Barking Sheltie on walks: what is your trick?

[Meldor]

Note: I know many threads touch this subject but I am having trouble gathering all the knowledge and adapting it to our case. I would really appreciate a few answers related to our case or some general info on what are your tricks. Thank you in advance.


Everyone knows that Shelties bark... but what is your trick for controlling your Sheltie's barking on walks?

I have a very active 10 month old female Sheltie named Kyara. She is a darling but is terrified of strangers ever since she was 10 weeks old. She went through puppy school, did her basic obedience and is now doing introduction classes to agility. We also had Barkbuster's come and visit us to help with her insecurity issues. They did help a lot for the barking in the house such as when the doorbell rings but to be honest... it's not that great on walks.

We live in a condo so we often see neighbors when taking Kyara outside for a walk or to do her business. If she sees someone leaving their condo, we loose her attention completely and she goes into a lunging out of control barking feud. She also does this towards joggers yet it is still possible to get her attention back in that case.

Barkbuster's recommended a Champ collar (sort of haltie) and used it to correct this problem by lifting her head slightly when she would start barking in the goal of preventing her from getting out of control and just keep walking. Unfortunately, we decided to stop using it since Kyara would frantically try and scratch it off, which caused scratches on her nose that drew blood . After this bloody incident every time we took the collar out she ran away from us.

So we moved on to a positive reinforcement technique : We've been trying to give her a bunch of treats as soon as we see someone coming our way (before she sees them) in order to keep her attention towards us but I don't feel like we are making any progress and if we don't have any treats.. forget about it! Plus, about a month ago she got a stomach infection and since then, it feels like her behavior towards strangers is even worse than before we had barkbuster's come to help us.

My boyfriend has been trying to have her sit if she starts barking at a stranger and hold her snout lightly (not adding any pressure) in order to keep her head focused towards him and preventing her from barking but it is also just seems to work once in a while and sometime she just acts out even more.

We are definitely in need of some help on this one. What are your tricks? What do you recommend?

 

[Whitney]

Hm. This is a tough one, and it seems like you've definietly got the idea of the training, you're just not seeing results.

First of all, it seems from your description that it is a fear response. Her thought process is more of "I attack/bark/scare away this threatening thing first before it gets to me." I would NOT recommend holding her snout to force her to pay attention to you. This is reinforcing her fear and lack of control of the situation. Not a good idea.

There are a few things you might try that come to my mind. If you are walking, and she starts to bark at something more in front of you, you might try abruptly turing around and walking with her in the other direction. This disrupts her focus on the threatening thing and redirects it.

Another thing that I would highly recommend you work on is the "watch me" command. I would start the training of this at home in a limited distraction environment. Sit or stand facing your dog. At first you want to hold up a treat right to the side of your eyes and say "watch me," and as soon as she mades eye contact with you, treat and praise. Timing is very important that the treat come literally within like a milisecond of the desired behavior. And then what comes next: practice. Practice and reinforement. Eventually, work up to longer time intervals with which she has to keep her attention focused on you before she gets her treat.

Eventually you take this command out on walks. The important part of this, expecially in the beginning, is never leave for a walk without treats. When a "threat" comes, have her sit and do the "watch me" command. It seems like you kind of hav an idea of this, however aren't quite executing it right. The point of it is to redirect her attention on you and ignore the "threat." The key to this, especially in the beginning, is to never leave for a walk without treats. Now, don't just give her a bunch of treats. Have her sit and "watch you" until the threat has passed, then treat. (You see why this behavior needs to be practiced first with limited distractions). If she seems not to be responding to the treats, try a higher valued treat like pieces of hotdog or something.

Something you might try regarding strangers. Make sure that the strangers are not inadvertantly putting pressure on her, causing her to react. Things that put pressure on her include making eye contact, trying to pet her, even looking at her. You might try setting up a controlled training session at a park or something where you have the "stranger" walk past, have the stranger throw a treat on the ground, walk away. The stranger completely ignores the dog and does not make eye contact. This reinforces the idea that when these strangers come, something good happens, then they go away, and nothing bad happened. Do this a lot, with different people, and you might see some results. You might try the same thing when you have people over to your house, again remembering not to pressure the dog.

P.S. that's my non-professional opinion

 

[OntarioSheltie]

Hm. This is a tough one, and it seems like you've definietly got the idea of the training, you're just not seeing results.

First of all, it seems from your description that it is a fear response. Her thought process is more of "I attack/bark/scare away this threatening thing first before it gets to me." I would NOT recommend holding her snout to force her to pay attention to you. This is reinforcing her fear and lack of control of the situation. Not a good idea.

There are a few things you might try that come to my mind. If you are walking, and she starts to bark at something more in front of you, you might try abruptly turing around and walking with her in the other direction. This disrupts her focus on the threatening thing and redirects it.

Another thing that I would highly recommend you work on is the "watch me" command. I would start the training of this at home in a limited distraction environment. Sit or stand facing your dog. At first you want to hold up a treat right to the side of your eyes and say "watch me," and as soon as she mades eye contact with you, treat and praise. Timing is very important that the treat come literally within like a milisecond of the desired behavior. And then what comes next: practice. Practice and reinforement. Eventually, work up to longer time intervals with which she has to keep her attention focused on you before she gets her treat.

Eventually you take this command out on walks. The important part of this, expecially in the beginning, is never leave for a walk without treats. When a "threat" comes, have her sit and do the "watch me" command. It seems like you kind of hav an idea of this, however aren't quite executing it right. The point of it is to redirect her attention on you and ignore the "threat." The key to this, especially in the beginning, is to never leave for a walk without treats. Now, don't just give her a bunch of treats. Have her sit and "watch you" until the threat has passed, then treat. (You see why this behavior needs to be practiced first with limited distractions). If she seems not to be responding to the treats, try a higher valued treat like pieces of hotdog or something.

Something you might try regarding strangers. Make sure that the strangers are not inadvertantly putting pressure on her, causing her to react. Things that put pressure on her include making eye contact, trying to pet her, even looking at her. You might try setting up a controlled training session at a park or something where you have the "stranger" walk past, throw a treat on the ground, walk away. The stranger completely ignores the dog and does not make eye contact. This reinforces the idea that when these strangers come, something good happens, then they go away, and nothing bad happened. Do this a lot, with different people, and you might see some results. You might try the same thing when you have people over to your house, again remembering not to pressure the dog.

I like Whitney's advice, I've done a lot of that with my fear reactive sheltie Toby.

I wouldn't discontinue the use of the head collar though. First, make sure that you have one like a haltie or gentle leader that connects under the dogs snout and not at the back of the head. When your dog starts barking/lunging, slide your hand down the leash to where the halter connects to the leash, then gently and calmly direct your dog toward you and away from the scary thing.

Do not let her scratch at it and make sure you're with her all the time when she has it on.

Its important to give your dog space. If you see something coming that your dog is afraid of, move to the side and away from the trigger a few feet. Its important that your dog have the space she needs or she will never get used to the things she's afraid of. Whitney suggested throwing a treat on the ground. I'd like to elaborate by saying throw it on the ground when you're away from the scary person/trigger. Gradually you should be able to get closer and closer to the trigger.

Another thing you might try is clicker training. When she looks at something that is usually a trigger, click. After you click then give her a treat. Don't click or treat if she's already started barking. The trick is that you want her to expect good things when she sees something scary and look toward you, instead of barking and carrying on.

This blog was a big eye opener for me, you should have a read through it. There are lots of great ideas here about positive training.

http://reactivechampion.blogspot.com/

 

[Whitney]

Its important to give your dog space. If you see something coming that your dog is afraid of, move to the side and away from the trigger a few feet. Its important that your dog have the space she needs or she will never get used to the things she's afraid of. Whitney suggested throwing a treat on the ground. I'd like to elaborate by saying throw it on the ground when you're away from the scary person/trigger. Gradually you should be able to get closer and closer to the trigger.
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One thing I want to clarify is I meant this when working with people you dog is unfamiliar with, have the "stranger" throw the treat as they walk by. I meant this as reinforcing the idea that when strangers come, good things happen. Sorry for the confusion!

If its not a controlled situation, and where the person really is a stranger, try the watch me command, getting your dog to focus on you and not the "threat"

 

[OntarioSheltie]

One thing I want to clarify is I meant this when working with people you dog is unfamiliar with, have the "stranger" throw the treat as they walk by. I meant this as reinforcing the idea that when strangers come, good things happen. Sorry for the confusion!

That all depends on just how reactive the dog is. Some dogs can't tolerate a stranger or other trigger being that close to them, which is why giving the dog space is important. The stranger can still throw the treat if you stand a good 10 ft. away too, so long as he/she doesn't hit the dog.

 

[Meldor]

Thanks a lot for your replies!

We did start practicing the "Watch me" command when treating her but what we were missing, I think, is the part of adding more and more waiting time before treating her.

Also, from what I tested this morning on our walk, giving her space is very important for now. I was able to get a complete "Watch me" while sitting (though I had to repeat it 3 times to keep her from turning her head) when a jogger passed on the other side of the road. But when another jogger passed us on the same side of the road, even though I moved on the grass at about 6 feet away from the side walk, I couldn't get a focus and she started her barking feud.

I guess we'll just keep practicing and practicing at a distance eventually getting closer and closer to the threats.

I'm not sure though if we'll be able to obtain results with this for when our next door neighbor (his front door is like 3 feet from ours) comes in and out of his condo. This apparently is Kyara's worst nightmare and I am not sure if we'll ever get a good watch me command if he comes out of there. I guess we just need to practice, practice and we'll see.

P.s: one of the worst things I find is when strangers want to come and pet her even though she's barking her head off and I tell them she is scared of strangers but they keep on trying to talk to her and pet her... thinking they'll manage to calm her down. *Sigh* guess I need to be more affirmative and tell them not to look at her or pay attention to her.

 

[danisgoat]

Whitney has given some great advice. Thanks Whitney!

Please keep us posted on your progress. This is a great learning tool for all of us, as this is a very common problem when walking our shelties.

 

[Meldor]

update

First of all, I love our morning walks as she is so much calmer since there are less cars and people going around and it is easier to get her to "watch me" when a threat comes around.

Otherwise, the first 2 evening walks did not go well. Since I take her out around 5pm, it is crazy busy. For example, it wasn't going that badly the night before last on a quieter street but when we got right to the corner of my street we had: someone exiting a car, a jogger, one person on a bike, five people walking as they exited a bus and one person walking 2 teckels (who always bark crazy when they see us). Kyara lost it, lunging everywhere and barking like crazy to the point I almost felt I should just carry her in my arms and go home... Luckily I was only about 5 houses away from home. Quite discouraging for the first evening.

Yesterday evening, I decided to change route and bring her for a longer walk on a quieter street. She was okay in the beginning but when we crossed a busier street she started to get extremely anxious and jumpy again. So I walked towards a quieter street and sat down on the lawn of a school located in front of a few condos similar to our condo. She was so anxious that I decided to stay there longer until she would calm down. She was looking everywhere, whining, jumping at every noise, not taking any treats and so I just waited.

Eventually someone exited a condo, walked quite close to us on the street, Kyara looked at him and I said watch me, which she did for a sec but she looked back at the person nervously yet she did not bark or lunge. I asked her to watch me again and she did and I gave her treats which she ate! I then changed her leash for the 25 feet one and I played fetch on the school's lawn for a few minutes. She seemed much calmer after that yet still anxious when we crossed other people (I always made sure to cross to the other side of the road if they were coming our way on the same side as us).

I'll try practicing a bit of this everyday: going to a new street and just chilling with her somewhere to try and get her to relax. It will take a lot of time and effort to desensitize her.

My boyfriend really wants us to get a canny collar again (marketed under champ collar here in Canada) since it was much easier to direct her attention elsewhere when training her and the fact that she reacts to people so far from us. His best point is that because we live in a condo close to lots of other condos on a very busy street, she would always be reinforcing herself by barking and freaking out as people go by when we are right in front of our condo (thus always starting and ending the walk on a bad note if anyone is in front of our condo - cause she thinks the people are going away because she is freaking out).

I guess it wouldn't be so bad but I would make sure she is really comfortable with it inside before using it outside again. I just feel like if we train her with just a plain flat collar, it would certainly be much harder and longer but it would truly address the problem and not just avoid it...

 

[KarenCurtis]

Hi, I had this same exact problem with Sandstorm on walks. This is what I did, and it took persistence and months of gradual improvement to the point where it is SO MUCH BETTER now.
First, as people here have already said, keep a distance between the dog and other people; it is really important, and, if possible, walk your dog at the least busiest times of day.
When Sandstorm and I took walks when he was a puppy SS would bark and lunge at cars, people, etc. I had him sit when cars, a person, bikes were close in passing by- I would stay as calm as could be and not say a word until they passed, and while sitting, I would kind of block him- I was closest to the car- this takes practice. If Sandstorm was calm, I praised him- we did this for every car, person, biker. We did not bring treats because I knew I would forget them often. We practiced this for months. Sandstorm improved greatly over time (months).
In a situation where there are one or two people, we just practiced walking past them AT A DISTANCE, with me talking and treating him. Sometimes, depending on the situation, we would have to turn back the other way and walk, especially if there were alot of people.
It will get better with your consistency and patience, patience, patience!!! The one thing I want to stress the most is that you maintain all the calm you can muster! It is not easy, and I greatly improved at it too! It was very satisfyiing to get results. Good luck, I hope I have also helped.

 

[Danny's mommy]

My Danny was the same way -- lunging at cars and barking at people and dogs going by. He would spot the people and dogs in the distance and start up. He doesn't listen as much to me as following me. If I get walking real fast and confident and act like nothing is wrong he kind of goes along with it.
My husband NEVER has any of these problems when he walks him and Danny always comes a running when he calls him. My husband is alpha 1, Danny is 2, and I am at the bottom. That's what Danny thinks.