dogs. Over the period of at least two months we couldn't come an inch closer. The last thing that had Viva's interest when a dog appeared at the horizon, was a treat. She could only stand stiff, stare at the dog, and when it came over the threshold, she launched. We had to find another approach.

BAT to the rescue

I did hear about Behavior Adjustment Training (BAT) before but it never became clear to me what it entailed, until Edie Jarolim started a series about BAT on her blog Will my dog hate me? together with Irith Bloom, a BAT expert and owner of The Sophisticated Dog, a pet training company.

What would Viva really want when she sees another dog but still well within her comfort zone? A treat? Or walk away? She would definitely want to walk away. BAT addresses this and let the reward be what the dog wants in the first place. Doing BAT in Viva's case would mean as soon as I see her displaying calming signals, the reward is to walk away, not a treat.

Our first BAT setup

Inspired by the notion that in theory this could work for Viva we did a BAT training setup the next week, while we were on vacation. Just along our summer rental, only a few feet away, there was a path that lead to a small center inside the park/resort. A lot of people and dogs came by on this path. Every time a dog emerged, I marked it, took Viva inside, and gave her a treat. We closed some curtains so she could not see the dogs at all anymore. I repeated this for two days. On day two she was clearly more relaxed and even lied down (although her facial expression was still slightly tensed when looking at the path, see photo below). From the second day I even noticed her making some lip licking calming signals when she saw a dog approaching on the path.


New setup needed

We repeated this training after we came home in different types of setups. And I was starting to see more stable behavior of Viva with calming signals. Along the road she started to change her behavior again. With some dogs approaching, she started to lay down, and didn't want to move away but meet the other dog! I had to find a new setup now, as I couldn't let her drag me towards the dog on a tight leash. But me pulling the leash trying to come away could also give her a backlash.

The new setup we choose was doing BAT on the beach. Here I would have ample opportunity to see other dogs coming. We could retreat behind a beachclub if necessary. And I put Viva on a long line instead of a normal leash. That way I prevent leash pulling but could control her if she would want to get to close. We did our BAT training. When she was lying down, I let her have her way and come closer to the other dog. She did great. Never went all the way to greet, but moved up to a distance of around 30-40 meters. When she stopped I made a recall and she came back, happy and excited. I never had to grab the long line. I played with her and praised her, getting her focus away of the other dog. Which was then allowed to pass. On a safe distance.

BAT continues

Viva is clearly improving her social skills. My guess is it will still be some time before we can relax on our walks, and I am speculating on what our next step in BAT will be. I guess Viva will show me. Thats also so great about BAT, you just have to do what your dog would really want at the moment, basically. Also other people in our dog training school are interested in BAT hearing Viva's story. It would be great if somebody could join us in making proper BAT setups.

Don't worry ! Kenzo (left) and Viva (right) playing, not fighting

If you think BAT is something for you and your dog, please follow the advice in the links below. With BAT, setup is key, and the above examples of Viva are far from ideal BAT training. It is just what I was able to do with the opportunities at hand. Here are some great resources on BAT and other methods on working with fearful dogs:

Ahisma dog training, by Grisha Stewart, founder of BAT
The Sophisticated Dog
Series on BAT, by Edie Jarolim
Fearful dogs