Az's Great Enemy

[cycas]

There is a dog near one of our regular walks who spends a lot of time in his garden, and defends it enthusiastically, with much barking. His garden is like a long thin wedge between a road and a footpath, with gates on either side. Perhaps not the best garden for a dog that worries that the world is going to sneak in and steal his garden...

 

Az is normally good with other dogs, but he finds being barked at quite exciting, and this dog ALWAYS barks. Az is getting slowly worse and worse about passing that house. At first he was distractable as long as I got in there early and told him to behave, but the other day he managed to slip his collar and go and have a good shouting match through the gate, and that has made things worse. He even bounces up hopefully if we drive past in the car.

 

This morning the dog was barking at us again as we approached, and Az just went completely ballistic: he was definitely trying to get his collar off again and he was dancing like a loon in the hope that his collar would give or he could pull the lead from me to get to the gate. I was a bit worried he'd hurt himself (or me: he's quite strong and it hurts hanging onto the lead when he's in full performance!) . He even got Mollydog barking as well, and Mollydog NEVER barks.

 

The silliest thing is that the gate and wall are only 4 feet: the dog is mostly beardie by the look of it, so not small, and Az can jump a 4 foot wall as if it wasn't there - yet neither of them try to go over the gate. They just stand there making the most awful noises, lunging through the gate and winding each other up.

 

Any ideas for defusing the situation? Az is not very interested in food or toys: his best thing is running. He does have a bit of a tendency to get wound up and overexcited.

[K9Fran]

Erm - stop taking Az that way?

[cycas]

Easier said than done! There are only 2 roads into our village and 2 footpaths - 1 road and 1 footpath go past this house, and the second footpath is out because there is a black and white cat that lives down there. although Az is perfectly good with tabby and tortie cats, black and white cats, for some mysterious reason, cause him to dance madly and attempt to slip his collar... If he's going to risk collar slippage, I'd rather he did it with a dog he's just going to shout at than a cat that he might well injure more seriously.

 

I suppose we could only ever leave the village via the one road that isn't guarded by black and white cats or the Barky Dog's house, but it would cut out quite a few walks. And the final remaining road does have a barky dog living on it as well, though fortunately not one that is quite so loud, persistent and exciting as the Barky Dog.

 

Really I'd prefer to find a way of making him more controllable when he's being barked at.

Edited June 7, 2007 by cycas

[khanu]

Guess it's good old counterconditioning and desensitisation.

 

Is it possible to take Az alone purely for training purposes? i think i would approach the garden, but stay far enough away for Az to still be calm and reward for that behaviour. I would also try to get him to concentrate on "doing things" (obedience exercises/tricks/whatever) in the vicinity of the garden so that eventually it becomes second nature to pay attention to you there.

Gradually you would shorten the distance to the garden and barky dog, slowly enough so that Az doesn't react, but close enough that he is showing some degree of self control (yes I know it's harder than it sounds to get the balance right). Also if you treat these outings as just "training" when/if Az does kick off you can turn tail and just go straight home without feeling the need to continue the walk. That way there are clear good and bad consequences to his behaviour.

It does mean though that while you are doing this, that you would need to avoid the garden when you don't have time to do the training......