Reactive barking and growly dog

Today had some good and bad. First, the reactive barking was bad today. She was barking at every little noise upstairs, every little thing outside, and anytime a fly farted. I need to really figure out how to stop this. I tried putting her on her bed with the Manners Minder and rewarded for staying there, quiet. It didn’t work once the MM was gone and I couldn’t keep feeding her all day long. If I had her tethered to me, she would bark and then look at me, like to say “Mom I had to alert you to the noise but now I’m looking at your for my cookie.”  The only thing I didn’t do was put her in her crate. I tried to work through it. The crate while I really think and plan is the next step.

As far as good, we started our Growly Dog class today. There are only 3 dogs in class, which I’m a little disappointed in because it may not give us as much help as we need but I’m sure we’ll learn a lot. One dog is highly reactive and another is only selectively like Gypsy.  I told our teacher that I have to modify the class a little since I’m working on the Learn to Earn program. Growly Dog is based on BAT (Behavior Adjustment Training). Although it’s a great system and great program, even Dr. Yin told me that BAT won’t be enough for Gypsy. It doesn’t teach the leadership Gypsy needs. BAT instead teaches the dog an alternative behavior to feeling overwhelmed, generally by turning around and walking the other way. There are some great things about BAT but it’s not really what we need. So we’re modifying. We can still turn and walk away, but instead of BAT where the dog can stare at another dog until they decide to turn around, Gypsy can’t. As Dr. Yin said, if they’re looking at it, they’re thinking about it. So Gypsy has to treat it as the Look at That Game in CU, whereas if she sees a dog, she looks, but then looks back at me for guidance. When she does, she gets rewarded then we walk away.  In BAT the dog isn’t rewarded until after they are walking the other way. As I said there are some great things about BAT, but we are making a hybrid of it.

I took the dogs for a walk in the park tonight. Gypsy did really good with her walking. She did bark at one dog who was coming toward us, pulling on a tight leash with the owner telling it to “leave it” from quite a distance. Gypsy was the first to respond though, like she already knew there was “danger.” Offense is her best defense, which is what I’m working on changing. So she did bark at that dog, but we passed a few others with no reaction and she did stay focused on me. Overall successful.

Today I am thankful for the knowledge I have and the ability to clearly tell a trainer why I am making changes to the program for my dog and why I need to do it.