Saturday, August 24, 2019

Puppy has leash frustration/mild reactivity, and doesn't really care for treats outside. Help!


Hi all, I have a miniature poodle puppy, he's almost 5 months old now. We are struggling with him on leash because he gets extremely frustrated when he sees another dog pass by! I am trying to teach him that he needs to ignore other dogs and focus on me/keep walking and ignore the other dog, but he wants to meet the other dog so badly, that nothing I do gets his attention.​When another dog passes, he will fixate on it and either pull towards them, or if I spotted the dog before he did and made him sit, fixate on them from his sit.Even if I shove high value treats right in front of his nose, he will ignore them and dodge the treat/me (I usually try to block his view of the dog) and look to stare at the other dog.If the other dog ignores him, he's usually okay and may whine a little bit as the dog passes but then give up. But if the other dog is looking at him too or pulling towards us (which they often are since people don't seem to realize I am trying my best to keep my dog away from theirs), he will usually break from his sit and do his best to lunge towards the other dog.Once the other dog passes, he kinda freaks out - extremely high pitched whining, scrambling, pulling etc - sometimes at this point I have to physically pick him up and carry him away, try to turn around to break his eye contact, etc... so that he can refocus. He goes into a mental state that I can't get him out of basically.​IF we let him meet the dog (we rarely do - only if the other owner basically let their dog close enough that we ended up with no choice), he is always extremely friendly and happy to meet them and have a sniff. But then when the other dog walks away, the same little freak out happens - because he wants to play. We usually don't let him meet other dogs on leash because we don't want him to expect to always be able to meet other dogs - we want him to just ignore them!​It should be mentioned that he is great with other dogs, hasn't met a dog of any size or breed that he is afraid of, and plays well with other dogs. He has good dog social skills and is very confident for a puppy.​Does anyone have any tips on helping a puppy like this learn to ignore other dogs on leash? My main issue is that he is extremely environment focused - so other dogs, other people, stopping to sniff, staring at squirrels, etc... is WAY more reinforcing to him than interacting with me, or the highest of high value treats!! (I have tried cheese, hot dogs, chicken, chicken jerky sticks, freeze dried beef liver, freeze dried salmon, and watermelon - about to try the tuna fudge treat recipe and also a lamb/mackerel air dried food)​Thanks in advance! Anyone with experience getting environment focused pups to focus on you - please let me know what your secrets are! :) via /r/Dogtraining https://ift.tt/2KRf6qd

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