[nagdu] ranting handling skills?

[Tamara Smith-Kinney]

Lora,

That does sound frustrating!  A friend of mine had some troubles earling on
with her Seeing Eye dog with the unscheduled relieving, but the dog appeared
to grow out of it.  She described pretty much the same thing Kori is doing,
so it could be that while the dogs are trained and mature enough to be sent
off into the world, they still lack some physical maturity or something?
That's just a pet theory of mine.  /smile/

Kori's lunging and barking at dogs running up to you sounds more protective
than aggressive to me, if that makes sense.  If the other dog was standing
there minding its own business, that would be more concerning to me.

I have noticed that dogs in general are more likely to behave antisocially
when their on leash and other dogs are running loose.  Then once the owner
takes the growly snappy leapy dog off leash, it runs off and has tons of
happy fun with the other loose dogs....  Not sure what doggy psychology is
going there, although speaking to people whose dogs are that way, we seem to
all come to the conclusion that it has to do with the fact that the leashed
dog feels at a disadvantage somehow and acts all big and tough to
compensate.  Again, that's just a theory.

Er...  I was thinking I would have something brilliantly helpful at the end
of all that.  I like to diagnose the cause of an unwanted behavior from the
dog's perspective before I try to deal with it, especially when it's a
situation like the one you describe.  It's one thing for a dog to be
well-trained to ignore dog distractions, although it's harder for younger,
newer guides to do that before they turn into old pros.  /smile/  Still,
actually growling and lunging at other dogs when they're not doing anything
but walking by, is a sign of potential temperament issues..

Then there are those young owner-trained poodles who only react to other
working dogs that way, especially in large groups...  So I over reacted in
the wrong way, so it became more of a problem and I thought I'd ruined her
for sure.  Urgh!  But then I took time to diagnose the behavior more
thoroughly and was finally able to set up some situations to use c/t to
solve the issue.  Close call there!

Anyway, if Kori is only lunging and vocalizing when loose dogs approach him
in an out of control way, then he is more likely to be protecting you in his
response.  Or he is making a show to warn them off before they get close
enough to give him grief because he's in harness.  Again, I'm not there to
properly diagnose that, so it's just a theory.

However, if that's the case -- that he's feeling protective or at a
disadvantage -- then too strong and sharp a correction might increase his
sense of anxiety, thus adding to the problem and making it more likely to
occur in future.  I'm being super-tentative in my phrasing, since I've never
seen you correct so don't know what you consider strong vs. sharp
corrections.  /smile/  Also, I don't know your dog and how he responds.

I'm more trying to express the principle that if a behavior is anxiety
based, then increasing the anxiety in the way the handler deals with the
behavior is more likely to make it worse because it increases the anxiety.
It's a concept to consider.  If your corrections don't cause Kori anxiety,
then you can ignore everything I've just said!

Now, if someone can explain to me why a rehab hound who has a bone right
there to chew would quietly like a hole in the carpet...  I'm still trying
approaches on that one, starting with trying to figure out how to be aware
when she's licking the carpet...  Ah, well.  Something new to learn.
/smile/

Tami Smith-Kinney

-----Original Message-----
From: nagdu-bounces at nfbnet.org [mailto:nagdu-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf
Of Lora
Sent: Sunday, August 01, 2010 9:12 PM
To: NAGDU Mailing List,the National Association of Guide Dog Users
Subject: [nagdu] ranting handling skills?

Kori has an issue with lounging at dogs. Tonight there was a loose
dog. I told Kori to leave it. The dog came up to us and Kori lounged
and growled at it. I have two two handed corrections for lounging
twice. Theonly thing that got Kori to stop was the other handler
taking their dog. Kori flipped around while I was holding on to the
harness handle and lounged at the dog. I gave him a hop up forward
correction and that didn't work either. Seriously.... sigh

He also went #2 in the middle of the street after I had just given him
a chance to go.

Sorry for ranting yet again.

-- 
Lora

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