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Sweet Seven has some bossy terrier behaviors with other dogs. Meaning he will charge face first into a dogs face and space. He also get overstimulated/overexcited when he initially sees dogs - there's a good amount of posturing, whining and barking. This doesn't make him a bad dog, he's not a "dominant" dog and he's not an aggressive dog. His behavior should not define him as this is just behavior and behavior can be worked on and worked through.
Seven struggles with paying attention to queues from other dogs. His lack of focus and poor impulse control provide the opportunity for things to quickly go south with Catty. Knowing Catty well, we know that she would not be ok with Seven's behaviors. What would this look like with our dogs if we let them "figure it out"?
Well, for Catty it would mean a dog fight. Catty is a dog that is always on the offensive - she's a fight not a flight gal. If a dog is not giving her space she will use her teeth letting them know their behavior is unacceptable and she will give them a bit more hoping they won't forget it in the future.
For D'light - he's defensive and will just try to move away - he's a flight kind of dog. This behavior can lead to a dog bulling D'light into a scared little mess.
While Catty and D'light have different styles both need to be paid attention to and it's our job to manage the environment so everyone is safe.
So, since Seven's arrival into our house we have been doing a good amount of management with all the dogs. Management includes keeping dogs separated via baby gates. And when we do integrate, we start with short intervals of time, being thoughtful about the goals of the integration and paying 100% to the interactions of all dogs. Keeping everyone's stress levels low is very important.
This has been going well and all the training we have been doing with Seven is really helping his dog to dog interactions.
Here we are about a week into Seven's arrival. Seven and I have been working on making eye contact and he know that the clicker pays very well. I use high value treats as a high reinforcer.
You can see Catty is cool with this game since Seven isn't paying attention to her - not invading her space. And again both dogs get rewarded for looking at me. Catty knows this game well and I do believe she knows that I will intervene (so that she doesn't have to ) if the dog's behavior amps up.
We've done this same drill over and over and it's really made a huge difference. My error in this video is that I accidently dropped a piece of food on the ground when I was trying deliver it directly to the dog. If something like that happens just hustle to pick it up, move (so the dogs also get moving) and try not to do it again!
Here we are after a weeks worth of work and Seven is fully integrated with Catty and D'light. We still have to be on top of who is where and what's going on but, we haven't had a single scuffle and that's great for everyone.
So we have changed the behavior and again neither Seven or Catty should be labeled as "dog aggressive" or "dominant" because they are not either of those labels - as you can see from the video's and will see in future posts.
Way to go Seven, everyone is proud of your hard work.
Seven knows that he will get paid well (which he did) by avoiding Catty when he comes back to me.
And what did Seven do after the above videos?
He went and found nice bed to relax one!
He was rewarded for this excellent behavior - there's a coming post about this!
Off to sleep!
And here is Seven in the evening - hanging out with D'light. D"light says "Focus and say cheese!"
Sweet boys!
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