#157 Transforming Leash Reactivity: Dog Training Today will Will Bangura, M.S., CBCC-KA, CPDT-KA, FFCP Transforming Leash Reactivity: Positive Training Strategies for Calmer Walks with Your Dog

Leash reactivity in dogs is a common yet stressful challenge for many pet owners. Imagine transforming your daily walks from chaotic to calm. Join me, Will Bangura, on Dog Training Today as we uncover the nuances of leash reactivity and how it differs from genuine aggression. You'll gain insights into the root causes like fear, anxiety, and past negative experiences, and understand the significant role you play as a handler. By learning why punishment-based methods backfire, you can avoid common pitfalls and start fostering a more peaceful bond with your furry friend.

Ready to tackle leash reactivity head-on? Discover proactive training strategies that use positive reinforcement to change your dog’s emotional responses to triggers. Through structured training sessions, you’ll learn to create controlled environments that keep your dog calm and neutral. We’ll also guide you on conditioning a reward marker and mastering the art of timing to reinforce positive behaviors. Gradual exposure and focus exercises will become your new best friends in this journey. Tune in to transform those stressful walks into enjoyable outings, and turn your reactive dog into a relaxed walking companion.

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

Are you struggling with a dog that's leash reactive? Does the thought of having to take your dog for a walk absolutely frustrate you? We're going to spend today talking about why your dog is still leash reactive. Don't go anywhere. We're going to unravel the causes and solutions in 60 seconds answering your pet behavior and training questions.

Speaker 1: 0:50

Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome your host and favorite pet behavior expert, will Bangura. Good day dog lovers. I'm Will Bangura. Thanks for joining me for another episode of Dog Training Today, where we talk about everything dog training and behavior. And today's episode, as I started to talk about in the opener, is going to be about leash reactivity. As I started to talk about in the opener, is going to be about leash reactivity. If there's one thing that probably is one of the biggest problems and one of the biggest frustrations that pet parents deal with, that's leash reactivity. But first let's define leash reactivity.

Speaker 1: 1:41

Leash reactivity refers to a dog's over-the-top reaction when they see a specific trigger. While on leash, this could include a dog that's lunging, barking, growling and other aggressive behaviors. Now it's important to differentiate leash reactivity from true aggression. While both can look similar, leash reactivity is often rooted in frustration or fear rather than a desire to do harm. All right, now do me a favor If you love what we do, please hit that pause button, no matter where you're listening. Give us a five-star review wherever you get your podcast. Giving us a five-star review helps to get our content rated higher so that more people can benefit from what we're talking about here at Dog Training Today. So please give us a five-star review. If you're listening to this on YouTube, please hit that subscribe button, hit the like button. Also, click on the bell so that you get regular notifications when our podcasts the new podcasts are launched Today.

Speaker 1: 3:08

I want to just take a few minutes to talk about leash reactivity and what some of the common causes of leash reactivity are. And one of the biggest reasons that there's leash reactivity is a result of dogs having fear and anxiety. Fear can trigger reactive behaviors. If a dog feels threatened or if they feel scared, they may react aggressively to protect themselves. Folks, 99% of all quote-unquote aggression that is out there is really rooted in fear. It's extremely rare for any animal to go into fight or flight unless they perceive something as threatening. And to perceive something as threatening means that that animal your dog is experiencing fear and anxiety. One of the second most common causes of leash reactivity is frustration. Leash frustration and barrier frustration occur when a dog wants to approach something but can't due to the leash, leading to reactive behaviors. A third common cause of leash reactivity is a lack of socialization Dogs that haven't been properly socialized. They may not know how to interact appropriately with other dogs or other people, and that might be resulting in their reactivity. Another common cause for leash reactivity is previous negative experiences. Trauma or bad encounters with other dogs or people can cause a dog to become reactive as a defensive mechanism.

Speaker 1: 5:06

Now there's also not just the dog that's on one end of the leash, but the human on the other end of the leash, and we need to talk about the human factors that contribute to leash reactivity, because you, as the handler, you as the pet parent, play a significant role in your dog's leash reactivity as well. One of the most common problems is inconsistent handling, giving mixed signals. Pet parents that give mixed signals to their dogs can confuse their dogs. It can make it harder for them to understand what behavior is expected, and that's a lack of consistency. What is it that? When you're out and you've got your dog on leash and you know that you have a problem with leash reactivity, what's your plan? What's your goal? What's your training objective? What's your plan? How are you going to get there? And are you consistent with what you're doing each and every time that you are taking your dog out? Because if your dog's experience is one where, when it gets on the leash and you go for a walk, it's constantly being reactive and your dog is rehearsing those behaviors. That's what you're going to get and you'll get that even before it starts, before you even walk out the door, because your dog starts to get habituated, your dog starts to get conditioned to expect. When the leash goes on, we're going to go out and I'm going to be reactive Because you put your dog in that situation and we're going to talk a little bit more about that.

Speaker 1: 7:15

Another reason and this again relates to you the pet parent tension on the leash. Keeping the leash tight can really escalate a dog's reactivity by increasing their stress and their sense of restraint. Remember I talked about that frustration, getting to the end of that leash, wanting to get to something and not being able to get there. You know there's a lot of dogs that are not aggressive. They're just very excitable on leash and their reactivity isn't necessarily aggression. They may want to really get to another dog, get to another person and if they get there they may be just fine. They may be just fine, but it's all the craziness from when you put the leash on and you walk out that front door and the expectation, because your experiences with your dog have been these crazy leash reactive experiences towards other people, towards other dogs, and your dog's adrenaline kicks in instantly as soon as the leash comes out, before you've ever walked out the door. All right.

Speaker 1: 8:31

Another reason is using punishment-based methods, which can really worsen reactivity as it can increase fear and anxiety rather than addressing the root cause. So for those of you where the leash reactivity is rooted more in anxiety, more in fear, and you're dealing with this by punishing, by correcting this behavior, it may seem like initially that you're doing the right thing because perhaps you're able to stop the behavior, perhaps you're able to temporarily suppress the outward barking, the lunging, the whining, the unruliness on the leash. But if we've got a dog, but if we've got a dog where that reactivity is more rooted in anxiety, in stress, in fear, and we're using punishment even if it's a mild level of fear, pain or intimidation that we use with punishment, that merely suppresses outward behavior, it adds to the internal pressure. It's kind of like your dog's a pressure cooker now, because rather than relieving the pressure of the anxiety and the fear and dealing with that underlying root cause that is contributing to your dog's reactivity, if we just punish the outward behavior, it's like putting a lid on the top of a pot of boiling water, that anxiety, that stress, that fear. You've done nothing with that.

Speaker 1: 10:20

And while there's a lot of trainers and a lot of training programs and a lot of training tools that are designed to suppress behavior, they do nothing to deal with the underlying root cause. And if you've got a behavior that is rooted in anxiety, rooted in fear, that behavior is going to come back. It's not a matter of if, it's a matter of when. And you know, I watch folks that never deal with the underlying fear. They never deal with the underlying anxiety and they find themselves having to be heavy handed with their dogs, where they're having to hang their dogs on the leash, they're having to use prong collars, give harsh corrections using electronic collars, giving harsh corrections there, and even with those tools, they may still be struggling. Their dogs are at the end of the leash, choking, gagging, having difficulty breathing, being incredibly reactive, and the entire idea of going for another walk with the dog for this pet parent is a complete and total nightmare, something that you definitely are not looking forward to doing again.

Speaker 1: 11:35

So what can we do? What can we do? What are some effective strategies to manage and reduce the leash reactivity? So one of the first things that we need to understand is that we've got to get out of the mindset of what you don't want your dog to do. Get out of the mindset of punishment, because, again, punishment's just going to suppress the outward behavior temporarily and that in the long run because, like I said, it's like putting a lid on the top of a pot of boiling water really makes that reactivity, that leash reactivity, worse in the long run. And that's why a lot of people are still dealing with this, because all they've been doing is going from one technique of suppression to another technique of suppression. Maybe they used a prong collar for a while and then maybe that stopped working so they started using an electronic collar. Maybe they were using a compressed air sprayer and that worked for a while and that stopped working. Punishment doesn't deal with the underlying root cause and you're only going to have a temporary quick fix and it's not a real fix at all.

Speaker 1: 13:02

Using positive reinforcement techniques, rewarding calm behavior and using desensitization methods that is what's going to help a dog associate the presence of triggers with positive outcomes. So your dog, when it's on a walk, whether the trigger be people, whether the trigger be other dogs or other animals on the walk, your dog associates the presence of that trigger as a bad thing, as a scary thing, as something to feel like there might be a threat or to be stressed about. Desensitization methods and using counter conditioning. And counter conditioning involves changing your dog's emotional response to the trigger by pairing the trigger with something that they enjoy, like very high value food, rewards or their favorite toy. Now, these things aren't magic. You have to work at it at it.

Speaker 1: 14:14

And part of dealing with the underlying root cause of a dog that has leash reactivity because of anxiety, because of stress, because of fear is, first and foremost, making sure that when you put the leash on the dog, your dog doesn't encounter one of these triggers that cause the leash reactivity and your dog continues to rehearse that behavior. What I talked about earlier If the experience you and your dog have is the same every day, that's the experience you and your dog are going to have and you can expect to have that the next day. Nobody wants to hear what I'm going to say next. The first step to the fix is avoiding the triggers. No, it's not the fix, but it's the first step to the fix. It's like if I've got a broken water pipe. I can't begin to fix the broken water pipe if I have the water on still. I've got to turn the water off. Then I can begin to work on that broken water pipe. But I'm going to have a mess if I don't first avoid the water, turn the water off. If your dog continues to rehearse the reactive behaviors on leash with triggers, like other dogs and other people when you go on walks, it's never going to get better. The first thing you need to do is stop the water from spilling out all over the place, turn off the water. So you need to avoid the triggers. Now, that is until you've done the work.

Speaker 1: 15:47

And when I say avoid the triggers, all I mean is you are going to proactively design training scenarios. You are going to proactively design training scenarios with triggers, but you're going to do it in such a way that you can actually have some success. See, one of the biggest problems you're having is you let your dog go from zero to 100. Your dog hits that red zone and becomes reactive, and now it's too late. There's nothing you can do. There's nothing you can do Now. It's just a matter of fighting with the dog and trying to get the dog out of there. But once they've hit that red zone, there's nothing that you're going to do.

Speaker 1: 16:35

And you see, this is where trainers that use corrections, use punishment, will say positive reinforcement doesn't work. Because they'll say hey, have you ever had your dog out on a walk and your dog saw a trigger, another dog or another person, and your dog just went ballistic. And how effective was it, mr and Mrs Pet Parent, when you took out that piece of food reward? Your dog didn't care, did it? No, not when they hit the red zone. By that point it's way too late. Your dog is way too stressed out. It's not going to care about food, it's not going to care about a toy, it's not going to care about playing, it's in fight or flight.

Speaker 1: 17:21

And again, this is especially if your dog, if the leash reactivity, is rooted in anxiety and fear. But we're so concerned with punishing and correcting the unwanted behavior, which really does little to nothing to resolve the issue. It's a temporary band-aid. If that, if you can get that the real way to deal with leash reactivity, if you really want to put leash reactivity to bed, then you need to start looking at positive reinforcement techniques. You need to begin to think about rewarding calm behavior, using desensitization and counter conditioning to change the association that your dog has with these triggers. See, every time your dog goes out of the house your dog has this eruption and that's your dog's association with these triggers.

Speaker 1: 18:20

But if you take a strange dog, if you take a strange person, whatever your dog's triggers are and you control that situation, are and you control that situation. Let's just say, for example, your dog, if it gets within 50 feet of another dog or if it gets within 50 feet of a strange person, your dog goes crazy, barking, lunging, snapping, snarling. You would never do training at that distance. You're not going to have success trying to manage, train control, modify your dog's behavior when your dog's in that insane state. So what does that mean? That means that you have to find the distance where your dog can be from a trigger. How far away does your dog need to be from a strange person or a strange dog? Where your dog can see them but doesn't care, but doesn't care when your dog can see the strange dog. Your dog can see the strange person but your dog is not reactive, your dog's not pulling on the leash, your dog is not barking, your dog is not lunging, your dog is relaxed. You look at its body language and you don't see stress. Your dog doesn't show that stressful body language. You know that you see before your dog becomes reactive. Your dog's loose, relaxed, will take food rewards, can stay focused on you, isn't staring at the trigger.

Speaker 1: 20:07

But you've got to set up training situations and you need to do. How often should you do this? You need to set up training situations a minimum of three to five times a week and you need to spend five to ten minutes every session. And the way that you're going to set things up is proactively. You're going to know that when you get your dog out, there aren't going to be triggers in close proximity and, proactively, you'll have set up a training scenario where you've got a helper that is either the trigger, if your dog's triggered by people, or that helper has a dog with them, because your dog is triggered by strange dogs. However, unlike just walking out the door and not knowing what you're going to bump into in terms of dogs and people in your training situations, you know exactly what you're going to run into because you've gotten outside before your dog has. You've made sure that there are no triggers in close proximity that would cause your dog to go crazy and you set it up so that you can get your dog out, at a distance from the trigger a strange dog or a person but that distance is one where your dog doesn't have a care in the world.

Speaker 1: 21:33

Now, now that your dog's not triggering your dog's in this neutral state, its underlying emotional state is neutral. Does your dog love those triggers? No, but your dog's not concerned about them either because they're far enough away. Well, we need to change the underlying emotional state from scary to good. We start by getting your dog at a distance where your dog's emotional state is neutral. And now we need to use classical conditioning, counter conditioning, where we have these very well-timed presentations of the trigger at a distance where your dog doesn't care.

Speaker 1: 22:17

But the exact moment that strange dog or that strange person, that trigger, comes into view, good things are happening. What do I mean by good things are happening? As soon as that strange dog or strange person comes into view, you start feeding your dog high value food rewards For about one to three seconds, constantly, feed, feed, feed, feed, constantly and continuously for about one to three seconds. Then have your helper leave. Have your helper whether you're dealing with just reactivity towards people or reactivity towards a person with a dog on a leash. Have your helper leave and as your helper leaves and goes out of view, you stop feeding your dog.

Speaker 1: 23:05

And then the next day you're going to set this up again. You're going to get outside. You're going to know where you're doing this. You're going to know that there's nothing around that's going to set this up again. You're going to get outside, you're going to know where you're doing this. You're going to know that there's nothing around that's going to trigger your dog and you're going to get your helper positioned far enough away that when your dog comes out and first sees that trigger, it's far enough away. Your dog doesn't care and as soon as your dog sees the trigger, bam, start feeding. You see, it's like an on-off switch.

Speaker 1: 23:36

When your dog sees the trigger, the on switch comes on and you start feeding or you start playing with your dog's favorite toy, but whatever it is, you're using as a positive reinforcer. Whether it be food, whether it be a toy, it's got to be something that your dog absolutely loves. Listen, if we've got things that your dog loves whether it be toys, play, whether it be food on a scale from 1 to 10, 10 being what your dog loves the most, 1 being what your dog loves the least you've got to be working with level 10 positive reinforcers. So if it's about chicken, if it's about cheese and you're the kind of person I don't want to give my dog human food, guess what? If that means it's going to help you get your dog over its reactivity, why are you fighting it?

Speaker 1: 24:33

Positive reinforcement, what you're using as a reinforcer, is what's motivating your dog. Think about it as currency. If I'm asking you to do a job, hey, I want you to dig ditches and I'm giving you a dollar a day, how motivated are you to dig those ditches? But if I'm giving you a thousand dollars a day to dig ditches, it makes a big difference. So the level, the quality, the value of the positive reinforcer that you're using with your dog makes a big difference.

Speaker 1: 25:02

But what you need to do when you're setting up these counter conditioning and desensitization sessions, you're controlling the environment. You're keeping the trigger at a distance from your dog where your dog is not going to trigger, where your dog's not going to react and your dog's not showing any level of stress. This is where most of you get this wrong. You put your dog in a situation where there's triggers, you set them up for failure because every day you take the dog out, the dog triggers and you keep doing the same thing over and over again, expecting a different result, fighting with your dog being frustrated. Well, you've set your dog up for failure. You know what's going to happen. You need to start proactively setting your dog up for success by creating these training scenarios getting your dog at a distance where it's not going to be triggered, pairing, positive reinforcement.

Speaker 1: 26:02

As soon as your dog sees the trigger, boom, that's when feeding starts. Then only do that for a few seconds and then ask your helper to leave, go out of view. And when the helper leaves, when that trigger goes out of your dog's view, you stop feeding. See the way dogs think, the way they learn, the way they process information. Everything is a very black and white cause and effect association and that's what you're doing with counter conditioning and desensitization. You are making this very clear black and white cause and effect association that, hey, when the triggers come out, it's like the on switch goes on, good things happen, and when the trigger goes away, boom, the off switch goes on and all the good things stop the feeding stops. And you are going to do that over and over, consistently, repetitively, over days, over weeks, until your dog is thrilled about this exercise.

Speaker 1: 27:04

And after you've conditioned your dog to absolutely love this training game, then, and only then, can you begin to move your dog a little bit and I'm talking a little bit a little bit closer to the trigger, the next training session. So let's say that you started 50 feet away and maybe you spent three weeks where each week you did five training sessions. So you've done 15 training sessions over a period of three weeks, five a week. Your training sessions are five or 10 minutes long. You've been avoiding triggers so your dog doesn't rehearse those behaviors, getting them more and more ingrained. You're controlling the environment, proactively, staging setups for your dog to have success. And after you've conditioned your dog at the safe distance and your dog is loving this game, you went from scary trigger to neutral because you kept your dog at a distance where it was neutral, but now, by pairing positive reinforcers with the presentation of that trigger, now your dog doesn't have a neutral emotional response, your dog has a positive emotional response.

Speaker 1: 28:29

However, the work's not done. It's rare for things to be just fixed with one or two sessions. You have to be consistent. You have to create consistency and repetition. Little by little, gradually, systematically, you're able to get your dog closer and closer and closer. A couple feet here, here, then maybe a few weeks you get a couple feet closer. Maybe you practice for another few weeks and you get a little bit closer. But it takes work. It takes practice.

Speaker 1: 29:08

I want to take a quick second to talk to you about calm dogs. Calm dogs is a natural grounding aid that I spent five years researching and developing. That's right. Calm Dogs is my creation. I developed Calm Dogs for dogs with anxiety, fears, phobias, reactivity and even aggression. I created Calm Dogs to help dogs that have noise sensitivities, like a fear of thunderstorms or fireworks. Calm Dogs also works great for dogs with separation anxiety, a fear of car rides and travel. Calm Dogs even helps those dogs with a fear of vet visits or grooming. In fact, I'm so confident that Calm Dogs will help your dog that I make it absolutely risk-free. Calm Dogs comes with a 100% money-back guarantee. My promise to you is very simple Calm Dogs works for your dog or it's free. Take the 45 calm dog challenge. Go to calmdogscom or doganxietycom to learn more about calm dogs and how it can help your dog today risk-free at calmdogscom or doganxietycom. All right, so back to talking about leash reactivity and what you can do.

Speaker 1: 30:16

One of the important things I feel when you're dealing with a dog that has reactivity issues is that you have taken time to condition a reward marker, whether that reward marker be a verbal cue, a word like yes, that you've conditioned the dog conditioned a dog yes means treat or whether you have conditioned your dog to say a clicker, where you've done clicker conditioning and your dog understands, so you've got a reward marker, a conditioned reward marker. If you don't know what a conditioned reward marker is, go to my website at dogbehavioristcom. Go to where my articles are. I've got about 90 articles on my website, dogbehavioristcom. Find the article on clicker training. It will talk about how you condition a reward marker, why that's important.

Speaker 1: 31:07

If you've got a signal that you can instantly communicate to your dog when your dog does a behavior that you like and you want, your timing is critical. You've got about zero to a second to communicate to your dog when your dog does what you want. Hey, this is what I want and this is what's going to get a reward. If your timing is late and this is what's going to get a reward If your timing is late. You know a lot of people are using food in training and the overall experience for the dog is better. It's kind of like, you know, if you get invited to a couple different parties and there's only one or two of those parties where they are serving food versus parties that don't serve food, well, you might enjoy the parties that have food better than the ones that don't. But when it comes to using food and training, your timing is everything.

Speaker 1: 32:08

And let's say, you ask the dog to do something like look at you right, because one of the things that's important to do if you've got a dog that is reactive is work on redirecting focus, teaching, focus exercises efficiently and have your dog understand hey, this is the behavior I want and you're going to get rewarded for that. See, if you ask for a behavior like you ask your dog, hey, look at me, and you reward your dog three seconds after your dog looks at you. Well, your dog might like the food, but whether your dog connects the dots, whether your dog associates hey, the reason I got the food is because I was looking at mom or dad, I was looking at my pet parent. That's debatable because if your timing is off, chances are that communication is kind of gray, it's kind of murky, and the best we can do for our pets is when our communication is extremely black and white. And if you've got a signal like yes or nice, or a click of a clicker, and you've taken time to associate that with something positive, to associate that with something positive a food reward, a toy play Now, when your dog does something right, when your dog is relaxed, when your dog is calm hey, let's say you're walking down the street and the last four days your dog was excitable when you walked out the door.

Speaker 1: 33:50

And all of a sudden, today you walk out the door and where, maybe on a scale of one to 10, 10 being the most excitable your dog could be, for the last week your dog's been at a 10, but you walk out the door and today your dog's at a seven. What if you could mark that? What if you could communicate to your dog instantly at that moment? Hey, this is what's going to get you the good stuff. This is what's going to get you the good stuff. This is what's going to get you the food reward.

Speaker 1: 34:18

Well, if you don't have a conditioned marker, if you don't have that condition, whether it be a clicker or an auditory verbal marker chances are you're unable to communicate to your dog and you're unable to positively reinforce the behaviors that you want. So, lack of consistency, poor timing, not having a conditioned marker, not avoiding triggers, not being proactive and setting up training situations so that you can do counter conditioning and desensitization Really, really important those are all so important. Okay, this type of controlled exposure, gradually exposing your dog to triggers in a very controlled manner, starting at a distance where your dog feels comfortable, where your dog feels safe, doing this slowly and gradually, decreasing the distance over time, making sure that you're keeping a safe distance from triggers during walks that's going to prevent reactive outbursts. Help your dog stay calm while you're doing the work. Listen, if your dog's highly reactive, this may take you to get to a I mean a really good place with your dog. It may take a couple months, but those of you that have been looking for quick fixes, you have found out that your quick fixes only might last at the most, a month or two and then it comes back and now you're struggling with your dog and that's why you're still dealing with reactivity because you're using punishment or you're not being consistent, while you need to do the work of counter conditioning and desensitization to modify your dog's underlying emotional state from your dog being nervous and anxious about these triggers to viewing them as something positive that brings about good things. Until you've done the work, you're going to struggle, but remember patience, consistency those are key when working with a leash reactive dog. By understanding the causes and applying the effective strategies, you can help your dog overcome their reactivity and you can make your walks a whole lot more enjoyable and you don't have to struggle when you're walking the dog.

Speaker 1: 37:05

We just want to get out and walk our dogs. We don't want to have to deal with all that insanity, all that craziness. Do me a favor hit that like button, hit that share button If you're listening to this on YouTube. Youtube, hit the bell so you always get notified when we have a new podcast. Please give us a five-star review. Share this with your friends and families. I'm will bangura. You've been listening to another episode of dog training today. I'm out of here.