Reactive 3 y/o Pit makes me anxious to go on walks

[jaceelarue]

Hi!
So, I had adopted my dog about 3 years ago in a different country (Central America) with my best friend. Since then, we’ve been co-parenting (spending 6 months here in this country then switching so the other can go to their home country).

Let me start by saying, we LOVE our dog. He can be so sweet and just the biggest baby at home. He also listens to us pretty well at home.

Our dog is reactive to anything that moves fast past him, (motorbikes, cars, sometimes people running). Whenever we hear these vehicles, we try to create a barrier between him and the vehicle but he lunges so hard. It’s also important to note, there is no sidewalk here. It’s just roads.

People in this country are not warming to pit bulls and I feel like he doesn’t help by being so reactive in public. My friend said a local even spit in our dog’s direction in disgust :/

He’s kind of food motivated so sometimes giving him kibble has helped redirect his attention if I can catch it before something gets too close. Our dog is super strong and also pulls like crazy no matter what I do. There are pockets where I can get him to not pull so hard but a lot of the times he doesn’t listen or pay attention to the kibble.

My friend took him for walks every day despite his reactivity and just deals with the stress of it vs with me, I get really tight chested whenever I hear a vehicle approaching and brace myself for his worst. I hate going out on walks with him and I feel so tense the moment I step out with him.

So…for my reactive dog parents out there…do you have any suggestions, words of wisdom to share with me?

 

[gail2292]

@jaceelarue We have a reactive pitt mix so I understand where you are coming from! Ours is reactive to people approaching, and smaller things moving past us -- cars, bikes, skateboards. When he is really upset, he will bark and lunge like crazy, which is difficult to control since he's 50lbs. This is what we learned from our trainers:

1) Focus on Management. If these walks are stressful for you, imagine they are also super stressful for your dog! For now, limit walks outside. Walks isn't the only requirement for enrichment -- how about fetch in the house, doing more training to get them mentally tired, feeding meals in slow feeders (like snuffle mats or the Snoop).

Second, are there roads you can take that are quieter? Can you go out at less busy times -- either early/late morning, early afternoon, late at night?

2) Counter Conditioning when your dog is under threshold. At what distance does your dog notice the trigger, but is still under threshold and responding to treats? For example, do they hear a car from far away, their ears perk up, they look towards it? With our dog if they heard a motorbike from far away or they see a bike at a distance, I would excitedly say "BIKE!!" and give them a very high value treat (usually string cheese or hot dogs). And at first we would use the "Open Bar" technique, which means we would continue giving treats until the trigger goes away and "close the bar" once the trigger is gone. The key to this is staying at a far enough distance from the trigger, but ideally this will get closer over time.

I would google "dog management" and "dog counter conditioning" for more examples and information, as well as reading up more on dog body language so you can see signs they are stressed (whale eyes, stiff body, lip licks, yawns). This is where we've started and we've seen a lot of improvement. Now when a bike passes by, my dog will look over to me as if to say "where's my treat??"

 

[jaceelarue]

@gail2292 I have a small front lawn and I’m starting to play “find it” by throwing kibble on the turf and letting him sniff it out and find it. I also forgot to mention I have a 7 month old pup who loves to annoy him and play with him! So they chase eachother around too. He’s not really interested in toys (unless the puppy has a hold of one then suddenly he wants what she has)

The road we usually go on is the quieter one and it leads to this small little trail/hike that he likes doing. However, it’s unpredictable and I’m not sure if people are working on the farms or if there are street dogs parading around the trail or even on the road. The other road leads to the center of town so, it’s worse.

I wake up around 6am and as ive gotten ready, I listen from my front yard how busy outside sounds and I try to leave at the quietest times and hurry to the trail, but like I said, it’s pretty unpredictable here.

Sometimes I’ll notice the sound before he could and just shove kibble in his face until the thing passes and give him a “good boy” for not reacting.

Thank you for your helpful comment!!

 

[gail2292]

@jaceelarue I empathize -- I live in a busy area as well, and sometimes it feels like triggers come out of nowhere from all sides! So it can be very tough.

How is your dog when cars drive by your house? I wonder if that's a safe space where you can start counter conditioning. If you are at your front window or door, hang out there and and as soon as your dog notices a car, then start giving the high value treats and "Open Bar" until it's passed.

And since your dog knows "find it" (which is great!!), maybe try doing that on walks. If you're focused on management on walks and want to distract them from the trigger, you can start playing "find it" when you hear the car coming to distract them and move away from the car/trigger, getting to a more comfortable distance.

 

[jaceelarue]

@gail2292 He doesn’t pay mind to noise outside unless it’s passing close to our front door. As I said in the post, I’m living in Central America so my home is a little untraditional in terms of how the layout is and exactly where I live. If you can picture it, the layout of the house is sideways. The kitchen, my room and part of the lawn is facing the front of the road, but it’s blocked by a wall of concrete (I guess to make it a little quieter in here). My front door is basically a side door and I have to walk up a narrow path to get to the road. Now, when I get to the road, there are no sidewalks here so if the motorbikes, cars etc want to drive close, they can. There’s no real boundary except me putting myself infront of my dog and hope he doesn’t try lunging.