Meet JJ (and some advice needed!)

[michael1517]

Hi! I just referred here after posting about my reactive dog on r/dogs, I'm excited that this subreddit is getting started! My dog is a one and a halfish year old chocolate lab named JJ. Off leash and with people and dogs she knows, JJ is a sweet and goofy food-obsessed girl. On leash, she's a reactive mess. When we see other dogs she pulls out all the reactivity stops; whining, yelping, lunging, growling, just monster-ing all over. We're doing LAT training and general LLW stuff, but so far it feels like we've made 0 progress. Walks tend to be very frustrating and embarrassing. I absolutely adore her though and I'm really committed to working on this with her.

Now for the advice part, what do you all recommend for exercise on days that JJ is not behaving? We live in an apartment, so our options for exercise are mostly walks or the apartment complex's dog park. I don't want to reinforce bad behavior by continuing walks when she's pulling like a madwoman, but I do want to make sure she gets the exercise she needs which is tough when we're constantly stopping and starting. Should I cut walks short and go throw a ball for her in the park instead when walks are going really badly?

The little monster

 

[imagebeastmarkbeast]

@michael1517 I live in an apartment as well but I cannot go to dog parks with my dog. In addition to lots of mental exercise, I use a flirt pole religiously! If your dog is toy motivated and likes to play tug the tool would be super awesome! You can go to a park or even in your apartment if you have room. It's basically like a dog-size cat toy and really helps with impulse control as well.

 

[janiesdad]

@michael1517 JJ is such a cutie!

For exercising, I'd recommend doing a mix of physical and mental exercise. Have you ever done clicker training (probably if you're doing LAT)? Training new behaviors and tricks is pretty exhausting to a dog as well. That might help because you can do these inside or in a backyard and not have to worry too much about triggers.

Edit: we live in a complex too. It might be bad, but for now we don't really take Ghost out on long walks at all because of her reactivity and heartworm. We take her outside for short breaks to relieve herself, but her main exercise comes from learning new tricks inside that are intended to help build her confidence and focus outside.

 

[michael1517]

@janiesdad We do clicker training! She responds really well to the clicker actually. That's a good point about the mental exercise, I think I've been getting too wrapped up in the physical exercise (I really don't want her to be another fat lab!). I'm gonna look up some new tricks to teach her

 

[janiesdad]

@michael1517 Yeah, it's important to balance the brain and the body. Physical exercise is important, but be careful to not train an elite athlete on accident!

We use his daily kibble for training and reinforcement throughout the day. Before we were giving him his kibble and then training him with additional treats, so he put on a few extra pounds. We noticed however, and now we've changed up our methods. You can also use vegetables for some low calorie rewards, if JJ likes them.

 

[japel]

@michael1517 I feel you on the lack of exercise thing. My anxious senior Portuguese water dog still needs consistent exercise, but winter makes that challenging. And I live in a studio, so it just adds to the cabin fever.

I second using kibble to exercise your dog. The layout of my apartment is like a big galley, so I'm able to throw pieces of kibble from my bed to the front door, then my dog runs to get them. He comes back, lays down, I throw a few more, and he gets them. The steps add up and it kills some time. I'm very pro-armchair dog training and this is something you can do while watching TV/Netflix or surfing reddit once your dog learns the game.

How tough of a chewer is she? My dog will consume anything weaker than a beef marrow bone, not the non cross-section cut, but the hollow tube cut. No compressed rawhide or bully sticks for him, or we'd be at the vet for surgery. I get the 7-9" ones and heat up a stockpot with water and drop the bones in until the marrow looks like I can scoop it out. Once the bones are cleaned out, I fill them with wet dog food and freeze them. You can fill them with anything: yogurt, peanut butter, kibble, sweet potato, pumpkin, rice, yogurt, broth, the marrow you took out, the list goes on. They take my dog 30-45 minutes to clean out. I also like Kongs and other rubber puzzle toys for this purpose, but marrow bones are ~$2-3 apiece while the Kongs are $15-20+. I don't fully cook the marrow bones but they are reusable until they splinter and freeze well. I keep them stored in their, empty or full.