How do I convince my partner that he's part of the problem?

[monsieurhauddennifels]

We adopted a rescue dog in October, so we've only had her for around 6 months at this stage. She's a very loving creature, adores us and is very chill in the house. We've worked through her housetraining, her fear of getting in the car, her fear of her crate and her fear of the vacuum cleaner, so we've made massive progress. However, she can be variably reactive whilst on walks, especially if she sees one of her stressors (e.g. big lorries, people with walking sticks/umbrellas).

When I'm on a walk, I try to expose her to her stressors in a controlled manner - sit/stay and huge rewards for not reacting to other dogs/lorries etc. However, my partner (who has never had rescue dogs before, only ever "angel" labrador retrievers) is very much the opposite. He puts his headphones on, marches round the predetermined route and barely interacts with the poor dog unless it's to drag her along for taking too long sniffing at something.

How do I convince him that he needs to change? Fundamentally, she's a rescue dog and needs extra work compared with a new puppy, and clearly has some learned fears (we don't know her history, but it appears like she might have been beaten at some point). Every time I've tried to broach the subject with him, he just brushes me off, or promises to change but doesn't do anything.

I'm at my wit's end, especially as she snapped at somebody this morning due to the presence of multiple stressors and my partner just thinks she's a bad dog. Please help!

 

[inneed87]

@monsieurhauddennifels Perhaps try going on walks together but you take the lead. Do your normal routine. Your partner will either stop out of annoyance, stop out of genuine wanting to learn, or will continue walk without you.

Find some good YouTube videos that address the issue and send those to him. Or perhaps meet with a local trainer. Sometimes when it comes from the significant other it may get categorized as nagging or something negative. Hearing it from an “expert” might be what your partner needs.

 

[philipneri]

@inneed87 I'm doing this. My partner is usually walking 1-200m in front of us, stressing me on complaining that she wants to keep walking, and that I should pull our dog to get going because clearly my training doesn't work.

It sucks really. I have tried to explain that pulling results in a worse problem, not to mention it's bad and mean and gotten little effect. But yeah, working on it.

 

[gabriel1986]

@philipneri I can feel the frustration just from the texts. Ignorance is rarely a problem, but when coupled with self assurance it's one of the worst problems a person can have against others around them (because it never bothers the said person)

 

[wrd]

@inneed87 Yes this! Try showing him that the walk isn't just for going potty or exercise. It's all about the dog doing an exploration of the neighborhood! It's supposed to be fun for both of you.

Question: does he work on other training with the dog inside? Like basic obedience? If not, maybe try and show him some tricks that he'd be interested in trying to teach the dog. This may change the relationship with the dog a bit and help him view walking as an extension of relationship building and teaching moments, rather than begrudgingly fulfilling a basic need.

 

[tyler82]

@wrd Wow I love this “train a trick” idea. Have been working an amazing training program with my bully, but my partner just isn’t as invested, and it’s created some conflicts. But I know he’s impressed with tricks and could likely see him feeling that excitement of success and progress.

Thank you - I’m really excited to float this idea tomorrow

 

[tamalyn]

@monsieurhauddennifels At a minimum, your partner needs to use good management strategies. Your dog snapping is a prime example of why managing your reactive dog's environment is so important. She's not going to improve if she continually has stressful encounters with her triggers.

ETA: dogs react to things out of fear, frustration, etc. I feel as though maybe he's not understanding that you are not only trying to change her behavior, you're trying to change her emotional response as well. That second part can't happen if he's allowing her to continually experience her triggers in a scary and stressful way.

I can say that anecdotally, my dog's reactivity was at it's worst when I thought we could just go out into the world with a bag of treats and try to "deal with it". My dog is finally improving now that I manage distance, avoid walking at high traffic times, walk specific routes to avoid going past the houses with fence-charging dogs, etc. He's improving now because the vast majority of his encounters with his triggers happen in scenarios where he feels safe.

My boyfriend can be the same way - he's not really one to load up on chicken and grab a clicker before he leaves the house, so he simply avoids dogs all together on walks. If your partner does not want to actually train on walks, then ask him to simply be more aware of his environment and put some distance between your dog and the approaching trigger. If he can't be bothered to put that very minimal amount of work into helping your dog, then you have a relationship problem, not a dog training problem.

 

[thesineater]

@tamalyn Reading this I've realized that I'm kind of a mix between OP's partner and past you. My dog is a great listener at home, and on walks around our housing complex when no one is around, but she is very interested in the world around her any other time and getting her to listen in a roll of the dice. How should I go about getting her to treat things other than me and my bag of goodies as secondary? I'd love to be able to take her on walks during busy hours with lots of stimuli and not be fighting for her attention constantly

 

[arab545]

@thesineater Have you tried mixing up the treats you're using? We started with something very high value like cheese or hot dogs or freeze dried treats, something especially good. We started out by ONLY using high value treats to get her attention. Once she was good at paying attention with those treats, we started doing 50/50 with those treats and her kibble. Now we're exclusively using kibble.

 

[mwallie]

@arab545 All good advice, and also: do walks at the dog’s pace. I’ve had days where the dog is clearly getting frustrated and can’t pay attention to me, so we cut it short and made up the difference with indoor play. Better to have a slightly hyper happy dog than a stressed out dog who did the “required” amount of walking.

 

[arab545]

@mwallie Agreed. Our dog is very sensitive to gun shot type noises. When these sounds are very persistent (like when there's blasting for street work) it gets her very stressed out. We just shorted up her walk and do more training instead of forcing her to walk while she's in distress.

 

[thesineater]

@arab545 Ooo that's an interesting idea. I've been using snacks from the pet store that I think are about medium value for her. She'll break attention away to get one in most circumstances, but if something else is particularly interesting she'll turn right back to it once the treat has been secured. She quite likes hot dogs so maybe I'll try that on our next walk.

My only previous dog was an English Springer Spaniel who had all those bird dog instincts bred into her so we didn't have to do much training. This little girl is a mutt who we got from a pet store after she'd been taken off the street as a puppy and subsequently kennelled and abandoned at the store, so while she's quite sweet she has more behavioral quirks to work through that I'm not really certain how to handle. Should I be taking her out during high stimulation times and working on getting her to shift her attention to me or should I stick to low stimulation times?

 

[arab545]

@thesineater Yeah it takes some trial and error to find the right combo of treats. Our highest value treats are cheese and deli turkey. We have some baked treats that are medium value. Kibbles are the lowest value. I would avoid very busy streets or super busy times of day at the start. Even now, 80% of our walks are on low traffic streets so there are minimal distractions (mostly squirrels). But we do walk on a very busy street that definitely pushes her attention more. Our dog is also a rescue mutt and she took a solid 9 months to get decent at walks and pay attention to us. Good luck!

 

[jhofste]

@thesineater https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operant_conditioning

 

[thesineater]

@jhofste Great, thank you

 

[tyler82]

@tamalyn This is exactly the advice I came here looking for. Thank you!

 

[jentaylor875]

@monsieurhauddennifels Whenever your boyfriend acts correctly, give him some love / snack and tell him how awesome he’s doing. It’s amazing how fast he will learn with positivity.

 

[giftideas]

@jentaylor875 Bahahaha I laughed out loud at this one. Bravo internet stranger

 

[sadness101]

@monsieurhauddennifels This seems like a relationship issue. I’d remove him from your dog walks until he can change. My husband has also never trained a dog, but he listens to me when I point out how he’s encouraging/enforcing unwanted behaviors. Sure, he messes up sometimes, but he tries to correct himself and is welcoming when I remind him of what our dog needs from him/us.

I think you need to put this in terms of your relationship, not your dog. For example “I feel like you’re blowing me off when we talk about the dogs training. Her behavior is important to me and I need your help”.

If he truly doesn’t understand how dog training works, get a professional trainer to explain it to him. But this sounds like a human to human communication problem to me. (Also, show him this post and the responses)

 

[caitlynroserafael]

@monsieurhauddennifels You might get a better response to this question in something like r/relationship_advice .