FEISTY FIDO (book)
Help For the Leash-Reactive Dog
Patricia B. McConnell, PHD
Karen B. London, PHD
2003
Patricia McConnell and Karen London are ethologists, PHD level qualified. Both are Certified Applied Animal Behaviourists and professional dog trainers specialising in treating serious behavioural issues in domestic dogs.
Feisty Fido addresses the very specific behavioural issue of leash reactive dogs that demonstrate aggressive behaviour towards other dogs. The book offers advice in a very straight forward and easy to understand manner and is optimistic in its outlook; in the first few pages it states that even for most lead reactive dogs there is a high rate of successful treatment.
However, the book remains somewhat grounded and emphasises that it will not ‘create dogs who are good with all other dogs in all situations’ but rather more realistically states that what you will gain from the advice within the book is the ability to walk your dog on the lead around others without causing a scene (successful management is often the only realistic outcome.)
The essence of the book revolves around the principles of counter conditioning and desensitisation and provides easy to understand concepts and examples that even someone new to dog training should be able grasp and therefore implement a workable behaviour change programme so as to train a dog to exhibit behaviour that is different to the current reaction to a stimulus.
The effectiveness of counter conditioning and desensitisation is contingent on them being used together. This methodology is often used in behaviour change programmes and especially for types of behaviour associated with anxiety, fearfulness and aggressiveness. Although often lengthy in process these techniques have a proven track record of success and are appropriate in that they do not suppress behaviour but rather they engage to alter the actual emotional response of the dog to specific stimuli.
Desensitisation is the first part of the procedure in which a learned fear is extinguished by gradual low level exposure to the stimulus. The aim is that the dog is eventually exposed to the stimulus without involuntary fear responses being evoked. It should be noted that the process of desensitisation may allow the subject to get to a position of feeling neutral to the stimulus rather than fearful but it will not elicit positively pleasing emotions.
It is with counterconditioning that the respondent behaviour of the dog to a stimulus is replaced with a contrasting automatic response. The process can actually replace an undesirable response to a stimulus with a positive emotional response instead. This is achieved by the association of the aversive stimulus with something salient and appetitive while the dog is under the threshold of emotional arousal. Nonetheless, the book is also realistic and certainly lays no claim for a silver bullet or a quick fix and stresses that in reality the process of serious behaviour modification takes time, patience and consistency.
By using these approaches the book proceeds to teach what it refers to as the watch, the same contingency is often called look at me and simply means gaining the dog’s attention. This is one of the most important of behaviours to teach in dog-training as teaching a dog to focus on you is paramount. The procedure outlined in this book advises training to start in areas with no distractions which then graduates systematically and slowly with low distractions set at a sub threshold distance, working towards a situation of more prominent distractions until a point that the subject will eventually learn that whenever they see another dog, it is better to watch you than to pay attention to the other dog.
The second training technique outlined is teaching the dog the U-Turn. As the name suggests this involves training the dog to turn 180 degrees and go the other way upon seeing another dog. The rationale behind this is to encourage the dog to follow the client away from the stimulus without having to be tugged on the lead, which in itself can exacerbate leash reactivity. Again, this process is slow and systematic and one that starts with no distractions and works up to higher levels of distractions but is a very worthwhile exercise.
As might be expected this book takes an ethical path and follows the obligation to find the least intrusive intervention possible, these are the principles and techniques that have come to be known and are referred to as positive reinforcement. In this instance intrusiveness is defined by the degree to which any method causes harm either physically or emotionally to the dog.
Unsurprisingly the book avoids any reference to methods of shock or startle. It is alarmingly common advice that dogs expressing fear or aggressive behaviour be shocked or startled at the point of the undesired behaviour being exhibited in attempt to stop the behaviour. This ranges from spraying the dog in the face with water to using an electric shock collar. As already discussed many times, these methods act to suppress behaviour instead of changing the behaviour and are highly likely to exacerbate the behaviour thus making it worse.
The danger of aversive punishments is that it is often viewed as effective by dog owners who may see initial reductions in the undesired behaviour caused by distraction. In his book ‘Aggressive Behaviour in Dogs’ O’heare (2014) states; ‘in order for punishment to be effective in a behaviour change programme it must meet very rigid criteria which to most if not all dog trainers is practically impossible to achieve ergo any novice dog trainers have no hope of achieving desirable and safe results that will carry over the lifetime of the dog, more likely is that it will produce more intensive behavioural issues in the long run and also serious traumatic experiences for the dog.’ In addition it’s worth noting that a deterioration in behaviour can also result with even the most experienced of trainers as we do not always know the association the dog may make.
The book is short but by following the recommended procedure one should have a dog that is counter conditioned to look at the handler and avoid pulling towards other dogs while on the lead. This is a good starting point but if you want a dog that is happy to meet other dogs on the lead and on good terms then this book should be considered as a first step in a longer and more holistic program.