Yesterday, I shot a piece for DC, ABC Local Channel 7. Maria Campiglia and her little man, Jack did awesome. The story was on reactive dogs, positive training/clicker trianing (I hope!), that was my agenda anyway. Here's the scoop on Jack- will bark and lunge at dogs when being walked and let's just say Man is not his best friend. Ahem, so of course, Jack has a cameraMAN with a large camera, and he was certainly showing stress signals- head lowering, tongue flicking and not eating. He bounced back and really did well tolerating a camera follow trailing his every move. I was kicking myeslf for not bringing something better than hotdogs (which he wouldn't eat).
The goal when working with a reactive dog is to not put them in situations where they rehearse their behavior and get that adrenaline junkie rush. And...life happens...we're all talking, civilian dog is walking by that we don't see, Jack starts to bark and lunge! And...it's the "money shot" (I'm thinking, "my career is over"). Not really, but a perfect example ofwhy management is so critical.
Lesson learned: only use the best food, be more vigilant even with cameras around AND the moral of the story is: behavior modification takes time, there is no magic wand effect. So, kudos to Maria and Jack for putting themselves out there! And we'll all keep working to raise the bar.
The good news: Maria is now able to better read Jack before he reacts (she can predict and interevene) and she's been able to significantly decrease the number of times he is reacting.
Next steps: Increasing the value of our reinforcement, decreasing arousal, and desensitization with a calm dog (Sweets).
We'll be going to work! Stay tuned...
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