[EliseS]

hi i haven’t posted anything for a while. wondering anyone’s thoughts or if they have experienced this with their V. my girl Cedar turned 15 months last week. It started about 9 months. When she is on leash walking with me she lunges and barks at and has even nipped people when they were approaching us. Not all people many times it’s a Male. It has happened when the person is walking by us and my neighbor ( she is now fine with) came right up to us and put his hand out to her say hi to her. she nipped at his hand.
she was already barking at him and i think telling him back off im
not comfortable with you approaching us. i have been Canicross training her and she will lunge out at bikes passing and some people passing us. She is also terrible in the car. i hook her with a seatbelt and when we drive by people who are walking with their dogs or on a bike especially she will go crazy barking like she will go through the window to get at them. It’s very distracting while driving. When i take her off leash to dog park she runs around greeting playing with other dogs and sweet to people around her who pet her and say hi. She is totally fine. I have had her in training and have socialized her since i brought her home at 7 weeks and 10 weeks for puppy training groups. We are working on taking the CGC test a second time because she failed it the first time. Wondering if i should work with another trainer or behaviorist. anyone seen or experienced this behavior??

 

[ledamama]

Hi! It sounds like you have a reactive girl. Reactivity usually rooted in fear or over reaction to certain stimuli and it sounds like your girl would need some evaluation before her reactions worsen.I would work on her reactive behavior first, before attempting to pass the CGC test. I am not sure where you live, but I would recommend to talk to your vet first. If she gets a clean bill of health ( sometimes changes in health status can cause reactivity) I would ask for a referral for a veterinary behaviorist to do an evaluation. ( This is a link to their website where you can do a search: https://www.dacvb.org/search/custom.asp?id=4709). They could recommend the best course of action ( trainer, medicine, combo of both) They usually work with trainers as well. If you work with a trainer, I would suggest using one who trains with positive reinforcement methods. They can do wonders. ( We are living proof, one of our rescue V's developed some reactivity and after putting him through some training he is the sweetest boy ever. We learned a lot during the training as well...) Your girl is young, with some training she will be an awesome V lady! Wish you both the best.

 

[EliseS]

Hi thanks so much for your response. She actually passed the CGC test last week after a second try at it. The trainer I have been working with in her training groups said she thought she might pass it this time. She is fine when she is walking in a crowd of people in public. It is just when one person or two is walking by us. Her trainer said she thought she is being protective of me. I was just at the Vet with her last week and she got a clean check up. I just switched to a Holistic Vet. I think you are right about using positive reinforcement methods. I think I need to use a trainer who is a behavior specialist so I can try to correct this now before it gets worse. She is really so sweet so it is odd she is like this sometimes. She is my first dog and Vizsla so I wasn't sure if this can be a thing with them sometimes.
Thanks again!

 

[Gabica]

Congratulation on the CGC, not an easy with with an adolescent vizsla, i know how much work is in that ribbon.
One of my boys had a phase around similar age where he would bark at men (manly tall ones) if they were walking by. if it was a man and women, he was fine and even asked for petting, only men alone made him behave as if he never met any... so i ended up hiring some men who would randomly meet us on our walks, i would greet them with a very friendly voice from a good distance, and we would start chatting while we got to close enough proximity that they could offer him a treat and that broke the ice for us. So what i was also doing then, with people who weren`t hired helps i would also wave and greet them from the distance, to indicate to my vizsla that the person is just fine with mom. he got thru this phase, but just as mentioned above, it had to be all positive, no corrections for expressing his feelings.

 

[EliseS]

Congratulation on the CGC, not an easy with with an adolescent vizsla, i know how much work is in that ribbon.
One of my boys had a phase around similar age where he would bark at men (manly tall ones) if they were walking by. if it was a man and women, he was fine and even asked for petting, only men alone made him behave as if he never met any... so i ended up hiring some men who would randomly meet us on our walks, i would greet them with a very friendly voice from a good distance, and we would start chatting while we got to close enough proximity that they could offer him a treat and that broke the ice for us. So what i was also doing then, with people who weren`t hired helps i would also wave and greet them from the distance, to indicate to my vizsla that the person is just fine with mom. he got thru this phase, but just as mentioned above, it had to be all positive, no corrections for expressing his feelings.

Thank you! It is good to know it can be a "thing" for some Vizsla's at this age. I have been working so hard with her from day one, going through much of the same frustrations many have had with their V puppies. One training group after the other and I even repeated the last one before she took the CGC test a second time. I will take your advice and try patiently to make it a positive experience when we are in contact to a person approaching us. I like how you did it and will see if I can do similar. She does also seem to only react and bark at Men too.

 

[DonaldGreens]

Congratulation on the CGC, not an easy with with an adolescent vizsla, i know how much work is in that ribbon.
One of my boys had a phase around similar age where he would bark at men (manly tall ones) if they were walking by. if it was a man and women, he was fine and even asked for petting, only men alone made him behave as if he never met any... so i ended up hiring some men who would randomly meet us on our walks, i would greet them with a very friendly voice from a good distance, and we would start chatting while we got to close enough proximity that they could offer him a treat and that broke the ice for us. Here.So what i was also doing then, with people who weren`t hired helps i would also wave and greet them from the distance, to indicate to my vizsla that the person is just fine with mom. he got thru this phase, but just as mentioned above, it had to be all positive, no corrections for expressing his feelings.

Great advice, I had the same problem! I will try to do the same and see the result in the future!