Hi, hope y’all are doing well.
I have a 2 year old intact standard poodle, his name is Angus. He is from a decently stable line of standards. I would consider him partially working line, his dad hunts (is also a UKC And AKC champion) (mom is an AKC champion) and many members of his line do therapy work, service work, hunting, and several competition dogs (in addition to many being shown). I mention this because he has some drive and more of a prey drive than I’m used to seeing in many poodles, though it is decently managed and I can call him off a squirrel with or without his Ecollar. He is about 48-49 pounds, and on the smaller side though his confirmation is good. Currently he lives with a barky ACD mix who is my family’s dog though I hopefully can move out sometime this or next year, as the acd mix has taught Angus plenty of barking related behaviors when around the house that I’m not pleased with.
He is off leash Ecollar trained, I do not have training in how to use an Ecollar for none recall situations.
He is my service dog in training and I’m desperately hoping he doesn’t have to wash, he is currently pulled from all none dog friendly public access, as dog reactivity is extremely inappropriate in a service dog. I am in a state that allows disabled handlers to have public access training for Service dogs in training. It’s worth noting a lot of our training has suffered though because public access training provided so much time working together through all sorts of environments that I have trouble replicating and working through. It’s also harder just becuase it was easier to put in several hours every other day when we were doing errands and accompanying my dad together.
My first service dog had to be early retired after developing some protective tendencies and dog reactivity after being attacked by another dog in a grocery store while working quite suddenly which was really hard on me, and making it harder for me to objectively train Angus right now as I have a lot of stress around dogs suddenly appearing and approaching us, especially off leash.
I am having trouble with him becoming dog reactive at around 1.5 years of age. It started cropping up after he was nearly attacked by a small dog on a flexi in a Home Depot when the owner wasn’t paying attention. I am seeing a behaviorist who isn’t too bothered by Angus’s responses and overall considers him stable, but when we travel to visit him I feel that Angus is acting better than he might in a more familiar situation, but thus far he has made a lot of improvement through primarily positive reinforcement. He currently is able to calm down mostly over time in day group class setting with space between dogs.
Before that he had been fairly good in most situations with other dogs. We had encountered a few other service dogs, and he was doing well enough in public access training to be able to easily go places like Costco, grocery stores big and small, and home good stores, and fast food. His favorite store was Costco, and frankly he was doing extremely well in his public access training. For context, the dog that almost got him before had previously stood at the service desk with the owner while I was waiting in Home Depot and barked at him and I for about ten minutes all while Angus calmly sat and paid attention to me, the near attack came later when the owner came from behind me after being around the store.
Now if we see another dog on leash, he is likely going to pull at it, and possibly bark or lunge, but at least want to pay attention to it and become more aroused. With work I have reduced a lot of the more “explosive behavior” for the most part, often I can have him focus on me if we pass with good proximity and the other dog isn’t barking at us. He still really struggles if the other dog is pulling or barking at him in anyway and that’s usually when he would do that back. It’s hard to know exactly how he will respond but the more prep time I have I usually can help him ignore the other dog better. It’s somewhat hard to tell what level is aggression vs frustration vs excitement. Occasionally If he is wearing his Ecollar, I may give him a low level stim and that usually breaks his focus and helps him return his focus to me.
I struggle some with balancing everything that comes with this though, and the Ecollar is especially chancy to time and I’m not that comfortable with it in this context for that reason.
My behaviorist is looking into introducing a prong to help me with my reaction time and to provide some instant correction. Considering his level of response to his Ecollar at low levels (5-7 on a mini educator) and how vastly it helped us with his off leash recall, I think using some level of correction may be helpful especially because of how fast he learns from just minor corrections paired with positive reinforcement. I have a starmark “prong”(it’s like a prong but softer I think, just black plastic triangles on the inside) coming from chewy tomorrow that I am curious to try out. I am just pretty apprehensive that I’m going to somehow ruin my dog by adding in punishment like this.
I am 22 with a big ol anxiety disorder and am on the autism spectrum. I also have ADHD (which used to be an asset in dog training), and currently working through some depression. I have had trouble with confidence and also some skill degradation since my first service dog needed to suddenly retire, and since being very sick for a few months last when Angus was about 9 months old. I would say I am a novice dog trainer, with some understanding of advanced learning concepts but without a lot of practical experience and unfortunately after the incident with the dog attack on my first service dog, I’ve been having issues with anxiety eating at my working memory when I’m trying to handle stressful multi dog situations. My first service dog came partially trained with a lot of basic and advanced in home obedience done, and so I did all of her public access and task training, all through positive reinforcement training. I wanted to give that context because I’m not a total dumbass but I need to learn a lot more and because I sometimes wonder if I should try to see if I can somehow afford board and training instead of trying to get through this with occasional group classes and meeting up with my behaviorist.
I am curious to hear what other folks think and if they have resources I could spend more time looking into or suggestions. It’s worth mentioning I’m not really comfortable with “helicoptering”, and obviously not very experienced with correction based training which doesn’t mean I’m against it, just that it doesn’t come as naturally. I grew up being exposed to some stupid ass alpha obsessed assholes which makes it hard to feel comfortable with learning, but I’m guessing it could play a very useful role in helping Angus and I hopefully succeed with dealing with dog reactivity.
Sorry also if this was too long, I am very worried about missing something, I will try hard to answer questions as fully as possible. Thank you for your time.
I have a 2 year old intact standard poodle, his name is Angus. He is from a decently stable line of standards. I would consider him partially working line, his dad hunts (is also a UKC And AKC champion) (mom is an AKC champion) and many members of his line do therapy work, service work, hunting, and several competition dogs (in addition to many being shown). I mention this because he has some drive and more of a prey drive than I’m used to seeing in many poodles, though it is decently managed and I can call him off a squirrel with or without his Ecollar. He is about 48-49 pounds, and on the smaller side though his confirmation is good. Currently he lives with a barky ACD mix who is my family’s dog though I hopefully can move out sometime this or next year, as the acd mix has taught Angus plenty of barking related behaviors when around the house that I’m not pleased with.
He is off leash Ecollar trained, I do not have training in how to use an Ecollar for none recall situations.
He is my service dog in training and I’m desperately hoping he doesn’t have to wash, he is currently pulled from all none dog friendly public access, as dog reactivity is extremely inappropriate in a service dog. I am in a state that allows disabled handlers to have public access training for Service dogs in training. It’s worth noting a lot of our training has suffered though because public access training provided so much time working together through all sorts of environments that I have trouble replicating and working through. It’s also harder just becuase it was easier to put in several hours every other day when we were doing errands and accompanying my dad together.
My first service dog had to be early retired after developing some protective tendencies and dog reactivity after being attacked by another dog in a grocery store while working quite suddenly which was really hard on me, and making it harder for me to objectively train Angus right now as I have a lot of stress around dogs suddenly appearing and approaching us, especially off leash.
I am having trouble with him becoming dog reactive at around 1.5 years of age. It started cropping up after he was nearly attacked by a small dog on a flexi in a Home Depot when the owner wasn’t paying attention. I am seeing a behaviorist who isn’t too bothered by Angus’s responses and overall considers him stable, but when we travel to visit him I feel that Angus is acting better than he might in a more familiar situation, but thus far he has made a lot of improvement through primarily positive reinforcement. He currently is able to calm down mostly over time in day group class setting with space between dogs.
Before that he had been fairly good in most situations with other dogs. We had encountered a few other service dogs, and he was doing well enough in public access training to be able to easily go places like Costco, grocery stores big and small, and home good stores, and fast food. His favorite store was Costco, and frankly he was doing extremely well in his public access training. For context, the dog that almost got him before had previously stood at the service desk with the owner while I was waiting in Home Depot and barked at him and I for about ten minutes all while Angus calmly sat and paid attention to me, the near attack came later when the owner came from behind me after being around the store.
Now if we see another dog on leash, he is likely going to pull at it, and possibly bark or lunge, but at least want to pay attention to it and become more aroused. With work I have reduced a lot of the more “explosive behavior” for the most part, often I can have him focus on me if we pass with good proximity and the other dog isn’t barking at us. He still really struggles if the other dog is pulling or barking at him in anyway and that’s usually when he would do that back. It’s hard to know exactly how he will respond but the more prep time I have I usually can help him ignore the other dog better. It’s somewhat hard to tell what level is aggression vs frustration vs excitement. Occasionally If he is wearing his Ecollar, I may give him a low level stim and that usually breaks his focus and helps him return his focus to me.
I struggle some with balancing everything that comes with this though, and the Ecollar is especially chancy to time and I’m not that comfortable with it in this context for that reason.
My behaviorist is looking into introducing a prong to help me with my reaction time and to provide some instant correction. Considering his level of response to his Ecollar at low levels (5-7 on a mini educator) and how vastly it helped us with his off leash recall, I think using some level of correction may be helpful especially because of how fast he learns from just minor corrections paired with positive reinforcement. I have a starmark “prong”(it’s like a prong but softer I think, just black plastic triangles on the inside) coming from chewy tomorrow that I am curious to try out. I am just pretty apprehensive that I’m going to somehow ruin my dog by adding in punishment like this.
I am 22 with a big ol anxiety disorder and am on the autism spectrum. I also have ADHD (which used to be an asset in dog training), and currently working through some depression. I have had trouble with confidence and also some skill degradation since my first service dog needed to suddenly retire, and since being very sick for a few months last when Angus was about 9 months old. I would say I am a novice dog trainer, with some understanding of advanced learning concepts but without a lot of practical experience and unfortunately after the incident with the dog attack on my first service dog, I’ve been having issues with anxiety eating at my working memory when I’m trying to handle stressful multi dog situations. My first service dog came partially trained with a lot of basic and advanced in home obedience done, and so I did all of her public access and task training, all through positive reinforcement training. I wanted to give that context because I’m not a total dumbass but I need to learn a lot more and because I sometimes wonder if I should try to see if I can somehow afford board and training instead of trying to get through this with occasional group classes and meeting up with my behaviorist.
I am curious to hear what other folks think and if they have resources I could spend more time looking into or suggestions. It’s worth mentioning I’m not really comfortable with “helicoptering”, and obviously not very experienced with correction based training which doesn’t mean I’m against it, just that it doesn’t come as naturally. I grew up being exposed to some stupid ass alpha obsessed assholes which makes it hard to feel comfortable with learning, but I’m guessing it could play a very useful role in helping Angus and I hopefully succeed with dealing with dog reactivity.
Sorry also if this was too long, I am very worried about missing something, I will try hard to answer questions as fully as possible. Thank you for your time.
