장벽 좌절감: 울타리 싸움, 리슈 반응성 및 창문 경계에 대한 도움 #88

you. Either way, those emotions can't be fulfilled. And let's face it, it's not realistic that they can be fulfilled. So, a dog that's afraid might want to run and hide, but they can't. The dog that is curious might want to have a good old sniff, but maybe we don't ever stop. So, they can't. And then the dogs who are super interested, they're excited to meet another dog. If they never get to meet that other dog, they're going to express their frustration the way I did when my brothers would put their hand on my head and I'd start yelling at them. So, the frustration is vocalized. And then sadly, a lot of times the dogs will get corrected for that. The dog that is running with the neighbor's dog, it might start just like, oh, this is fun. And it quickly will escalate because as I mentioned in podcast episode number 86, when a dog changes their physiology, they start running, their arousal state goes up. When a dog's arousal state goes up, they very easily could start redlining. And that's where they are so focused on the task. They're not really recognizing what they're doing. Why do you as a dog owner need to care about this? Because dogs that rehearse inappropriate responses get really good at those rehearsals. Just like any of us, repeat performances create really excellent performances. And this is something you don't want your dog to get good at. Many, many years ago, I was hosting a event here where many students were flying in from all over North America to train with me. Now, one young dog had a habit of this fence running with the neighbor's dog. Now, the neighbor's dog happened to be a Sheltie. The night before the event, she was in a Airbnb with another friend's dog who was, guess what, a Sheltie. That Sheltie got excited and started barking. And the trigger of the dog who was used to fence fighting, who all those years could never get to the other Sheltie, finally got to grab the Sheltie and unfortunately ripped open that dog for six stitches. So, when you allow these acts of pent up emotion to repeat over and over again, you run the risk of when the dog gets the opportunity to act out. They will. They might be a very friendly dog in every other situation, but over aroused state and a rehearsal of this barking and snarling and showing, acting like an aggressive dog creates the anxiety that might be acted upon when the dog gets the chance. The other reason that we want to eliminate these rehearsals is what if you have another dog in your backyard? Now, they might be fence running

together with the dog on the other side, but somebody stops too suddenly and this dog runs into them and all of a sudden the anxiety and aggression gets redirected from the dog on the other side of the fence to the dog who they know and love. It could easily happen. When a dog is redlining, that redirection could happen at another person, maybe a kid or another dog very, very easily. So, we know we want to stop it, but how? Well, the easiest way to stop boundary aggression is to never let it happen in the first place. Here's what's going on. There is a trigger. The sight of another dog walking down the street, the sound of the neighbors letting their dog outside, the jingling chain of the other dog being let out outside. Whatever the trigger is, it creates an emotional response in your dog. And that emotional response, as I've mentioned in many, many podcast episodes here on Shaped by Dog, that emotional response has got to be dealt with. What that means is we need to focus in on the trigger. What is happening with your dog? We want to change that trigger instead of them going, oh my gosh, I got to get that other dog. That trigger is going to mean something different like look at mom or drop and put your head on mom's shoe. Or if you're in the backyard, when you hear that trigger, I want you to come running to the back porch. That would be brilliant, but it requires a lot of dog training. Circle back to the dog training and let's talk about what other options you have. Well, there's management. Management could be you walk your dog at times when there's not a lot of dogs out. Now, what a pain in the butt that is, right? Because it isn't fixing your dog's emotional state. It doesn't change those triggers that are going on in your dog's brain. You could also approach your neighbors and say, hey, I would really like to fix this with my dog. Do you mind if you just let me know when you're about to let your dog out in the morning or whenever that happens? Now, you might not have a great relationship with your neighbor because if two dogs are fence fighting, sometimes it creates frictions with the people. Make sure you are approaching with a place of humbleness. You know, it's so easy to go, if those jackass dogs didn't live next door, you know, my dog would be a really nice dog. He's just a nice dog except for those jackass dogs. Turn him into this crazy dog. Be humble and accept full responsibility for what's going on. Hey, I don't want your dogs to have to be in this anxious state, so I would like to fix my dog. Would you just, you know, help me a little bit out on this one?

Now, if they say no or they don't have the time, there's other options for you. You could stop putting your dog out in the backyard and just have them eliminate on leash in the front yard. Yes, management takes more time on your part. You could also put up another fence, a fence that your dog can't see through. Now, that's not going to change established triggers. You still have some dog training, but it makes a dog training a lot easier if your dog can't see the dog on the other side of that fence. So, management is huge and management is a big part of training because remember, we need to reduce and ideally eliminate those rehearsals of the unwanted behavior that your dog is currently showing. Whether it is in their crate, whether it's on leash, whether it is in the car, a lot of dogs will show boundary aggression through the window of a car. Wherever it is, we need to eliminate those rehearsals while we're creating a new trigger for the dog. And for me, I think the best trigger is orienting to you. And so, I personally think that having your dog on a head halter will be a massive help for you in this instance. Whether you're working in the backyard, you're walking down leash, you're walking your dog on leash and on the street, or you're working in the car. You want to create an alternate behavior for your dog. And if they do show aggression with a head halter, you can just turn their head and get them out of the area so that they can come down below threshold. So, the goal when training is to keep your dog below threshold. So, that might mean take your dog out where you know there's another dog that you can walk to that is on the other side of the fence. Now, you want your dog to know that dogs are going to bark at you and that's okay. And so, stay far away so your dog doesn't get triggered. And as soon as a dog sees the dog, you're going to stop. Ideally, you're a long way away and your dog's going to look at you like, why are we stopped? And you're going to click and you're going to reward them. Or you're going to say good and then you're going to reward them. We want the dog when you're in the vicinity of another dog orient to me. And I'm going to reinforce that as something that is amazing. Now, if you're doing this in the backyard with your dog, you could start on the far side of the fence, way, way away from the problem neighbor dog. And when the dog looks at you, you're going to do exactly the same thing. Mark and reward the dog. Now, if this dog has a history of going cray cray with a neighbor's dog,

they might not ever orient to you. In that case, I would create a new game away from the neighbor's dog. So, it would look like this. I would start with crate games. I'm going to put the link in the show notes here, how you can get crate games online. With crate games, we have a part of the behavior where we release the dog from the crate with a release word. Break is my dog's release word. And the game's called You're Out, You're In. So, if I release you and I stand beside the crate, you should come out and go, oh, we're playing again and jive right back in. So, I would start by playing some You're Out, You're In. Then I'd go around to with your dog on leash to various dog beds around the house and stand near the dog bed. The dog goes in, you're going to give them a high value reward and then give them the release cue. Break, they come out, you can give them a low value reward and wait. They jump back in that dog bed. It's another high value reward. You're going to do this around the house. Now, there may get to a point where your dog says, I get the really good treats when I stay in this bed and only the crappy ones when I get out. So, they're going to stop getting out of the bed. You're going to just switch the values of the rewards so that when they release from the bed, you're going to give them the high value reward. And then when they go back in, you give them the lower value reward. Do that for a few and then you can just mix it up so that you get the dog going both ways super easy. Now, I would take that behavior and play at every threshold of the doors in your house or apartment. So, you might walk up to the door and put your hand on the doorknob and say something like, doorframe, it means nothing. But the dog is going to look at you because they've never heard that word before. And what I want them to understand is you only ever have to sit at these doors inside the house when I say the word doorframe. So, you're going to say doorframe, put your hand on the door and wait till your dog offers a sit. If you've just done a bunch of them in their hot zone, they're probably going to want to offer a sit. Feed them, open the door, say break, and then just the dog's on leash. So, when they go through, you're going to not move. And they're going to go, oh, and they're going to come right back in again. And you're going to give them a lot of cookies, right? So, when I'm giving them a lot of cookies, I'm going to say something like, winner's circle and give them a lot of cookies. If I give them just one cookie,

I don't say anything. I might say, good, give them a cookie. But if they hear winner's circle, I'm going to put a lot of cookies. I might put them on the floor and point to them. Winner's circle, get them. Winner's circle, get them. Right? And then I'm going to play that game with every door of my house. I want to change the trigger for when my dog goes outside. So, now I'm going to practice it out the front door when my dog gets really good. I'm going to say, door frame, release the dog, say winner's circle, they come back in. Eventually you can drop the word door frame for outside doors. When your dog's going outside, what I want them to do is when they go outside, they turn around and orient to me. So, that way you can go in your backyard together. You've set your dog up with a winner's circle. Now we can take that dog off leash. Ideally, you're going to do this when the other dog's not around. But if they go to their fence, you're just going to wait until they orient back to you and you're going to say, guess what? Winner's circle, cookies all over the ground. Go crazy. Play that a lot without the dog in the backyard. So, now we've established if you look at the neighbor's fence and then orient to me, it's going to be a winner's circle. When you ask the neighbor to bring their dogs back, make sure your winner's circle is crazy high value rewards. The best cookies, the best cheese, the best chunks of meat that your dog would ever want. The other dog is out there, your dog's off leash, and you're going to wait. They orient, you're going to say winner's circle, cookie. I would use a clicker for this one when the other dog's out. Click, cookies on the ground. Now they may come in and eat some. They might turn back to the other dog and growl and run and bite or bark. It's got to be okay. What we want them to do is see you there and you can even keep, you know, backing away to the other side of your backyard. You're going to wait. And if after five minutes you get zero more orientation, well, that's fine. You know, you can go in and interrupt by standing right at the fence so that you're a barrier that the dog's going to have to go around. Or just go back in the house. If there's a chance your dog might redirect at you, don't go near them. Just go back in the house and go back and play your doorframe game and winner's circle game all around the house and in your empty backyard. And then the next time you're going to try it, you're going to try it with your dog on leash on their head halter. All right. The goal is for

the dog to see the other dog and to orient to you. But you're going to say, Susan, well, I'm not in the backyard when my dog's doing this. Well, this is one of the most important management points in all of this. You don't turn your dog loose in the backyard. If there's a chance they're going to fence run, you need to go out with your dog. You're going to establish that the backyard is for you to go to the bathroom or for you and I to train. And if you're not, you know, I let my dogs out. It takes literally one minute for five dogs to do what they have to do first thing in the morning. And then they all come right back in the house. Right? We're in the backyard to do something, not look at what's going on over the neighbor's fence. Change your dog's emotional trigger. Teach them to orient towards you. And if this is still a little overwhelming for you, please. Any kind of boundary aggression is not something that you should take lightly. I would strongly advise you getting the help of an expert dog behaviorist that will help create those better triggers for your dog. So, the anxiety and the stress that they are currently feeling can be eliminated. That's it for Shaped by Dog. I'll see you next time.