This training protocol is specific to a particular situation but I know I see similar troubles in other homes. Recommendations may need to be adjusted slightly here and there to fit your dog-dog conflict.
This case is one of a multi-dog household where the smallest young dog is picking on the geriatric tiny-dog in the home. It is likely that the conflict was sparked by (1) this puppy’s genetic personality tendencies of being originally bred for herding cattle, (2) she is also the smallest of a group of puppies all being raised together in the home. It was not unseen that she gets pushed over, stepped on, or play was too rough for her with the other puppies. This young dog found that a dog in the home smaller and more fragile than her that she could get a rise out of. This type of one sided bullying fun is often the beginning of damaged relationships between dogs.
If they had the ability to choose their families they would not be living together. Street dogs don’t have conflicts as frequently because they just avoid or move to other areas away from dogs they don’t get along with. Choosing their friends and dogs they like to band with. This is a luxury our house dogs or owned dogs don’t get.
It is not uncommon for me to see young dogs develop into bullies. Most of the time, anecdotally, very young puppies that are put into overwhelming social situations where they get bullied turn into the bully. Sometimes the dog that initially bullied them didn’t mean to be a bully like in the case with this puppy. The other puppies she lives with are litter mates and they play rough with each other. So when one of these puppies play with this little dog they wrestle in the same way. Unaware that fair play means they need to adjust their play style to their playmate.
This young smaller puppy now sees the tiny old dog as an opportunity to practice what she learned and have some fun of her own. The problem is this old dog does not see it as fun and even as pain inducing and very uncomfortable to have this young dog rambunctiously snapping, barking, lunging, pushing, and jumping at him.
Quickly this difference in these two dogs escalates. One getting defensive and more aggressive in their behavior till fights start to break out. It’s all fun and games… Until it turns into a fight.
Something I think is important to mention is that play is only a degree away from a fight to start with. Both are high arousal activities that require the same motor skills. When I have someone who is completely new to dog ownership and has never seen dogs play they will freak out thinking that their dog is fighting. Though typically we instinctively don’t mistake a real fight as play, subtle conflicts between dogs can be easily miss identified.
The protocol
Disclaimer: if your dogs are fighting to the point of injury for either dog, or those around the dogs, it is advised that you seek professional help to assess the situation and create a protocol designed for you. Aggression is not something I recommend anyone tackle without professional guidance.
Stage 1
Separate and reset!
Both these dogs need a nice long holiday to help them reset and relax without anxiety or fear about running into the other dog. Be creative. Some people do this within their home, sectioning off their house so each dog has their territory. Others in smaller homes use some sort of rotation system where one dog hangs out in the bedroom and another one gets to be in the yard/house. They are then safely rotated in spaces without having any run in with the other. The later method takes some really strong communication between household members so that the dogs are not ever in the same space at the same time.
You have to find something that is sustainable for you and your family. In some cases this is where one dog is sent away from the home to a trainer or a friend's house until everyone (including the dogs) are ready to begin the next stage of the protocol.
I recommend a minimum of separation for 3 weeks but definitely can be longer. During this time of separation you can work on designing your training plan and begin working on any independent skills the dogs will need before you can start reintroducing them.
Stage 2
Skill building.
The skills that each dog might need will vary slightly but here are a few. I’m not going to go too in depth into how to break down training these skills. I have many other resources that will cover that.
Name-attention/focus/eye contact. You want to be sure that both dogs have a strong name-attention. They immediately direct their focus in the caller's direction and momentarily stop what they are doing. Eye contact isn’t necessary but it can be helpful to build some duration up so it can buy you more time to take action. The behavior that you want to see is a stop, turn, and look at you for about 3 seconds.
Recall/Targeting. When you have dogs that are in conflict you need to be able to call a specific dog to you but not both. I suggest teaching recall in the form of target training. You want to teach your dog to look at you when you say their name, then you can ask them to come to you and touch your hand. Teaching them to come and make physical contact with your hand makes it easier to grab a collar and get control of them before they run back into the conflict.
On Your Mark. Each dog in the home should have a place that when you say they go to it and stay there until released. I like to use platforms or lifted step stools or dog cots for places. If your house is small then you can choose to have a place be on a couch, a chair, or ottoman. A word of caution about using furniture: You may find that they become possessive of their space especially if it is in the way of traffic or a comfy space sought after by other dogs. If your dog has a tendency to resource guard, ensure their place is out of the way and strictly theirs. It can also help if it is something you can put away to prevent guarding behavior during times when dogs and people are hanging together in a group.
Stay & Self Control. A very important skill is teaching your dogs to control themselves, control their impulses, and wait for things to come to them. You will need this to keep them from running right back into the conflict. This starts with teaching a stay. You can use your place and simultaneously teach a down stay as well.
Look at That. This is a very well used skills game that teaches dogs to look at an object or in a direction. It can be helpful but is not necessary to teach dogs in conflict. However, if one dog is sailing through their skills then this can be a fun additional skill to build upon. I find that this game will be quickly learned in the next stage of the protocol without prior training. For practice you might have your dog doing a stay put a treat on the floor and mark them for looking at the treat instead of away. In the end we want to teach our dogs to look at things that frustrate them or scare them to get information and then away, back at their handler, for reassurance and emotional regulation.
All of these skills should be taught using positive reinforcement and approximation shaping. Meaning you start with an easy variation of the skill in a low distracting environment then slowly through repetition begin to build challenge and add more distractions. Remembering that this is all done in separation from the other dog.
Stage 3
The Reintroduction.
The only time the dogs should see each other in this stage of training is during formal training sessions. It can be incredibly helpful to have a partner or helper to handle one dog while you train and work with the instigator. Often one dog will need less skills. For this case the tiny old dog I’m sure wants nothing to do with the puppy. He would be happy to ignore her completely, making the puppy the instigator and the one that will need more of the training skills in the previous stage and handling in this stage.
If both your dogs are equally instigating or going into the other’s space then ideally your helper is a household member that is interested in doing some training alongside you.
You can do some of these training sessions carefully and single handedly with the creative use of baby gates, exercise pens, tie backs, or other equipment to contain and control one dog while you work with the other. This is only doable if the dog not working with the human is okay and comfortable with the set up. If you have to work alone you may need to build up the dog’s tolerance of being confined to the area you plan on using during training sessions BEFORE you begin training.
There are two types of training sessions and what one works for your dog will depend on the motives behind the instigator of the conflict.
If the instigator is starting the conflict out of fear. Maybe they feel threatened and are aggressive because they want the other dog to move away. We call this distance seeking or avoidance behavior. This means that a very gentle form of avoidance training (negative reinforcement for the nerds) could be very effective.
On the other hand, if the dog is aggressive and escalating a conflict out of frustration and to get a reaction in the form of attention (good or bad attention is still attention) from the other dog then a positive reinforcement technique is likely going to be the better route.
I’m going to explain both briefly but my guess for this case is that the dog is doing the behavior to get something from the other dog versus avoiding something. So let's walk through a high level positive reinforcement reintroduction training session.
The key with both training sessions is that you want to start the dogs at a distance where they are aware of the other but not so close as to get any kind of reaction from either dog.
Positive reinforcement reintroduction training session:
This is positive reinforcement so you will want to be sure to have your dog's favorite food. These things should be on your person or within arms reach.
Open the door where the other dog is waiting or have the other dog become visible by either you walking into view or the other dog moving into view. How you do this depends 100% on your chosen set up.
Focus on the dog you’re training. The moment that they do anything that is non-aggressive, mark with a clicker (“yes” if you prefer) and treat. Your rate of treating/reinforcement should be very high. You want to mark and reinforce repeatedly like a machine for every behavior but especially keep an eye out for looking in the direction of the other dog, looking at you, laying down, sitting, and sniffing the floor.
Keep the dog in view for about 1-5 min. Varying the length of time so that it’s not too predictable for the dogs.
Move the dogs out of sight and separate again. Spend about 1-5 min alone with the dog. During the alone time DON’T GIVE TREATS. In fact you can go about doing something else if you would like you don’t have to be paying attention to the dog specifically.
You will want to only repeat this 3-7 times. Mix up the number of repetitions you do each training session.
Once you are working at 5 min of time visible together you can start to gradually increase this time but remember to also vary the duration of time together. You don’t want the training sessions to incrementally increase. This keeps the dogs guessing. You don’t want them to know how long they will have to be in the same room.
Each time they are visible to each other you want to make sure you are giving them attention. We call this training method Open Bar/Closed Bar. When the other dog is visible it’s an open bar where treats and fun flow. When the other dog is out of sight the bar is closed. No treats and the increased attention is gone.
Negative reinforcement reintroduction training session:
Like I said before this will not be effective unless what the dogs are trying to accomplish is distance from the other dog and the conflict is started by fear. You can look up this procedure in other literature; it's called Constructional Aggression Training (CAT) or Behavioral Adjustment Training (BAT).
Similar to the Positive Reinforcement procedure you want to set the dogs up at a distance that they are comfortable and not reactive. You want to set them up for success. You won’t need, nor should you have treats for this.
Have the dogs come into view.
Pause for a couple of seconds when the dogs do one of these behaviors: look at and then calmly away from the other dog, sniff the ground, look at you, or stand aware but not facing the other dog.
The moment the dog does one of these calm polite interactions you are going to say “good” and remove the visibility of the other dog.
Pause out of sight for 1-3 min before repeating this again.
This works because you are respecting the dog's wishes to create distance between them without it having to escalate into a conflict.
Sessions to ensure you are not pushing for far too fast should not last longer than 20 min.
After each training session if you are to be successful I advise you to take a moment to work through these training questions. You will find some data recording available to you through your Training Tracker as well. Do this step and share the training information you collect with your program coordinator for feedback and further suggestions.
Training Session Worksheet
Date & Time of Session: Who was involved? Trainer: Helper:
Could anything have influenced today’s session? Example: arriving or just leaving, construction in the neighborhood, thunderstorm, visiting the vet in the last 24 hours, etc.
Did you get a video of the training session? Upload the video or share the link with your trainer for feedback.
How do you feel your training session went today? Feel free to rate the session if this is an easier way to communicate how the session went.
What do you think could have gone better about the training session? Be specific.
What do you feel went well about the session? Be specific.
Did you feel this lesson was very easy, easy, medium difficulty, hard, extra hard for your animal overall?
Do you feel you are moving in the right direction? If not, explain what your goals are and some ideas if you have any about what you can try next time to stay on track.
Stage 4
Casual hang out sessions.
After many repetitions of short and controlled interactions you will know you're ready to move on when you see the dogs immediately offering alternative behaviors and are deliberately ignoring each other the moment that they are aware of the other dog.
Now it’s time to remove the breaks and have the dogs hang out casually and continually monitored when in the same room together. You will do the same positive reinforcement technique you do above. However, now you will not be taking a break. So you can save your marks (clicker/”yes”) for very specific behaviors and when you see a dog make a good choice.
Look at the other dog but look away.
Move around the other dog widely and with respect
Sniff the floor and turn 90 degrees from the other dog.
They offer long stretches of looking at you
Going to their places
Coming when called or responding to your requests
Offers to lay down or sit relaxed in a space away from the other dog.
You can’t let your guard down! The entire time that the dogs are in the same room together you want to be watching both dogs for signs of relaxation or self control. Each time you spot a calming signal you want to mark and reward.
Start your sessions at around 10 min and you can gradually increase the time as you need.
It can be helpful to leash one dog or the instigator and have them tethered to you or dragging their leash. This depends on what you are more comfortable with using to control the dog. By keeping a leash on you then have an emergency break if you see someone thinking about making a poor decision and disrupting the peace.
Remember through all of this to go slow. You didn’t fall in love, become best friends, or get comfortable talking to your boss in one day. It takes time to heal a relationship and form new habits. You will need to be diligent but it is extremely possible and I have seen it happen.
I don’t recommend ever leaving the dogs unattended alone for any stretch of time. You don’t want them building bad habits when you are away. Though it is possible to eventually get them to a place where the dogs can make their own choices, each case is different and I wouldn’t want all your hard work if you made it to Stage 4 to be unraveled because you left the dogs home alone.
For any further questions or guidance don’t hesitate to reach out. I know that this is not exactly a detailed training plan and you are bound to have questions. It’s the best I could do keeping it flexible and not having to write a book.
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