[nagdu] ranting handling skills?

Mon Aug 2 14:51:03 UTC 2010

Laura, 

You've received some really good advice here from Julie and others. 

My standard advice is to call your school and talk with an instructor about
what specifically works with your dog. What concerns me is the growling. 

Swap can initially in new places have some serious dog distraction issues.
He wore a gentle leader for the first couple days at the recent conventions
so I could better catch his early signals. I got one of the few negative
comments about that too. Someone said "Well, you're a school employee. Your
dog should never behave that way." 

Yeah, right. <grin> 

One of the things we tell people about distractions, be they dogs, food,
kids, whatever, is to react, not analyze. When you feel him ramping up, give
the appropriate verbal correction or redirection, like "leave it", and then
praise if he does so. Don't try to figure out why he's wiggling, prancing or
pulling with neck stretched 2 miles ahead of you. Sorry Swap, gave ya away
on that one. <grin> 

Boy can I empathize though with feeling as if you are the worst handler out
there. You aren't, or you wouldn't have made it out of training. Now the
real work starts though. Frustrating, oh yes, no doubt, but once you get him
over this hurdle, and hopefully the growling stops, you'll be a great team.
I've had a dog who lunged growling at other dogs and it's not fun. I tell
people that lunging is one thing but lunging and growling takes it to
another level as it's a symptom of a larger issue that, if not handled
correctly, and sometimes even if handled correctly, can mushroom. It's not
you causing this though. That was the hardest thing for me. What did I do to
cause my brilliant Doodle Girl Molly to become a psycho dog around other
dogs? Nothing. She'd never been attacked or otherwise harmed. It turned out
to be one of those Labradoodle things that happen to some but not all of
that breed mix. It happens to any dog sometimes. 

It's important though to get it stopped, the growling that is, or at least
try to figure out, with the help of an instructor on site, what's causing
it. No one wants to have another service animal approach them lunging and
growling. It's scary. The instant Molly began snapping, her career was over.
The growl can lead to the snap and I don't want to scare you, but if you
catch it early and try to figure it out, sometimes you can stop it from ever
getting that far. I didn't, putting it off to a one-time thing, a particular
dog, etc. 

Good luck and hang in there. You have a school that will back and believe
you. 

Jenine Stanley
jeninems at wowway.com

-----Original Message-----
From: nagdu-bounces at nfbnet.org [mailto:nagdu-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf
Of Julie J
Sent: Monday, August 02, 2010 9:24 AM
To: NAGDU Mailing List, the National Association of Guide Dog Users
Subject: Re: [nagdu] ranting handling skills?

Lora,

Firstly I don't think there is anything wrong with your handling skills.  I 
can totally understand why you might feel that way though, given your bad 
luck with previous dogs.  It takes time to really settle in, just keep with 
it.

Monty has been a struggle with dog distractions.  When he was a puppy he 
used to bounce up and down and make the most pitiful noises because I 
wouldn't let him play with every dog on the street.  Yeah, really not good. 
Now I can only tell he sees another dog by the way his body shifts and he 
gets intently focused on something.  As you work with Kori longer you will 
be able to pick up on the more subtle signs that he sees another dog.

In the beginning of working through dog distraction insanity, I would stop 
at the first signs that things were amiss.  Sometimes this meant turning 
around and walking a different way, sometimes walking up a driveway to let 
the other dog pass or turning and facing away from the other dog worked.  It

would just depend on the particulars of the situation. After getting some 
distance between us I would get Monty to do something easy that he could be 
successful with.  I kept this up until he was settled and focused again.

As time went on the distance to the other dog got shorter and shorter and 
the level of the reaction lessened.  He has been working as a fully trained 
guide for about 9 months now.  He has had a couple of slip ups where he was 
inappropriately interested in other dogs, but generally if I sense he is 
about to do something stupid, which isn't often, I stop, pivot 180 degrees 
and ask him to do something else.  Generally the something else is sit, down

and a hand target.  I only ask him to do something that I know he will be 
able to do so that I can praise him for the good behavior.  By turning my 
body away from the other dog I am breaking his attention to that dog.  The 
incompatible behaviors allow him to regain focus on me and for him to be 
successful.

As time goes on his interest in other dogs continues to lessen.  It is 
pretty rare that I have to do much more than verbally coach him past other 
dogs these days.   And now that I've said that he'll prove me wrong. *smile*

It takes time, patience and consistency.  It might also help to jot down 
notes each day about how he did.  Then it's a lot easier to see the progress

you are making.

HTH
Julie

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