How do you stop a dog pulling and barking

Share your favorite training tips, ideas and methods with other Positively members!

Moderators: emmabeth, BoardHost

Post Reply
fidlerdonna
Posts: 1
Joined: Sun Sep 21, 2014 1:38 pm

How do you stop a dog pulling and barking

Post by fidlerdonna »

we have a 14 month old samoyed and walking him is starting to be awkward. He's a fairly large dog now and he can be very off putting when he sees another dog as he starts pulling and barking. It's not an aggressive bark but a playful yapping, to those that don't know him though it can be intimidating.
We have tried various treats to tempt him away including food and his favourite ball. When he's in that frame of mind nothing seems to get his attention.

Any help and advice would be most welcomed
Maxy24
Posts: 296
Joined: Sun Jan 13, 2008 3:08 pm
Location: MA, USA

Re: How do you stop a dog pulling and barking

Post by Maxy24 »

How quickly do you try to start giving him treats? You really need to try and give them the INSTANT he notices the dog exists so you get his attention before he's totally focused on the other dog. You also have to have a very high rate of reinforcement, don't give him a chance to lose focus and lock onto the dog. If you are already doing this then you need to start thinking of ways to increase distance between your dog and the other dog or finding different ways of getting your dog's focus. Movement can be helpful. Suddenly start running away from the other dog, I will do this whenever I think I'm losing my dog, I run away. It grabs his attention and prevents him from barking. Once I have his attention I can try treats again. Walking backwards quickly can get your dog to focus on you. While you're going backwards you can hold out a treat and pause long enough for him to take it, then keep walking backwards. Once you've got him taking treats you may be able to go forward again. Keep the pace up, use a high rate of reinforcement.

Some dogs might do better staying still while another dog passes than trying to actively pass the dog. So instead of trying to get him to walk past the dog, pull him over onto the nearest lawn and just stop there and feed him. My dog does better if I scatter treats on the grass than if I hand them to him, so that's what I do. But every dog is different. Some do better if you keep going forward or pick up the pace than if you stand still. Some need to have the treat right in their face, they don't have the focus needed to try and search for food in the grass (in fact I usually hand my dog the first couple of treats when he sees a dog, then start scattering. That way i grab his attention with the first few treats and then hold his focus by having him actively searching for food).

Sometimes certain equipment can help. I needed an easy walk harness (front clipping) when my dog was super reactive. We've reached the point where he rarely reacts anymore because I know how to keep his attention and because he's got a longer fuse. I will still put it on if he's had a bad day and I think he's more likely to react. Front clipping harnesses allow me to control him better when he lunges and allows me to control his movement better. If I run backwards with him the harness tries to force him to face me and run towards/with me, I'm not just dragging him backwards like I would be on a back clipping harness. A lot of trainers like head collars for reactive dogs and I think they're likely VERY helpful if your dog accepts them. They allow you to prevent your dog from locking onto the other dog because you can break his stare. But if your dog hates them (as many do) it may just make the dog more stressed and likely to react. So it depends on the dog.
emmabeth
Posts: 8894
Joined: Tue Oct 17, 2006 9:24 pm
Location: West Midlands
Contact:

Re: How do you stop a dog pulling and barking

Post by emmabeth »

You are absolutely right that once he's set off on that pattern of behaviour, you won't distract him with food or praise or giving him cues or commands - his brain is no longer actually capable of recieving that input.

So the first thing is, don't let that situation happen!

If as you suggest his problem is down to frustration, then teaching him some impluse control, through games, starting out in your home, then in the yard, then outside your house on the street, is going to be very beneficial - you need to do this a fair bit and start out with really easy things - I start out with food hidden in my fist and I let the dog try anything he likes to get that food, pawing, licking, chewing, snuffling... the ONLY thing thats going to get him that food is... stopping trying to get the food! So the second the dog looks away, gives me eye contact, sits down, quits licking or pawing etc and steps back, ANY offer of a behaviour that is not 'trying to get the food', earns him a food reward!

You can then progress to having the food on the palm of your hand - any attempt to get it results in the food hand closing up, the split second he offers you ANY other behaviour than 'trying to get it', he gets a food reward.

I find it is clearer if you can reward from the other hand, so he starts to learn hes not gonna get that food, hes going to get an equally good reward from another source. When they get better you can start to OK them to take that particular bit of food, but at the beginning I think its clearer not to do that.

Once he can do food on yoru palm, how about food on your knee if you are sitting, then food on the floor (hold your hand close by so you can cover it quickly if he grabs for it), if he can do that, the food dropped an inch or so from the ground, and so on, until your dog can exercise impulse control and NOT grab for the food as its dropped from a height, thrown past him, bounced etc..

When he can do a few levels of difficulty in your home, then you go do it again outside, so you work through the stages again in an area thats slightly more distracting, again building up his ability to exercise impulse control in a variety of locations.

Do the same thing again with toys.

By the time he can exercise impulse control around food and toys in a variety of locations and with a varying degree of difficulty, hes very much more likely to generalise this lesson to other things - you can help that along by asking him wait for doors to be opened, wait to be told he can greet people etc etc.

Do make sure that you do not increase frustration by forcing him to wait unnecessarily, I sometimes see people asking their dog to wait whilst food is put down on the floor, and the dog is expected to wait FAR longer than the time it takes to put the dish down, straighten up and step away (which is all that is necessary) - make sure there is a good balance of asking for that control and rewarding it well, and basically, don't turn into a control freak, beacuse I find dogs do pick up on that!

At the same time as doing this I would re-invent your walks a little - try making them shorter, as this reduces the time you are out and so reduces the likelyhood of you seeing another dog on any particular walk. An extreme example I advise for really reactive fearful dogs, is to break their nomral walk time down into an equivalent number of 5 or 10 minute walks. Imagine how much more powerful the training is when you have 10 x 5 minute walks that are successful, vs 1 x 50 minute walk where something went wrong!

On your walks, really focus on your dog and getting and keeping his attention, have him walking on a loose lead (and if he doesnt, check our articles section for the thread called Loose Lead Walking!) and its got to be his job to keep that lead loose so you need to be asking for changes of direction, pace, chucking in games of tug or asking for sits/downs/downstays within the length of his leash, randomly rewarding for him being next to you etc etc -All this means he becomes MUCH more focused on you, you are far more important than checking out his environment.

Of course you need to allow him to sniff the pee-mail and enjoy his walk, so again balance is key here - I like to actually tell my dogs 'go sniff', and you can get that on cue if you start to pair the cue iwth the action, so just as your dog is about to sniff, say 'go sniff' and give him the length of leash to do that in. As you progress you'll find if you paired that well, and your dog has made the association and is otherwise much more heavily focussed on you, he won't be ignoring you to go sniff, he will be exercising self control and waiting until he is told he can (do ensure you DO tell him he can, walks aren't just about marching round a route!).

I don't need to cover what to do if you DO see a dog, as Maxy has covered that.
West Midlands based 1-2-1 Training & Behaviour Canine Consultant
Post Reply