Aggression Toward Other Dogs
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The focused attention exercise, developed by expert trainer Linda Newsome, is perfect for managing your dog around other dogs. You can teach the exercise primarily in other settings, but before long will be capable to use it wherever you know that you can keep your dog’s attention on you and off anything else. This is a compassionate way to be in absolute control of your dog, principally when combined with a head halter or muzzle until such time as the dog is completely reliable.
To begin with the requirement for using the Focused Attention Exercise is to locate a location where you can provide your dog with a safe personal space. Don’t ask your dog to give you it’s full attention and take no notice of everything around the two of you except it is safe to do so. Part of what makes this work is for you to develop into somebody the dog can trust to look out for safety. A dog whose experience, which has been built up having to always be on guard, has good reason to be hostile. To resolve this problem in your dog, you’ll have to surrender to the position of a safety officer.
Have treats on your person (later you may use a toy in their place, but it helps to start with tiny, tempting treats – lots of tiny pieces), but keep them out of the dog’s sight. To initiate the attention sequence, say “[Dog's Name]!” and YOU MOVE ABRUPTLY away. If you want to say “heel” or “come” or “front” or “by me,” that’s fine too. The main thing is, say the dog’s name – this is going to become the cue for the dog to give you eye contact – and then MOVE.
While your dog moves with you, quickly PRAISE. This is when you would operate a clicker if you want; nevertheless a word of praise is sufficient, too. At this time immediately pull out a treat and give it to him/her. Do not present a treat until you are prepared to offer it. This prevents the sight of a treat from becoming, in the dog’s mentality, part of the prompt to listen to you. When you present a treat, bring into line between the dog’s eyes and yours. You need eye contact with every treat. You’ll begin to notice your dog looking for your eye contact even when you don’t say their name. Always praise this, and every now and then give a treat to reward it.
But you’re not done yet. When you do this series in this sequence, always do it at least 4 to 6 times in a row. That means each time you 1) say the name, 2) move, 3) say the praise word, 4) give a treat and 5) give it. This doesn’t necessarily need much space, seeing as you want it all to occur very fast and the movement is not over a huge distances. You can move one way the first time, back the other way the second time, etc. But each time do at least 4 to 6 repetitions in a row before you release the dog’s attention. This is what conditions the dog to SUSTAIN attention on you until you free it.
Practice this all over the place everywhere and anywhere, and don’t be to fast to suspend the treats. Keep them up at least sporadically forever. Because you’re not hanging the treat in front of the dog before presenting it, you’re conditioning the dog to take action even when you don’t have treats to give. You want to make the behaviour quite strong and develop the significance of other rewards (praise, petting, play, toys, etc.) in the dog’s life before moving away from treats/food.
Praising before every treat or additional rewards will make your praise more inspiring to the dog. Sooner or later you’ll be able to praise for the behavior you’re rewarding, and use your voice as a connection while you walk to the treat jar or fridge at home. The dog will recognize the treat is a reward for the behaviour you praised. In this way you can strengthen behaviours you want to see more of — such as coming quickly to your call — when the dog does them at a time you weren’t expecting to do a training exercise.
Do not postpone intervening in your dog’s aggression issues with the focused attention exercise, a head halter or muzzle, and appropriate expert help in-person. These problems do not magically vanish. Dogs don’t just outgrow violent behavior. It more often than not, gets worse unless the right interventions are done.
Of course the sooner you start working on the problem, the greater your likelihood of success. Think of it this way, every single time the dog acts on the aggression, the habit gets stronger. It will then take a longer period of time and more reconditioning sessions to change the habit-if it can be changed at all. These problems often materialize in adolescence. This is a unpredictable time for dogs and a period of their lives when time is running short for you to achieve considerable change in the dog’s mature character. There is no time to waste!
If you immediately start the FAE (Focused Attention Exercise) every single time you spot another dog on outings with your dog, you’ll soon find that your dog automatically looks at you when another dog appears! In numerous cases, you can actually turn a problem and a weakness in your dog’s temperament into a special strength! This has been noted over and over in humans who put a great deal of effort into overcoming some disability or disadvantage in life, and you can do the same thing for your dog.








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