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kate_7590
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Location: Burton-on Trent, Staffs, UK
Joined: Mar 2009
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Female 
 
18-11-2010, 02:35 PM

Flints making Simba more reactive :(

Flint is a very sensetive boy and is reactive to some situations, dogs walking past, kids, pushchairs, bikes etc etc etc. Well Simba is a big softie and sees everyone as pottential fuss for him! He only has to see someone crossing the road towards us and his whole body wiggles in excitment.

Recently I have noticed that Simba is copying Flint in his reactive behaviour.
He lunges forward, spins round and pulls on his lead whenever Flint gets tense.
I have tried being calm and ignoring this behaviour and rewarding good behaviour from both of them.

I cant take Simba out without Flint as he has severe SA if hes alone [hes fine left with Simba]

Anyone have any suggestions?
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Vicki_Ann
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18-11-2010, 04:16 PM
Can you get your partner or a friend to take Flint out walking on a different route while Simba is with you?

I've had similar things with my sheepdogs, and best thing is to split them up on walks and do individual walk. With Flint I would work on confidence-building (do you have a behaviourist you consult or could you find one?) and getting him to calm right down and start thinking, and stop reacting. Works a treat with my reactive sheepdog (reactive to all the same things!).

And with Simba, I would also get him to do some nice walks with clicker training and confidence building exercises in there.

I find clicker training, once I've done some guided walking to get Shiloh in the right frame of mind, can prevent him from reacting in 99% of situations. And we're getting to the point where I don't have to be OTT about distracting him with training now, I can simply call him, show him a treat, ask for heel or sit and he will know that everything is okay and he can ignore whatever it is he might be worried about.
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kate_7590
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18-11-2010, 04:30 PM
Originally Posted by Vicki_Ann View Post
Can you get your partner or a friend to take Flint out walking on a different route while Simba is with you?

I've had similar things with my sheepdogs, and best thing is to split them up on walks and do individual walk. With Flint I would work on confidence-building (do you have a behaviourist you consult or could you find one?) and getting him to calm right down and start thinking, and stop reacting. Works a treat with my reactive sheepdog (reactive to all the same things!).

And with Simba, I would also get him to do some nice walks with clicker training and confidence building exercises in there.

I find clicker training, once I've done some guided walking to get Shiloh in the right frame of mind, can prevent him from reacting in 99% of situations. And we're getting to the point where I don't have to be OTT about distracting him with training now, I can simply call him, show him a treat, ask for heel or sit and he will know that everything is okay and he can ignore whatever it is he might be worried about.
Thanks Vicky. I took Flint out on his own tonight, which I havent done since having Simba as Simmy has a habit of chewing anything he can find lol, but since he has calmed down a bit I thought what better time to try it?!
Flint was ALOT more calm and we saw 3 dogs, and he only barked once at one of them, but usually this will esculate and I wont be able to stop him, however, when he barked first time I was able to correct him and that one bark was all there was and he walked away from the situation. I was so happy!

Trouble is my partner works all day from 7-5 so I am home with the dogs all day myself [I work from home] so we cant take them out seperatly, but hopfully Ill work with Flint and maybe try and leave him when I take Simba out, if I take Flint first he might be tired and not worry too much if i take Sim out, but we will see lol

Can you tell me what sort of clicker training you do with your sheepdog, I started clicker training with Flint but since our house move and everything being all over the place I havent done any more.
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Vicki_Ann
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18-11-2010, 04:40 PM
I understand how hard it can be when you're on your own with the dogs for much of the day. I tend to have lots of kongs/treat balls for this very reason lol!

I don't do anything amazing with the clicker. I basically ask my dogs to focus on me. So I firstly wait for them to look up at me as they're walking by my side (sometimes a noise will help to prompt this) and then I immediately click and reward.

I spent a fair amount of time in quiet places reinforcing this training so that they knew to look up at me (I would extend the period slowly, so first any glance up would be rewarded, then one stride, then two etc).

Then you can go out into the world with the new trick. When something approaches/comes into the picture that Shiloh would usually react to, I would make a noise to get him to look at me, I often tell him good boy to hold his focus before the click comes, and then it's a case of BIG rewards for that focus on you when there's something a bit scary around.

I'm just starting to get to the stage where Shiloh will sometimes look up at me in response to something scary, so instead of reacting, he tries this behaviour first. I have to keep concentrating as if I miss him offering this instead of reacting, and don't reward, he will then move on and react.

I have kind of pieced this together from various different sources and it seems to work well. The end result I want is that when Shiloh is worried about something he immediately looks to me for a reward and some reassurance and that is how he copes with something scary, eventually over time I would imagine it won't be scary any more and he'll see these things as positives as it means he gets a treat and praise for looking at me when he sees them.

Hope that helps
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kate_7590
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Location: Burton-on Trent, Staffs, UK
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18-11-2010, 04:42 PM
Originally Posted by Vicki_Ann View Post
I understand how hard it can be when you're on your own with the dogs for much of the day. I tend to have lots of kongs/treat balls for this very reason lol!

I don't do anything amazing with the clicker. I basically ask my dogs to focus on me. So I firstly wait for them to look up at me as they're walking by my side (sometimes a noise will help to prompt this) and then I immediately click and reward.

I spent a fair amount of time in quiet places reinforcing this training so that they knew to look up at me (I would extend the period slowly, so first any glance up would be rewarded, then one stride, then two etc).

Then you can go out into the world with the new trick. When something approaches/comes into the picture that Shiloh would usually react to, I would make a noise to get him to look at me, I often tell him good boy to hold his focus before the click comes, and then it's a case of BIG rewards for that focus on you when there's something a bit scary around.

I'm just starting to get to the stage where Shiloh will sometimes look up at me in response to something scary, so instead of reacting, he tries this behaviour first. I have to keep concentrating as if I miss him offering this instead of reacting, and don't reward, he will then move on and react.

I have kind of pieced this together from various different sources and it seems to work well. The end result I want is that when Shiloh is worried about something he immediately looks to me for a reward and some reassurance and that is how he copes with something scary, eventually over time I would imagine it won't be scary any more and he'll see these things as positives as it means he gets a treat and praise for looking at me when he sees them.

Hope that helps
That is great help, I will defo be trying this out with Flint and Sim
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Vicki_Ann
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18-11-2010, 04:47 PM
Hope your collies are as keen to please as mine were, it makes this kind of training really quite enjoyable, where sometimes walking a reactive dog can be so stressful!

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