For what it is worth and just in case your husband needs to hear it from another guy...who also happens to be a trainer specializing in fear issue.....
GoodPuppy wrote: My husband perceives that I am rewarding the dog for reacting.
If you are applying classical conditioning rules (often called counter conditioning if you are trying to change the association) correctly you are NOT rewarding the dog for reacting. that isn't how the this works.
For example... the yard where class is held is in a fenced yard. on one side the fences had plastic hung on them to visually block the comings and goings on that side. think plastic plywood. it's not well anchored so the bottoms "fly up" when the wind blows. one pup reacted very fearfully. I simply put my self between the pup and the fence and chicken start "flowing" to this pup no matter how the pup behaved...plastic moved, chicken happen. plastic stopped moving, chicken stopped happening. for the last 10 min that pup wanted to hang with me, near the fence. nothing the dog did caused the chicken to happen...only the moving plastic did that. And the pup stopped reacting fearfully. That is classical conditioning in action.
My own dog who is both afraid of other dogs and people, even IF he is barking a a person, I still given him the chicken....BUT if he is barking we are also moving for distance. for classical conditioning (counter conditioning if you are changing an association) to work there has to be consistency...scary makes chicken/steak/hot dog etc happen. it is the only way to change the underlying emotion. lots of people are uncomfortable talking about emotion in animals, they exist and based on sound evidence we can have a fairly good idea what emotion is in play, particularly fear and happy. we can't know what a dog is thinking, how they are perceiving the world, their emotion etc...but we can make very, very educated guesses that they are experiencing fear, anxiety, happiness and a few others. the reason we can is emotions have physical components that are observable and measurable such as heart rate, various hormones and other chemicals in the body etc.
So what has that to do with Classical Conditioning...it works on the emotional state/association with X. if your dog is scared of people you can make people predict steak/hot dog etc something the dog Loves. what this does is make the sight, sound, smell, and how close a human gets all predictors of something good that makes your dog feel good. NOW...just because your dog now gets happy seeing humans does not mean your dog is ready to be petted and "loved" on by random people. that may never happen, but it is also possible to happen...but it is "step 100" and it's own training plan.
before this turns in to a novel, I will stop here. But again, done right classical conditioning will NOT reward the behavior....provided the behavior IS due to fear/anxiety.
the simplest I can make this is...scary happens THEN food happen with in 1 to 2 seconds.
GoodPuppy wrote:Oh dear! I wasn't trying to make this a husband bashing session, so please let's not turn it into that. I am quite ashamed at how I may have portrayed him.
He is not a bad person, just one who has grown up with a certain mind set, and he's doing the best he knows how to deal with this.
do not worry...we get it. the trying to get on same page with a spouse over dog issue is difficult sometimes and VERY, VERY common. we absolution get he is a good person. just struggling with new ideas.
GoodPuppy wrote:And honestly, how much of this is pure fear and how much is this dog just being bratty?
if fear vs bratty is the only choice...that makes this simple....fear the answer. dogs do not do "bratty" just to push your buttons.
so back to and your husband and your dog....
it is critical you are on the same page as best you can be. mixing positive training one min with punishment (yelling no, timeouts etc) can actually make things worse. in general terms before you can break out the punishment, your dog MUST know what is expected. and what is expected MUST be very, very well trained in as many situations as you expect to need the training to work BEFORE you break out the punishment.
mixing/matching, trying to be "balanced" etc. has been proven to actual cause MORE stress in a dog, NOT less. food for thought.
if your dog is reacting to your husband, but only when you are there.... you have most likely have a resource guarding issue. your dog has only been with you a few weeks, you most likely do by far the bulk of the work to care for your new dog (do not read anything into this assumption in terms of me having an opinion of your husband, not where I am going with this), spending the most time etc. while things are still new with your pup and you and your husband...your dog most likely sees you as a valuable resource...food, walks, water, pets, playing all come mostly from you. am I right?
if so you would need to start making it so your dog associates all the good things with he does with you, with your husband. not difficult, but will take patience. for example (just making this up to help illustrate) you and your dog sitting on the couch is find until your husband wants to join. what to do?
you and your dog sit on the couch...have your husband walk into the door way for the room...soon as your dog looks at him...steak happens for 5 seconds...at which point your husband walks out of sight...steak stops. sometime in the next 10 seconds husband walks back into sight....steak happens until he disappears.
you then in small as your dog needs steps work over time, not all in one day, to the point your husband is able to sit on the couch for just a few seconds...and then build from there.
now, I am deliberately illustrating in the smallest steps possible while keeping this brief to try and get the idea across. But in the real world your dog may move much faster. you can also adopt this to any situation your dog and husband are at "odds" with each other.
Most of the time the food will need to come ONLY from you in the beginning. as things progress your husband can start providing the food. There are exceptions to this, for example it would be ok if your husband randomly tossed food to your dog but NOT expect any interaction in return. simply toss the food to your dog.
just a couple ways to use classical conditioning in a way that helps your dog. in each of these examples it is the "scary" thing that cause food to happen. not dog sitting, not dog not barking etc. scary makes steak happen.
hopefully that helps, if you have any questions do not hesitate to ask.