Aggression Management

I recently had a discussion with several other owners of flawed dogs, and was surprised to learn about some of the behavior issues they had each dealt with. Particularly among the behaviorism and dog nerd crowd, sharing the extent of your dog's behavior issues is almost taboo. Support is hard to come by because admitting that your dog wants to bite people or attack your other pets tends to open up a floodgate of judgement from those who think you could have tried harder, or done things differently, or have no business handling that dog in the first place.

Realistically, aggression is something that can't be cured overnight. In most cases it will never fully disappear. All aggressive dogs need some form of management, and management always fails eventually. Even if you take your dog's aggression seriously, and manage it to the best of your ability, seeking help wherever you can find it, you can and likely will experience some sort of management failure. This is where the judgement comes in.

Regrettably, through the internet it is difficult or impossible to express how you've read countless books, worked with multiple trainers and spent hundreds or thousands of dollars and endless hours improving your dog's behavior. People don't normally give you the benefit of the doubt, or believe a management failure was a freak accident or honest mistake. We keep quiet because it never seems to be good enough to say "This happened, this is what I learned from it, this is what will be changing in the future."

Handling Aggression Responsibly

Photo by Erin Koski

Regardless of how other dog people view your situation, responsibly handing aggression means asking yourself some serious questions, and being honest about the answers. Just because you can keep an aggressive dog in your home doesn't mean you should, and just because you can choose to humanely euthanize an aggressive dog doesn't mean you should. It's entirely up to you, whether you can adequately manage your dog's behavior to protect him and the people and animals around him, and whether you can live with the consequences of management failure. Here are the questions I have had to consider for my own dogs:

What Does Management Failure Look Like?

This one feels like it should be last, but I'm putting it first because I feel it is the most important. Both Brisbane and Sisci are human aggressive, as was my dearly departed foster Ulysses. It's a common issue in cattle dogs, a product of their "bite first, ask questions later" mentality. Uly was also dog aggressive, and management failures occurred with all three dogs. 

Management failure with Brisbane and Sisci looks like a small scrape on someone's leg. They both have excellent acquired bite inhibition and don't touch people with more than their little front incisors. Total management failure with them looks like giving someone at the beach my contact information because they decided to sprint past me with 6" of clearance while I was tying my shoe and got a scrape on their ankle because they practically ran over my dog. Of course this is not ideal, and is a liability for me, but it's something I can live with. Management failure for Ulysses looked like multiple deep puncture wounds and permanent scars. I could not live with that.

Does management failure at your house look like a toddler with a bruise on their cheek? Or does it look like a kid with a face full of stitches? If your dog gets out accidentally, will they put holes in the mailman? Kill your toy poodle? Just annoy the neighbors? Can you live with that?

What Does Management Genuinely Require?

What does it take to keep the world safe from your dog, and your dog safe from the world? For Sisci and Brisbane, it means using martingale collars and harness to keep them securely leashed. Sometimes it means using a head halter or muzzle. Management also means avoiding high-traffic areas, we don't go to the beach at busy times. We don't walk through the busy downtown shopping district, or sit at sidewalk cafes. For Ulysses, management involved a crate and rotate routine for him and Brisbane, and ultimately him being crated most of the time for safety. 

Responsible management of aggression means accepting reality and planning for likely failures. If your dog will bite anyone that comes to the front door, then keeping the door locked and confining the dog before opening it may be enough. If you have kids or other residents that can't reliably follow that protocol, then you need a backup plan like a series of baby gates preventing the dog from even reaching the door. If your dog will bite the baby when approached while she's resting, then you need to be realistic about how much "watching them very closely" you can do, and use a barrier like a crate or playpen to keep them separated.

Can We All Live With This?

Managing Brisbane and Sisci means being very selective when allowing them to meet strangers in public. It often means crating them when people visit the house. They have extremely full and active lives, and I don't think managing their human aggression detracts from their lives terribly. Behaviorally they are happy and relaxed, enthusiastic and fulfilled. Managing Ulysses meant taking him on an ever-dwindling number of places where I could be reasonably certain we could avoid other people and animals, and confining him for an ever-increasing amount of time at home while the rest of us worried about when the next attack would happen. It was stressful for my other dogs and my cats, but not nearly as stressful as it was to be Ulysses.

Is managing your dog fair to you, your dog, and everyone you live with? Can your family, all species included, comfortably exist in their own home with this management plan? Will your dog's needs be met without putting them or others at unnecessary risk? Most importantly, can you yourself handle the stress? Care fatigue is a real thing, and a permanent crate-and-rotate routine, separate walks late at night, and keeping a dog and toddler safely separated at all times in a tiny house, can all add up to a lot of stress.

Be Kind To Yourself

I cannot stress this enough. Management always fails, there is simply no way to anticipate every possible situation. All you can do is educate yourself, plan for the things you can anticipate, and be realistic. You will make mistakes. To be truly responsible though, you must do your very best to learn from those mistakes. There is a huge difference between "my dog growled at my baby so I put up a baby gate and now the dog is confined to the kitchen when the baby is on the floor. Now we're working on training the dog to feel good about the baby", and "my dog growled at my baby so I'm keeping an eye on them and moving the baby when she crawls too close to the dog". If you take warning signs seriously and do your best to manage issues, I don't think anyone should fault you when your baby pushes a chair over to the gate, climbs on it even though she can't walk yet, and falls over the gate onto the dog all in the ten seconds you were answering the door. You can't plan for everything, but you can forgive yourself for mistakes while learning from them.

Appreciate the Good Parts

I had a management failure with Brisbane a few weeks ago. We were at his first barn hunt class, and I allowed him to greet a very tall older man with poor dog-interaction skills. Briz is uncertain about tall guys and old people, but is usually fine greeting for a few seconds and then coming back to me for treats. This has been very good for him. My mistakes this time were assuming that a person related to the trainer had decent dog-interaction skills, and allowing Brisbane to interact for a couple of seconds too long based on that assumption. In the future I will be more selective about who I allow Brisbane to meet, and make sure I have him disengage after a few seconds no matter who he is greeting.

A few days ago Brisbane met my best friend's 18-month-old twins for the first time. Briz is very good with kids. He was totally comfortable, gave very appropriate signals, and enjoyed some gentle patting from tiny hands. Old people and tall guys might be scary, but I truly appreciate that Brisbane is totally cool with babies.

I Got This

I recently read a blog post that described how the author was changing their own perception of their agility performance by changing the specific words they use to describe it. Instead of saying their dog did something, they began referring to their team. "We blew our contacts", or "we popped out of the weaves". I really love this concept, and it really puts the focus on the dog-handler connection rather than just the dog. We're not competing in agility just yet, but I've begun doing a similar thing with my own reactive dogs and their many triggers.

Photo by Erin Koski

One of the most poignant things I ever read was a small note in one of Patricia McConnell's books, where she mentioned that she places herself between her dog and whatever it is that they fear. It's a way to let them know that they don't have to deal with it alone. To me, this feels like it cuts to the very core of my relationship with my dogs; in all things it is my job to protect them.

"Tension Travels Down the Leash"

We've all heard the same thing a million times. Keep the leash loose, but not so loose that your dog can get into trouble. Maintain a calm demeanor in the face of things you know will totally set off your poor pup.

But let's be realistic here. It's easy to act upbeat and positive when we encounter a trigger at a manageable distance. "Hooray, you saw a dog! You get cookies!" That's the kind of training we like, manageable and fun for everyone. But, unless you're very lucky, it doesn't always go that way.

How do you keep your cool when the situation is terrible and you already know your dog is going to have a meltdown. "Shit, we have to walk past that yard where the horrible dog sticks his head halfway under the fence and roars at us, can't get far enough away without walking in traffic, and here comes a kid on a skateboard! Ok, act happy."

"I Got This"

This is what I'm now saying to my dogs as we pass through a situation they clearly see as hellish. It has helped me take a mental step back and go, "wait a second, this is just a regular day on the sidewalk, we're all safe and there's nothing wrong". My focus shifts from my dog and their behavior to my own, and I stop reflexively tightening the leash to prepare for trouble.

Placing myself between my dog and that horrifying muddy boxer under the fence is still part of the drill, but I'm no longer staring down at my side and going "Stay on that side of my, dammit!" as my dog tries to dart around me. Instead, I'm striding confidently ahead because I know the slobbery mess can't get to us. We're safe. I don't need to reassure my dog that I will bravely protect them because this is no big deal. Nothing bad is going to happen to them, I'll make sure of it. I got this.

The Protocol for Relaxation

The Protocol for Relaxation by Dr. Karen Overall is a step-by-step method for teaching a dog to relax and chill out. At face value it looks a lot like proofing a stay in the slowest manner possible, and I often describe it as boring the dog into submission. While the actual protocol linked above goes into great detail about how to get started, I've noticed that different people use it for different purposes. Is it an exercise for proofing a long stay? Is it a method for teaching a dog to relax on cue? Does it matter whether the dog moves during the protocol? What is it, exactly?

Photo by Erin Koski

Before beginning the Protocol for Relaxation, the dog must already be able to hold a 15-second stay while looking relaxed and happy. This is the primary reason Ru and Ulysses have not completed the Protocol. Though a mat for the dog to sit on is not a requirement, I find it really helps Brisbane focus, and also helps him associate the mat with chilling out.

The Protocol for Relaxation provides fifteen days worth of tasks for the dog and handler to complete. These begin with staying for a second or two, and end with chilling for 30 seconds while the handler goes out of sight, rings the doorbell, and proceeds to have a conversation with an imaginary person. Day 1 looks like this:

Day 1: Dog's Task

Sit for 5 seconds
Sit for 10 seconds
Sit while you take 1 step back and return
Sit while you take 2 steps back and return
Sit for 10 seconds
Sit while you take 1 step to the right and return
Sit while you take 1 step to the left and return
Sit for 10 seconds
Sit while you take 2 steps back and return
Sit while you take 2 steps to the right and return
Sit for 15 seconds
Sit while you take 2 steps to the left and return
Sit while you clap your hands softly once
Sit while you take 3 steps back and return
Sit while you count out loud to 10
Sit while you clap your hands softly once
Sit while you count out loud to 20
Sit while you take 3 steps to the right and return
Sit while you clap your hands softly twice
Sit for 3 seconds
Sit for 5 seconds
Sit while you take 1 step back and return
Sit for 3 seconds
Sit for 10 seconds
Sit for 5 seconds
Sit for 3 seconds

Photo by Erin Koski

I usually set my iPad on the coffee table and glance at it for the nest thing on the list. That doesn't work so well for everyone, and later days require things like 20 seconds of humming and other things that can be difficult to keep track of. The Champion of My Heart blog has mp3 files for each day, with each task timed carefully. A lot of people like to listen to these while working on the Protocol with their dogs, because it's like having someone else read the tasks off and time them.

Pre-medication. Brisbane and I worked all the way through all 15 days of the Protocol in about three weeks. I've started and stopped a bunch of times, but hadn't made it all the way through before then. I finally decided that missing a day or two or three didn't mean we had to quit or start over, and we kept plugging along until we got all the way through. I was amazed when Brisbane lounged on his mat as I rang the doorbell. I was even more amazed a few days later when a friend arrived and rang the doorbell without alerting the dogs whatsoever.

Admittedly, we did spend several training sessions just working on the doorbell by itself. There's not really any way to work up to that one, and in the beginning I just stood in the front doorway ringing the bell and tossing treats over and over again until Briz stopped barking at it. Same thing with saying "hello", which used to send Brisbane rushing to the door in a flurry of barking, even when I was just answering the phone. I spent most of an afternoon saying "hello" like I really meant it, over and over again, until it ceased to mean anything for him.

Before starting this round of the Protocol, I watched many YouTube videos of assorted people doing it. This was when I first realized how different people use it. In my mind, it's a way to help the dog learn to relax, and I want to give them as much freedom as possible to do so. I start by asking for a sit on the mat, and allow Brisbane to decide whether he feels like laying down, rolling over onto one hip, or resting his head on the floor. I want him to ooze into a puddle of rest on the floor so I will know right away which exercises concern him.

Not everyone uses the Protocol this way, however. In one of the videos, the handler was using the Protocol to proof a stay for competition obedience. This handler commented that her puppy had rolled into a more relaxed sit during the exercise, and that this was a bad thing. A blogger sharing her experience described her dog failing the day's tasks by breaking her stay to reach for a dropped treat on the second-to-last exercise. Meanwhile, a different blogger released her dog from the stay after each individual exercise so the dog could make the choice to participate or not.

I use the Protocol for Relaxation for my dogs, and not for myself. They are free to change positions, and even get up and leave if they feel so inclined. It is my job to keep them engaged, keep up the rate of reinforcement, and keep the exercises easy enough that they can easily choose to stay. If they get up, I pick up the mat and put the treats away until I feel like doing another session. When Brisbane and I were doing the Protocol and got to something super exciting that made him jump up, I would stop and wait for him to decide to return to the mat and sit or lay down before continuing. This has helped him learn that the mat is a place where good things happen, and staying there is nice, without feeling trapped on compelled to stay when he is uncomfortable.

I need to start the Protocol with Uly and Ru. I recently rearranged the furniture in my main room to make more space for training, I might even start recording them on video for other handlers to learn from and critique.

Book Review: Control Unleashed

By Leslie McDevitt, Control Unleashed is a fantastic read for anyone who has a dog that sometimes looks at things, or barks at things, or otherwise does things they wish it didn't do in public.  It's primarily for agility dogs, but it pretty much works for every handler and all but the most mellow dogs. Actually, there's some stuff in there for the mellow guys too.

Photo by Erin Koski

I think my favorite part about this book is that all of the exercises are explained as games. Whenever you are training your dog, the two of you are engaging in a fun game. It's voluntary and enjoyable for the dog. The result is supposed to be a calm, confident dog that can focus on his handler in any circumstances, because he has learned that certain situations are cues for happy fun time. 

This is a massive difference between this and a different book, Susan Garrett's Ruff Love, which also offers to help turn your dog into a calm, confident, focused working partner. The difference is that Ruff Love instructs readers to remove all opportunities for the dog to "self reward", the program begins with several weeks of keeping the dog in a covered crate at all times unless it is actively being trained. Don't come when called? Go back in the box. The author has since been quoted as saying it isn't meant to be an isolation program, and she has no idea why people lock their dogs in boxes continuously for several weeks when she instructs them to lock their dogs in boxes continuously for several weeks. I'm told that she holds multi-day training workshops where people start their dogs on the Ruff Love program, and that by the second day everyone was crying because it was so difficult to put their beloved dogs through this.

Needless to say, Ruff Love isn't for everyone, or really anyone except people who want to win at all costs. Still, it is often recommended to aspiring agility handlers who wish their dogs were more focused and are willing to brainwash their dogs via extreme isolation. Control Unleashed is exactly the opposite. Control Unleashed is for people who love their dogs and want to engage in dog sports as a way to bond and have fun with their beloved companions. Leslie McDevitt obviously feels this way, because one of the first stories in her book is about a dog that didn't really enjoy agility, so she stopped making him do it. 

Right up there with Bones Would Rain from the Sky, Control Unleashed is by someone who sees her relationship with her dogs the same way I do. They aren't clay to moulded, our dogs are dance partners and we need to teach them the steps while listening to their music. Control Unleashed is filled with games to play with dogs to teach them how to work with us, but it's also a story about Leslie's dog Zip and his journey from being an overstimulated pile of nerves to a calm and confident dog.

The thing I use the most from this book is called the Look at That! game. Brisbane sees things and gets very excited about them, particularly skateboarders and squirrels. Often he is concerned about the thing he sees, so training him to stop looking at it is difficult. I can click and treat him for looking at me, but he will still feel highly concerned about the thing, maybe even more so now that he is looking at me and not watching for impending doom. Control Unleashed taught me to click and treat him for looking at the skateboarders or squirrels. Right away, his focus shifts to me and the food, and the skateboarders become the cue to play this fun game. This has been extremely successful when he can see the skateboarders or mailman, we're still working on not losing our minds over hearing skateboards.

Control Unleashed is filled with these silly games that work amazingly well. Teach the dog to remain focused on playing with the handler by refusing to play with the dog. Teach the dog to stop freaking out about squirrels by letting him chase the squirrels. I lend this book out a lot, but not as often as some of my others because it's slightly expensive and somewhat troublesome to replace. I'm told there is a sequel about puppies that is equally universally applicable, but I haven't read it yet.

At face value, this book appears to be a manual for teaching a remedial agility handling class using very specific equipment in a very specific setting. In sunny California I have never seen or heard of an indoor agility course, I don't know anybody who has ring gates, and I still found this to be the most helpful book I've read so far for my reactive dog-beast. I recommend it for reactive dogs, lazy dogs, easily distracted dogs, stupid dogs, and anyone who wishes their dog was a bit less or a bit more fill-in-the-blank-here. It's a manual for changing the way your dog does stuff in a way that is fun for the dog, and will never make you cry.

What Does 'Reactive' Mean?

I often describe Brisbane as reactive, but not everyone knows exactly what that word connotes. Dog trainers and behaviorists use it to describe dogs that react to certain triggers in a big, explosive, over-the-top sort of fashion. Brisbane has many triggers, he is leash-reactive, mailman-reactive, and tends to respond to surprises with an outburst.

"HOSE!!!"

Is reactivity aggression?

It can certainly look aggressive, but a reactive dog is more likely stressed to their breaking point. A reaction usually looks like an explosion of barking, growling, and snarling. This is a defensive reaction, prompted by fear.

Some reactive dogs are also simply so excited they cannot control themselves. A non-reactive dog might see a squirrel and stiffen, whine, and stare. Brisbane sees a squirrel and lunges while scream-barking hysterically.

How does a dog become reactive?

Reactivity can be triggered by a bad experience. Brisbane has been attacked by loose dogs while he was leashed, which tends to make a dog feel extremely vulnerable. When all parties are off-leash he can greet other dogs politely, but when he is leashed that vulnerability often turns into a fear reaction as another dog approaches.

Reactivity can be learned. Ru didn't arrive reactive, but many walks with Brisbane have taught him that exciting things should trigger lunging and barking. Separate walks and lots of training have helped mitigate this response, but Ru has also had plenty of unpleasant experiences with loose dogs.

Reactivity can also be innate. Brisbane is an intense dog, and even as a baby puppy he responded to some new things by barking and lunging. The first time he saw a jogger he lost his mind, and it took a couple of years of desensitization and operant conditioning for him to lose that over-the-top excitement over seeing someone run. This is one of the issues that forced me to rapidly learn new training skills in order to handle my adorable puppy.

Can reactivity be fixed?

A reactive dog can benefit from a lot of different training tactics. Operant conditioning, teaching them to associate the trigger (joggers) with something positive (food) can help them feel less stressed in the presence of that trigger. Leslie McDevitt's book Control Unleashed has a game called Look at That! which uses this technique along with a clicker. 

Reactive dogs can also benefit from anything that helps lower their general anxiety level. Brisbane has benefited greatly from massage, and from Dr. Karen Overall's Relaxation Protocol. Patricia McConnell once said that one of the most reassuring things she has done for her dogs has been to put herself between them and their triggers. When a loose dog approaches us, I try to keep myself between the strange dog and Brisbane so he doesn't feel like he needs to deal with this problem himself.

Staying positive is one of the best ways to help a reactive dog. They respond to handler stress, and if I am worried about a situation I know Brisbane will worry too. If I respond to his outbursts angrily, he will have one more reason to stress about that particular trigger. "That dog might come over here and bite me, and Mom also gets mad when I'm afraid of dogs..." When he was younger, Brisbane would often react strongly to new and different things, like those huge inflatable holiday decorations on people's lawns. I helped him work through his fear of the unknown by ignoring his growling and barking, and acting like those decorations were the most awesome thing ever. "Wow, look at that! Oh boy, those are so neat! Let's go take a look!"