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Dog biting white shoes-How to work out what happened and/or to fix it???

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3.2K views 13 replies 5 participants last post by  Ozkar  
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#1 ·
I need some help from you more experienced and knowledgeable members. I recently mentioned my friend's dog which is part Staffy and part Dingo. She had an unknown incident occur one night a few weeks ago, which caused her considerable fear issues. This has now progressed into her attacking the feet or anyone wearing white running shoes or similar.

A week ago while walking the oval, she snapped at the feet of a runner. She latches onto the shoe and doesn't bite through, but it must be frightening for anyone who is not dog aware. then last night at the Oval, a lady who had two dogs of her own with her was doing some training with them on the agility course in the park (The agility course consists of three, one foot hight beams to jump over and a white painted tyre to jump through.... :) ) when the dog in question (Stephanie) went for this woman and latched onto her white running shoe. She was really good about it and just smiled and asked her owner if he wouldn't mind unlatching his dog from her foot...... :) She was actually very, very, very good about it.

Anyway, we need to fix this as the behaviour is dangerous for the dog's health. As in, if she does it to the wrong person, there will be a complaint made and then she may be taken from her owner and PTS.

I'm all ears, although I have my own methods to deal with this, I need some other suggestions from other knowledgeable people.
 
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#2 ·
Although I'm neither experienced or knowledgeable, I'd like to stick my oar in and say that it's instances like this that give dogs (and their owners) a bad name..seriously, it should be sorted out before some other innocent person gets their foot attacked...no idea how it can be sorted out 'tho :( by the way, it was great to meet you and your lovely dogs :) !
 
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#3 ·
I am a firm believer in PTSM (post traumatic stress memory). An event that scared her and she relives it. Dogs dream and in their sleep may associate things rather irrationally, when compared to the way we think.
In her case, white objects, moving in circular fashion?

The only way I know, and I'm not an expert, is to expose her to the as many things as possible starting from a safe distance and reassure her (petting, treats, play).
It's puppy socialization with a twist... Trying to isolate stimuli that trigger her to act, followed by exposing/desensitizing her to the stimuli.

The danger in not acting, the dog may generalize further associating other objects.

This is one of the reasons I don't like daycare, dog parks and prefer to spend as much time with them as possible together. And when it's not possible, I have the crate.

Just my take,
:)
 
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#4 ·
Re: Re: Dog biting white shoes-How to work out what happened and/or to fix it???

doodlebug said:
Although I'm neither experienced or knowledgeable, I'd like to stick my oar in and say that it's instances like this that give dogs (and their owners) a bad name..seriously, it should be sorted out before some other innocent person gets their foot attacked...no idea how it can be sorted out 'tho :( by the way, it was great to meet you and your lovely dogs :) !
Click to expand...
@ Doodlebug.....Really? Incidents Like this where the dog owner accepted responsibility, restrained the dog immediately, made apologies to the people, now always leashes the dog and where no harm is done, gives dog owners a bad name?

Honestly having met you, I thought you had more intelligence.........


@ the rest of the replies........I have started using a conditioning technique with her and will let you know the results once we have enough to determine it's benefit. It's one of the few techniques used by CM that I actually like.
 
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#5 ·
Ozkar, your post made me think of this Cesar Milan episode and not just because he was in Oz. ;) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HCWm2xmUVUs You could try wearing white shoes while your friend controls the dog on lead. The idea is to show in small steps that nothing bad will happen when she's around the shoes and to reward her when she reacts calmly. It might even be better to start with the shoes on the floor with treats scattered near and in them, as with the postie bike in the video.

I'm sure you'll be able to work out the problem.
 
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#6 ·
einspänner said:
Ozkar, your post made me think of this Cesar Milan episode and not just because he was in Oz. ;) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HCWm2xmUVUs You could try wearing white shoes while your friend controls the dog on lead. The idea is to show in small steps that nothing bad will happen when she's around the shoes and to reward her when she reacts calmly. It might even be better to start with the shoes on the floor with treats scattered near and in them, as with the postie bike in the video.

I'm sure you'll be able to work out the problem.
Click to expand...
Yep.......that exactly what I was talking about :) .......... The CM I wrote, is Cesar Milan. I actually adapted it from an episode I once saw where he desensitised a dog from the lawn mower and whipper snipper using the same process.

We have done two sessions so far, but are still walking her on lead and using a soft muzzle and check chord when in the fenced off lead area.
 
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#8 ·
Poor dog. What is this mysterious technique, I wonder? If it works, I will be happy because...
=== off topic ===
...not much of CM worked on Sammy, and I liked CM.
Not the kick the hind quarters, not the claim like a man approach, not the drag the dog across slippery floors... Perhaps, the only one that sort of worked was the keep the dog on a short leash thing, even that :-\

I have a shiny floor problem, ONLY one spot in the whole house, the spot my brother played with Sam and laughed when Sam jumped up at him, slipped and fell numerous times. Stupid guy thought it was funny. Of course, I tried CM's approach first but, gave up quickly. Could not stomach dragging the dog by the collar.
 
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#9 ·
Einspanner, I'll keep you up to date as to how things progress. She really is a sweet girl for me, but, I am very tight on expectations as I am with mine. So she doesn't get anything from me without sticking to the plan. I've been sharing the house with them for a month now and she has already progressed a lot, just from watching Zsa Zsa and Astro do their thing.

Datacan, I sooooooo much agree with you. I found his methods OK on a really hard hearted dog, but anything soft hearted, I tend to find his methods more detrimental than beneficial. However, the episode I watched with him desensitising the dog to the lawn mower had ZERO domination and space ownership crap. No alpha rolls, no push to submissiveness. Just a calm postiviely reinforced approach. I was shocked! :) :)


Also off the topic Data........... Yesterday I used some Ian Dunbar stuff.....some soft, slow easy stuff........................... early in the evening it was still really warm, so I took the pups out. We met some people at the park with a 3 year old Female Boxer. She was a beautiful dog in the best condition. But she wasn't having a bar of me. I just had to ask the owners what the deal was. They told me a sad story of when Mia the female boxer was 10 weeks old and got out of the yard. She wandered down the street, saw a human and being a 10 week old puppy, bounded over to exuberantly greet it. Only to be dealt a swift kick from him. Ever since, she has had an issue with men and only her owner's husband could go near her.

Right, bugger that I thought....what a challenge. I asked permission to just hang around with them with my pups to see how she went. I promised not to approach her or attempt to touch or go near her. So they agreed.

15 minutes later she was licking my face and rolling around on the ground with me like a 4 month old puppy. :) :) Needless to say, they were pretty shocked. They said that they have been trying for just under 3 years to fix this issue and have never seen such progress, let alone in 15 minutes............... Thanks Ian Dunbar......... :) I shared the method and some suggestions on how to continue with her development, so hopefully they have and she is on the way to liking men again. But, she really was such a lovely girl, I wanted to take her home. That was the only behavioural issue she had. Oh...that and she doesn't retrieve. But I bet we could fix that too!! :) :)
 
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#10 ·
:) Oh, scary, thought you lost your mind for a moment back there with CM...

To quote the announcer on the CM show "Do not attempt the techniques you're about to see..." Haha, turns out they were trying to warn us all along. But, gosh darn, it works so well on television.

Dunbar and other ethical trainer's methods seem to progress at slow pace but the result is worth the effort :)

Keep this topic updated
 
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#12 ·
Ozkar, I didn't mean to cause offence! Probably feeling a bit sensitive about dogs going a bit mad since my patient, kind non-vizsla dog was attacked by a dog doing a 'beserker' recently...her first real 'bite' from another dog in her four years of off-leash parks, but it did knock us both around a bit (especially my dog!)..sorry if I took your friend's dog's experience the wrong way! Good luck solving the problem
 
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#13 ·
I think you're on the right track! Does she attack white shoes that are just sitting there? And she doesn't attack shoes of any color that are moving in the same manner as the white ones. Just specifically white shoes that are moving. That's fascinating. I wonder what happened. Poor girl.

I think positive reinforcement and desensitization, as you're doing, would be the correct approach. It could take awhile, but it is, IMO, a great way for you to do this (and if you were to go to a trainer with this problem, 99.9% of them would use this same technique to help most problems, including aggression).

I do like Ian Dunbar's methods, and most animal behaviorists and trainers will say they're great. I think Cesar Milan's methods make for "sexier" television, and while they work for him and for that specific dog (not that I agree with some of those methods), I don't think they're all going to work with the average person or their dog, and I worry about seeing some people use physically intimidating training techniques on their fearful and sensitive dog--I just imagine people getting bites to the face because their dog becomes fear-aggressive and the owner does an alpha roll because they think that will fix it, and then the animal carrying the stigma of being a biter and aggressive for the rest of their life or being put down because the owner used a technique they saw on TV once. I understand that there's a disclaimer on the show, but obviously not everyone pays attention!

That aside, keep us updated. What an interesting conundrum. I hope the desensitization works for you.

PS: Is a "whipper snipper" the same thing as what Americans would call a weed whacker? I think whipper snipper is way more fun to say!
 
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#14 ·
Re: Re: Dog biting white shoes-How to work out what happened and/or to fix it???

redrover said:
I think you're on the right track! Does she attack white shoes that are just sitting there? And she doesn't attack shoes of any color that are moving in the same manner as the white ones. Just specifically white shoes that are moving. That's fascinating. I wonder what happened. Poor girl.

I think positive reinforcement and desensitization, as you're doing, would be the correct approach. It could take awhile, but it is, IMO, a great way for you to do this (and if you were to go to a trainer with this problem, 99.9% of them would use this same technique to help most problems, including aggression).

I do like Ian Dunbar's methods, and most animal behaviorists and trainers will say they're great. I think Cesar Milan's methods make for "sexier" television, and while they work for him and for that specific dog (not that I agree with some of those methods), I don't think they're all going to work with the average person or their dog, and I worry about seeing some people use physically intimidating training techniques on their fearful and sensitive dog--I just imagine people getting bites to the face because their dog becomes fear-aggressive and the owner does an alpha roll because they think that will fix it, and then the animal carrying the stigma of being a biter and aggressive for the rest of their life or being put down because the owner used a technique they saw on TV once. I understand that there's a disclaimer on the show, but obviously not everyone pays attention!

That aside, keep us updated. What an interesting conundrum. I hope the desensitization works for you.

PS: Is a "whipper snipper" the same thing as what Americans would call a weed whacker? I think whipper snipper is way more fun to say!
Click to expand...
Yeah I agree. As I said I've only ever taken one or two positive and useful tips from CM. Whereas, Dunbar's methods sit far better with my slightly holistic and herbal training methodology.

And yeah.........whipper snipper is a plastic chord spun by a petrol or electric motor to trim edges/weeds. We call the larger ones with a circular blade a brush cutter. :)

I like weed wacker too. :) only problem is down under, wacker refers to a person who takes matters into their own hands........owner operators if you know what I mean.......... A Wayne Kerr perse'. :)
 
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