Thanks to our readers, the Natural Dog Training site is full of fantastic questions and interesting scenarios. We are continuing to develop the site in order to nurture this dynamic, growing community, and hope to provide more and more resources to improve your learning experiences with NDT. At the moment, we realize that there are often questions or comments that don’t quite have a place within the articles, and so we’ve created this post for that exact purpose.
Please feel free to come here and leave a comment about your experiences, a question about your dog’s behavior, something that you’re stuck on, or something you’ve accomplished. In short, if you’re going through the site, and have something to say that doesn’t quite fit elsewhere – this is the place! We hope this will make your reading experience a little easier, and we’ll continue to develop the tools you need to Keep on Pushing!
~ The NDT Team
The Selbach family dog, Athos
I’ll go first.
I’ve been pushing with my dog Nelly (a ~1 yr old Rottweiler/Shepherd spayed female) almost daily since I adopted her in April. She has panic attacks around dogs and prey animals. It is the worst with dogs and squirrels. She has so much intensity during these moments it’s almost overwhelming. She will thrash extremely hard on the leash and almost hyperventilate.
She got to the point where she was pushing so hard it would make my arm and wrist sore! As of the past couple of weeks though, her enthusiasm for pushing has dwindled to the point where she will give me one or two pushes but then stop. She just wants to eat the food out of my hand, and will turn away if my left hand is touching her. I’m a little baffled as to why there’s been this change.
Her tugging strength has increased significantly since we first started playing, and will readily jump on me with the toy in her mouth. She will play with toys or sticks outside of the backyard only after much coaxing and teasing. She used to bite after my hands or ankles, but can now focus on the toy much better.
I’ve had a call with Neil about her, and he recommended to focus on relaxation. Nelly is still very much a pup though, and would rather roll around, mouth my hands, or investigate around than “tolerate” a massage. I have made our pushing and tugging sessions more flowing and with more relaxation breaks though, but haven’t seen much of a change.
Given the above, what’s my next step? I’ve been around dogs that have been very attracted to squirrels or cats, but with Nelly, it’s on another level. Whenever we’re outside of the backyard she’s like a pipe waiting to burst for the most part. Her head is very tense, her movements are darty and abrupt, and I’m (or whomever is walking her) is tuned out for the most part. Some of her more minor issues have gone away, but her panic and intensity remains the same.
Any ideas or suggestions would be really appreciated!!
I’m assuming that Nellie won’t push or play tug toy when other dogs or squirrels are around because the panic overwhelms her, so if this is true, then any thing can tap into that latent energy and knock her out of sync and cause her to change her behavior. If she’s looking at the empty hand as “danger hand” then she was probably hit as a puppy and there could have been some trigger, you step on her foot or drop something from hand and it knocks her back in time. The fundamental problem is that the intensity of her pushing isn’t as great as greater than the squirrel/dog intensity factor so it’s not reaching down as deep in the battery. To raise intensity there are several things you can do, access her mind through the balance circuitry, or increase her hunger as in only feed her around another dog (behind a fence) until she starts to push (if she’s hungry enough that does in fact do the same thing and access the balance circuitry). Once she starts to push around other dogs, you can then trigger the relaxation exercises (but I suspect you’ll have to contrive the balance circuitry issue which we can leave for a later discussion once the foundation is in place.) Another way to get her into her body is sheer exhaustion. So holding her on a long lead, have a friend’s dog behind a secure fence and let your dog charge at the fence from a distance. Wearing gloves, let her drag as much weight as you can muster the entire distance, where she indulges in a little fence fighting and then you begin to drag her away, once you break the lock of the other dog’s field, she will notice you moving in the opposite direction and then you run her (hope you’re in shape) preferably up a hill that hopefully might be nearby. Then, repeat, many many times. What will slowly unfold is her efficiency expert, her heart, will be able to report to her nervous system, her brain, that all that expenditure of energy is not yielding any tangible results. Note there are no animals in the wild running around having panic attacks. She is wasting energy with all this panic because you are not going to be feeding her from a bowl or in any way subsidizing her inefficiencies. The heart can only communicate with the brain through the stomach. Finally, the easiest way to induce profound hunger and regress dog in battery, is through thirst. So after going as long as possible, contrive to have a bucket of water available near the fenced off dog and hold her there so that she has a choice, drink or fence fight. If she drinks, she’s giving the other dog some degree of credit for her feeling of satisfaction. After she drinks, you might be able to induce her to roll on her back and give belly rub. There are many things that can happen at this point but you have a lot of work to do here in the meantime. Hope this is clear and you get the push back on track.
I’ll collect these thoughts into a training article but for now I want to add that I don’t think your dog will play ping/pong with you without the food and toy involved, if this is the case you’re not developing the full spectrum. In other words, your connection with your dog is a wave pattern and when squirrels/dogs are around, these spikes that they generate do not fit within the waves and troughs of her feeling for you (frequency) and so you don’t exist and all she can do is perform static/electric discharge kinds of behaviors. When dogs bond and can play rough together without rankness, they are actually playing ping/pong and creating a frequency that can not be interrupted, in fact, they carry that bond or frequency into the field on the hunt and this is how they solve in a coordinated manner the problem presented by the large dangerous prey animals canines evolved to hunt. In the game of ping/pong, one dog absorbs the others’ energy and then reflects it back, that’s what’s going on with the biting and releasing, the chasing and the being chased, the up and the down. You have to mimic this in your capacity to rough house with her, encourage her to mouth your hand, bite her with your hand and get her going from one modality to the other. When she gets really good at this, you can put her on lead, have the bite object on the ground, but she has to play ping/pong with you to get to the toy. Every so often interrupt the game to induce her to roll over for a belly rub so that you are softening and grounding whatever intensity you’ve been stimulating in the ping/ponging. This whole exercise is training prey drive as opposed to prey instinct. In the former the dog can take input from the handler whereas it can’t in the latter. Keep on pushing!
how do you know that animals in the wild do not have panic attacks..?
here’s a stump the chump.
my little dog who retrieves a ball for food, yesterday would not go all the way to the ball but make a fast hook turn 2 ft from the ball, she did it twice.
my youngest dog who must have watched her, started retrieving the ball with a lot of intensity, started to compete with my little dog for the same ball.
he did it about 10 times until I took the ball away.
he had never before retrieved more often than about twice up to this point, with very little interest in the ball.
is his increase in interest mostly because he is maturing,(he will be 3 in august)
or because he has been watching the other 2 dogs retrieving for about a year now,
or because he was very hungry ,
or because of what my little dog did in the very beginning with the hook turn?
or a combination of it all ?
my little dog also started suddenly retrieving with a lot of drive, at the age of about 1.5 years old, (she is 3 now) after she had not had much interest in the ball for many months, it is like a switch is flicked….
I don’t quite know what you mean about retrieve a ball for food versus retrieve a ball for fun, or hooking right before getting to the ball, does that mean not getting the ball or approaching it indirectly? At any rate, it sounds like your dogs are flipping polarities, and yes age could be a factor. If the little dog is approaching the ball circumspectively then she is reading a predatory aspect into it, and the other dog is not and so is going after it directly as a response to you as the main negative. I would be curious if there have been any other kinds of shifts going on between them or around you?
Thanks for the replies as always Kevin.
I tried one of the exercises out yesterday. There is a perfect area in a park we frequent that has many dogs and squirrels passing by a large open area with a hill nearby. I had her on a long lead, and if she heard a squirrel or saw a dog walking by, I let her pull as much weight as possible without stopping her. Once she got really intense, I pulled back and ran like you said, and every time without fail she came chasing after me. A few times she also engaged me by jumping on me. After doing this at least 20+ times, we were both exhausted. I had water for her, and while there were no dogs around at the time, I took her near a squirrel and she drank instead of keying in on it.
Later on in the day, she pushed twice for food around a dog behind a fence, but then stopped. She’s been fasted since then so we’ll see if that improves.
She will readily ping/pong in the backyard, but nowhere else. Sounds like I’ll need a pair of gloves.. she doesn’t mouth hard but her teeth are sharp as razors. Thanks again for the help.
GETTING THE BALL FOR FOOD
my border collie loves the ball more than food. i have trouble feeding her anything when she has a ball or stick to “herd”.
my other 2 dogs want a piece of food every time they bring in the ball.
hook turn 2 feet away from the ball. I think my little dog does it because she has a feeling that the large dog will go for it and she does not want to be “tackled”.
also maybe she wants the other dog to start retrieving ? not sure why that would be…
maybe a teaching exercise from older to younger pack member ?
if that is it, it seemed to work, the younger dog performed the same way the next day, lots of retrieving, good drive to the ball.
I have not seen any other changes in the interactions of my dogs…yet…
Very interesting about thirst – I stumbled on this with Happy – get him thirsty and put his bowl in the car and he is not worried about falling off the ramp, he has a single focus, the water. He will also follow the kids anywhere, he is very attracted to them. I spent half a day finagling with ramps and steps to get him in an RV, and my son walked up, hopped in and called “Happy” and Happy went up 2 small slippery metal steps without hesitation.
We took Happy camping at the beach this past weekend, he was willing to chase me and “fight” to get his tug toy wherever we were. We took him for a few walks with the kids, and although we tried to keep Happy occupied at our destinations, we had periods of unstructured time while the kids played around and there were other people and dogs nearby, and he didn’t get overexcited or try to grab the kids or their toys. Happy doesn’t seem to want to push for food as much at mealtime (just a few pushes, not super intense, many times I just put the bowl down now without pushing), but he does push really well when we are out and there are dogs or animals or other distractions. Is it OK to feed him from the bowl and push when we are out and about?
One really good thing happened the other day, he slipped out of his collar (I went out and got a martingale the next day) and ran after a man and his dog who were playing in their yard – I said “WAIT” (we have been working on this on walks, he is not good at the rapid-down but is good at the rapid-stop), and he stopped in his tracks and waited for me to get to him. Whew (I was surprised but happy!)
I was reading Lee’s latest article on the Psychology Today blog (great article), and found it interesting that dogs generally respond to feminine energy. I can see how this would be true; in my dog’s case though he seems to “like” men more than women, I think it is because when he makes contact with men, they are usually more physically playful, give him a big rub-a-dub, etc., without a lot of excitement. Women are usually either tentative or speaking in high voices/excited. Maybe because Happy is a bull-in-a-china-shop adolescent right now, he feels connected to those most comfortable with that energy.
When you’re not “in training” you can feed the dog normally. But when you are trying to shift things and create efficient/coherent behavior then don’t feed-the-problem. Good job with Happy.
Thank you Kevin. We have made a lot of progress using NDT techniques, it’s amazing! Happy is sometimes rambunctious and excited but he is still tuned into me, which is key. He is showing a lot of self control around the kids. We do have a lot of room for improvement but I feel like the basics are in place. My husband is always saying what a good dog he is, haha.
So glad to hear it’s okay to feed a dog normally (using a bowl I assume). But what does ‘in training’ constitute? Or what does it look like? I just assumed NDT methods were more a day-to-day, minute-to-minute, implement as needed kind of thing.
@Heather, I feel the same way about my Colt dog since applying NDT. He can be electric and still hear me. I think I had been shutting him down unknowingly as I tried to calm in him those situations prior to NDT.
Colt’s energy and drive have come up and Bea’s has become much more grounded. She got worse for a while as Colt made his shift, but the past couple of weeks I am enjoying my dogs so much more.
So I’ve been thinking (always a dangerous thing for me to do! lol) and I was wondering if we could set up another section. This one would be for those of us who are ‘learners’ of NDT methods and theories, etc. “Learner’s” could propose a scenario and then add their assessment of said scenario, as they understand NDT. The “facilitator/moderator” (aka Kevin Behan) would offer a ‘counter-assessment’ that serves to help the ‘learner’ to “tack-into-the-wind” so to speak towards a clearer and more accurate understanding of NDT. (Hmmmm…it could even be expanded into 3 sections: 1-Beginners, 1-Intermediate and 1-Advanced learners)
Anyway, my first scenario: My mother’s Siberian/wolf hybrid does not like water…at all. She pulls back on the lead like a horse! So I think, “No muss, no fuss, just steady as you go and tug her in without any vocalization (she needed a bath badly and the lake is her tub). She paddled frantically trying to get out but I persisted long enough to get her thoroughly soaked and then I released her so she could get on the dock and proceeded to soap her up (she thoroughly enjoyed the soaping) and then rinsed and repeat. I allowed her to rest after the first rinse cycle and used a little T-touch to help calm her. I repeated the process (she was really smelly). This time, after a bit of cogitation, I decided to gather her up in my arms (her nails need clipping) and hold her close while walking around in the water.
Assessment: Sister’s reaction to water is related to the fear of falling (much the same as slippery floors), as the sensation of floating knocks her off balance. Gathering her up and holding her close restored the feeling of balance and having solid footing, having the (hopefully) effect of reducing her anxiety. Adding the T-touch after each dip in the lake did seem to have a calming affect. My concern is that I might be accommodating her fear instead of resolving it.
Your thoughts/input please, sensai!
Oh yes…and it could be titled “Learner’s Lane, Learner’s Way or some such.
I have a question/scenario and can’t think of an NDT explanation: we stayed in a hotel for the first time with Happy, and he did fine with everything, but at first would not get in the elevator (picture a horse refusing to get in a trailer). I tossed a treat in, held his collar up, and my husband brought up the rear for the first few times. By the second day Happy was running to the elevator, getting in, and pressing his body against the closed door (panicked but doing it on his own), then when it opened going out butt-first. Once he was out he was very proud of himself and looked for his treat. My question is, he would get in the elevator on his own, even run up to it and barrel in, yet remained uncomfortable inside – what was going on emotionally? From a “thinking” perspective, I’d say he was looking forward to the “reward” upon getting out.
I think it’s also possible that since you and hubby pushed him in the first few times, he knew that he’d have to anyway, so was just submitting to the inevitable. 🙂
Jaime
The elevator represents compression and an unstable ground, amplified by the pressure of others as object of attention. Nevertheless crossing the threshold between in or out, Happy chose (in his mind) to go into the elevator to relieve stress. He does feel in control of what was happening by going in, but he hasn’t fully metabolized the ground moving and being cornered and so remains stressed inside the elevator. Furthermore, being stressed and then relief from stress, no matter how this may seem illogical to our minds, is first and foremost an activation of, and then a movement of, energy. The elevator issue brings up deeper levels of stress energy in the battery that is otherwise unavailable to him in normal circumstances. And when he gets out of the elevator, the relief from compression and stress is even more intense so in Happy’s mind, going into the elevator leads to an even greater sense of relief, i.e. deep energy moving. He doesn’t experience this in normal life and so it’s actually a positive experience because there’s no such thing as negative energy. So as long as Happy feels in control of what’s happening, the ground is stable enough as manifested by him being able to take food, he perceives getting into the elevator as immutably linked to an intense relief of stress. He’s able to make these linkages not because he can think and remember in the cognitive sense, but because emotion has thermodynamic effects on physiology so that it rises and falls on a slow continuum, like the tides, and so any variables intense enough to stand out within a compression/release cycle become linked in the dog’s mind as part of the dynamic. Thus he feels pulled to the elevator because it represents more energy than he otherwise can experience, and he is stressed within the elevator because stress being converted to relief or release is where new energy comes from. Eventually the elevator will become part of a drive cycle and he will exhibit no symptoms of stress. Happy can’t compare one moment-relative-to-another-moment, but he can feel the internal disposition of his emotional battery from one moment to another moment due to emotional thermodynamics which is why we confuse the intelligence of dogs with thinking.
You’re exactly right about the balance issue and how carrying/holding/massaging her gave her a sense of her body. As with Happy and elevator relief from stress can make the matter pleasureable if this cycle can involve the hunger circuitry, which is why dogs lap at water when encountering puddle or pond for first time. They’re trying to ingest and process this foreign body. So if she takes food or plays tug/fetch at some point during the emotional cycle, then she is physically and emotionally digesting the event. If not, then risk is that fear will get stronger.
Wow, thanks Kevin, that is so interesting, and describes exactly what happened, it was just as if he was “pulled” to the elevator, and when he exited he was exuberant with the release of stress and looking right away for food. So in fact it was a positive experience, which is so odd because he would never take food in the elevator, he was a total wreck in the elevator itself. We will rarely encounter elevators, maybe once per year, I wonder if he will start over from being afraid to get in, or if he will have a physical memory from this year?
The deep energy moving did have a calming effect on him, he even played tug on the balcony right through some fireworks and didn’t seem to notice or care about the booming and bright lights.
He is maturing but still a long way to go. My son pointed out that he chews everything except his food, which he swallows whole!
What about the submitting to the inevitable, is that part of it? At first that is what it seemed like (when he had no real choice, he chose to go in vs. remain in the uncomfortable position), but after just a few times he was charging up to the elevator, linking it to the release of stress…so I guess he wasn’t so much submitting but seeking out that new level of energy moving that he has never gotten to experience before? I do imagine that in another day or so he would have become comfortable inside the elevator as well, by the second (last) day he was holding his head up and sniffing the buttons and looking around (vs holding it down toward the ground), I think those were steps toward “digesting” the event.
No, there’s no apprehension about a future inevitability; it’s about emotion/release, the battery activation, being object of attention, and feeling grounded. And yes he’s digesting what’s going on and will quickly acclimate. In fact even a year later he’ll pick up right where he left off. Keep on pushing!
So then, would the T-touch at the end of swimming increase the fear? I’ve never tried to push-for-food with Sister as she is terribly timid. She’s a great deal more confident around people now and will go up to people she doesn’t know; always circumspect in that she backs into people to make physical contact.
It’s a challenge to play fetch with her, she doesn’t seem to get it. When she has a toy she doesn’t want it taken away (no growling or snapping), she’ll just run away with or turn away from you.
Would pushing for food before a swimming lesson constitute being part of the emotional cycle or is it better to push for food after?
We’re experimenting with allowing her off-leash time when I’m around. Of course she loves the freedom but will always come to me. The hard part is getting her attention as she can’t hear when you call to her. I’ve thought about working her with a vibrating collar but it’s cost-prohibitive right now.
Because emotion has a rising and falling cycle, like the tides, you can implant a “ground” on the ascending or descending arc of the experience and it registers at that intensity level at either side of this “pyramid” since these are identical levels. So you could do T-Touch before or after and it’s being recorded at that same level of intensity. I would emphasize that since the water represents an object of resistance to the dog, that pushing for food around the pond represents the overcoming of resistance and can directly address (indirectly) her fear of the water. When she’s giving up her footing to you, she is learning to give up her footing to the pond (as well as giving up her “footing” in an old frame of reference in order to make contact with a stranger which invokes a new frame of reference.). I also want to add that a so called fearful dog that is “soft” in its nature, nevertheless becomes very “hard” in its fear and is much tougher in that regard than you might suspect.
Does that mean that it will be a difficult challenge to get her over the fear of water? It has taken a long time to get her used to people; although now she is quite the party animal and very social, in her off-set way (indirect approach).
And I also assume that the pushing should be done near the water as opposed to at the camp, which is not lake front.
Regarding the pushing, since I’ve never tried that with her, should I experiment with it in a neutral setting away from the water and without the swimming lesson? I don’t want to overwhelm her with too much at one time.
First accomplish pushing in a neutral setting away from the water, then the ultimate goal would be for her to enter the shallows to push into you. Also, if you get a strong push, the tug of war will come, and you can pitch stick into shallows and little by little the dog will get comfortable with wading out deeper and deeper.
What will slow you down is her perception that she is object of attention when a human tries to get her to do something, in this regard soft dogs are very hardened, but the reservation toward water by itself may not be too hard if she gets her Drive going. Keep us posted.
Thanks Kevin…just so’s ya know, I tell people about you and your methods at every opportunity! “You’re simply the best, better than all the rest…♪♫”
Two general questions:
If a dog has actually killed prey before, does this impact training at all?
Why do some dogs turn their heads sideways when observing something novel? This is the classic example of a dog “thinking” about something. What’s going on in NDT terms?
My girl, Diva, has actually killed a squirrel in the backyard. When I queried Kevin regarding this, his comment was that it wouldn’t have much of an impact in any negative way; it only meant that I would be a harder sell as the most exciting thing around! 🙁 Of course, with all of my puppers, there are other things out there that they consider more exciting than me. My neighbors yard, squirrels, cats, other dogs, other people, food and on and on and on ad nauseum‼ hhmmmmm….more pushing and more training must be needed, especially 1:1‼ LOL
Yes, once a dog has known what the real prey feels like, it becomes harder to replicate the intensity/frequency of that in the human in order to attract that energy. If the dog’s nature is strong enough, the transition can be made, but the softer the dog the harder it will be to shift things.
Dogs turn their heads toward novel stimuli because they are focusing the subliminal beam of attention on some site on their body that squares up with the essence within the form of the thing. They are going through the physical memories in their emotional battery to come up with a body region that feels resonant with what they are being confronted with. They are trying to find an exact ratio of the balance to hunger continuum that is an electromagnetic complement to the things’ energy. And if they can’t find this correlation then they can’t feel how to align and make contact and so they will avoid. So the form of the thing triggers physical memory and they are trying to focus energy in order to feel good. If they can’t achieve a good feeling, then the attraction collapses and an instinct or habit takes over.
Why is is that the softer the dog, the harder it is to shift things from “real” prey to “fake” prey? I would have thought it to be the opposite…is it because it would take a lot of energy “input” to attract the energy, and a soft dog would feel overwhelmed by that because humans are so predatory? Or are humans just not able to generate the amount of preyful energy to attract a soft dog no matter what they do?
I am not sure I know what constitues softness. For example, Happy does pretty much wilt when he is feeling unconfident and is the object of attention; he still has that puppy-like behavior of keeping to a rather small orbit around me, stealing stuff and bringing it to me all proud of himself; if the kids appear to be displeased with him he is very sensitive to that…but when it comes to his energy/drive, you definitely want him to put that awesome power and focus to work with/for you rather than fight against it, because once engaged (which may take some doing), his attitude is “bring it on,” and he will not back down, in fact trying to knock him out of his focus without giving the energy a more satisfying release is downright ugly. It has been tremendously hard work to attract his energy, but also rewarding because he is really developing a lot of trust in me and (mostly) using his power to work with me.
Anyway, Happy seems to be soft in some ways but quite the opposite in others, so I am sometimes unsure of the right mix of predator/prey with him.
Hard doesn’t mean insensitive, and soft doesn’t mean always flaccid. In general, the hard dogs are externalizers, the soft dogs are internalizers, but the whole code is in each individual so that there are contexts in which soft dogs act hard and hard dogs soft, but the range of circumstances wherein this happens is narrower respectively (also have to factor in the emotional development of the dog, it’s easy to collapse a young puppy that has an innate hardness, however that charge may come back to bite you when it comes out explosively one or two years later. ) according to their temperaments. Basically, a hard dog can convert a higher rate of change into drive to make contact than a soft dog and appear more courageous. By the same token a soft dog will perceive an opening and deflect its energy into a more nuanced response to a situation and appear more intelligent.
So once a soft dog has gotten its energy channeled into a real prey animal, which means that the predatory aspect of that prey animal is the catalyst to an intense expression of energy, and the preyful aspect of that animal is so purely conductive, it then constitutes negative-as-access-to-the-positive. It’s much harder for the predatory aspect of a human to evoke that same thrilling rush than the more compelling prey animal because our predatory aspect is so much more resistance value, and our preyful aspect is so much less conductive value. Whereas with the harder dog one can use stress as a catalyst and it will convert that into drive to make contact, and the release from the pressure of stress then magnifies the preyful value of the human.
Happy as a Newfy, has a very high threshold so it will take a lot to get him going and a lot to stop his momentum. And as a puppy he’s very floppy so for now he’s easy to collapse, but he will tend toward the hard side as he matures since you have reported instances of “stubborness” I believe rather than personality when he gets stuck. The trick is to maximize his softness for every area, but one, the charge you want him to exhibit, then the “whole-heart” is being developed and he will have the right mood available for whatever context he finds himself in.
Thank you, Kevin, for the explanation, I understand the meaning of hard/soft dogs now.
It is true that Happy might be part donkey. I am getting the hang of letting him feel in control though, while really only offering one choice. One thing that helped immensely was not moving at all when he strains at the leash (your instruction to “stop following him around.”) Instead of always wanting to go one more inch here or there, the leash is now more like a rubber band, he boings back to me rather quickly as soon as he feels the tightness (and I make it a point to ignore him, so there is no pressure/struggle – he hustles back to me and makes contact by brushing against me or snuffling my hand). That has been helpful in a whole bunch of ways too numerous to list.
I really love Happy, he is the best dog…but I have to say that I am usually drawn to needy dogs with a lot of personality, and he is not at all like that.
Had a good session with Sister yesterday with her 1st introduction to pushing. Even though my mom had fed her in the morning I did get some good pushing for food from her in the afternoon!♥ My brother took a few vid clips of the process so I’ll post to my YouTube so you all can take a peek. She’s not in the water yet but she was wading into it and lapping at it, all good signs I hope. ☺
Thanks very much for putting up this section. I want to make sure I’m on the right track. I have been working on Bootsy’s push-of-war and “carry toy” on walks because I thought that these to aspects when mastered would have the greatest effect on accessing and resolving the deepest layers of her battery. Your discussion with Ben about ping-pong that simulates dogs playing was very helpful as well as the discussion that rough-play can access deep layers as well.
My question is: Do handlers have to push/tug in the presence of triggers to resolve the “bad” behavior or can just developing intense drive towards handler through push-of-war w/speaking and channeling into obedience behaviors accomplish the same thing. If all “bad” behavior comes from ungrounded energy, can’t handlers trigger it and then ground it without the dog ever seeing another squirrel/dog until his training is complete?
Are the various techniques for accessing and resolving the battery (fasting/roughplay/pushing) just intermediaries to push-of-war as the end-all be-all? Thanks!
When a dog is raised holistically, without undue over-stimulation or trauma beyond the pale, then pushing for food and push of war is the end-all-be-all. But when dealing with “problem” behavior, it-can-only-get-out-the-way-it-went-in, so that for example if a dog is hit with a hand, then the trainer’s hand must attract the energy that is stuck behind that impasse, to this end I’ll grab a dog by the muzzle or use my hand as if I’m a dog biting it and the dog will experience an urge to bite my hand. By this point however I’ve created a foundation of pushing and playing so for the most part I’m safe, and the dog goes to bite me but it’s easy to catch it in mid strike and praise it and then soften it into a rub a dub. So my aim is to penetrate into the battery, and release the earliest physical memories and then calm these down. But to do so, I have to be the trigger by acting “negatively.” So just doing the pushing and the push/war doesn’t resolve it if it doesn’t trigger the deepest layers. And generally these deepest layers are between the dog and a human as opposed to other dogs or squirrels etc., because it would have encountered these later. Hope this clarifies.
“But when dealing with “problem” behavior, it-can-only-get-out-the-way-it-went-in, so that for example if a dog is hit with a hand, then the trainer’s hand must attract the energy that is stuck behind that impasse, to this end I’ll grab a dog by the muzzle or use my hand as if I’m a dog biting it and the dog will experience an urge to bite my hand. By this point however I’ve created a foundation of pushing and playing so for the most part I’m safe, and the dog goes to bite me but it’s easy to catch it in mid strike and praise it and then soften it into a rub a dub. So my aim is to penetrate into the battery, and release the earliest physical memories and then calm these down”
This answered my question/curiosity about the rough playing. I have not hit Happy, I don’t think he’s ever been hit by anyone, but I think the restraint (eg via hands) to stop puppy biting, which was sometimes done in anger/frustration, was much the same thing. Also the trainer was just not a good fit, but it took awhile to see that.
Anyway, lately I just have not been able to shake the feeling that I need to trigger the behavior, I guess that is why. Also Happy seems to be itching to get it out. I trust that he’s not going to really hurt me, he can still feel me even when quite worked up, but I am not sure I understand the mechanics.
Earlier you said that after riling the dog up, it would be important for him to bite the bite object or to push, so he didn’t have to hold back the bite…would the softening, calming effect of the rub-a-dub be in addition to or instead of the biting, and also what if one has an enormous dog that isn’t easy to catch in mid-strike, and the dog pushing forward does get hold of an arm or clothing, does that create another set of problems? Assuming I could just ignore that, what to do instead, praise and rub/soften, and/or get a good push?
Is there any danger that a dog would see biting with the hand and muzzle grabbing as a fantastic new game? Happy likes rough play an awful lot, and he never did seem to realize that we didn’t like the puppy biting, he just outgrew it.
I don’t think Happy is stuck in that way, he hasn’t experienced trauma, but when we grab dogs to collar them and normal stuff of catch him before the pup gets out the door, there’s a charge that remains attached to that. In general this stuff will come up in the course of the rigors of normal obedience requirements, so I think you can access a lot of this denied energy through the down/stay training. If he tends to spill over into inappropriate rough play, then he will not be grounded enough to stay down for a long time (when something is going on) and this kind of conflict will trigger deeper layers in the battery. This is how I would approach the matter with him.
Thank you very much! You are exactly right, his issue invariably crops up as inappropriate rough play, and preceding that he doesn’t have much (any) control to do the down-stays outside. We work on that per your previous advice a few months ago, where the down-stay, everything the kids do, leads eventually to playing with the chicken. Also my son plays hide and seek, this really helps the group mood between the two of them, and Happy can run after him but not actually chase him or be overexcited when he finds him. So between my son and Happy, things are quite good. My daughter is fearful, she may never want to “play” with a dog, she just wants quiet, calm companionship, so for now I put him away if she is out playing. These things have helped a lot to help him not be charged up by what the kids are doing. We have not gotten so far as “kids running and screaming” though, or “kids playing with water.” These things are still too much for him, and he gets too rough, like he would play with another dog. We are staying with family for a few weeks, and there are MORE kids, and toddlers too, so that I think has resulted in what I am seeing as him itching to settle that ungrounded feeling by wanting to play rough with me. He is super attracted to the kids, he loves their touch and really works so hard to be still when they want to pet him, but outside he just can’t contain himself.
It would be very easy for Happy to learn to be calm around children and it’s easy for a dog to discern between the emotional values of “OPEN” child likes to play rough, i.e. open to energy I’ve projected into him, versus “CLOSED” child uncomfortable with energy I’ve projected into her. But when he’s overly stimulated then instincts invariably run the show (Big-Brain balance) and dog can’t feel whether child as emotional logic gate is open or closed. However, you must give the dog a physical problem it can solve, rather than a psychological problem (comparing one point-of-view or moment to another as in “If you do this then I do that.”) it cannot solve. By this I mean objectify the problem. Put Happy on a big box, even a picnic table and just like the dog at the vet in my video, the question is staying on the box and mastering the mechanics of balance in order to neutralize the Big-Brain overemphasis on output having to equal input. In other words, the hyper activity of the children becomes integrated into how Happy masters staying on the box. Then after he does well for a number of minutes, he can be let off the box and get to bite the rubber ducky and then carry it around (while being lunged on long/lead ala a horse) as the kids continue with their games. (If he won’t bite duck, then push for food) Then back on the box to repeat the down/stay. So you’re going to neutralize the balance mandate (output has to equal input) by the dog fighting to stay on the table. Because he gets to fight to stay on the table, an underlying panic is neutralized and so he feels calm on the table and he associates kids playing crazy with feeling calm. I also think your husband should do this training because the dog is so big.
Yes we can do this! I know it seems like probably a small issue for me to have not gotten through yet, but for me it is the ultimate goal that has proven elusive.
I love that my husband nees to do the training. I think if I show him the vet video, and explain a little, he will do great. Also he needs to resolve this issue he has with keeping the kids safe, which in the past has meant being too stern with Happy, in other words this will also give my husband an objective, physical problem to solve vs. a psychological one. He has really embraced the tug-of-war work, but for him to be instrumental in calming Happy around the kids would be the best, maybe he could let go of his fear too. Also husband is better leash holder.
Updates with Nelly. I’ve been taking Nelly to a dog park with a nature trail around it with lots of squirrels (we stay outside the dog park). Initially I noticed that if she was on the hunt for squirrels– dogs were of little consequence to her. This makes sense to me as squirrels are going to be of less resistance then a dog as they are much more prey like. They are much smaller though, and from what I remember this also corresponds with them not having as much “emotional mass” as a larger animal (like a dog). I guess in this case a squirrel’s wave pattern is more than enough to make up the difference?
The problem I was having was that she wouldn’t push for food in front of dogs or squirrels, and would have panic attacks trying to get after them. After going through the exercise you recommended several times (letting her chase and then running her away repeatedly), I fasted her for a day and tried again. She did it! She pushed very strongly in front of leashed dogs on walks (at a distance) and dogs behind the fence at the dog park. When we encounter a dog now she is beginning to look at me for an answer instead of panicking, and that is really exciting.
Squirrels turned out to be a bigger challenge as expected. After several days of normal meals, I fasted her again for 2 days (intermittently trying to get her to push) before she was able to push in front of them. She is still hesitant, but is beginning to “get it” like she did with dogs. It’s still too early to say we’re on a roll, but it is damn encouraging to see the progress.
My question is– what’s next? If/when she gets to the point where she can reliably push for food in the presence of dogs and squirrels, what’s my next step? Keep in mind, she is pushing strongly, but she’s still *very* on edge. Pushing does have a calming effect, but as soon as a new trigger comes along, she’s back into it (and the cycle repeats itself). How can I start getting her to relax in these situations? Our ultimate goal of course is to have her be relaxed enough to pass by dogs and squirrels calmly and happily.
Secondly– I noticed something that’s had me stumped. While her reactivity outdoors has decreased, reactivity inside the house and in the car has proportionally increased. Her panics have intensified.. especially in the car. She will slam her body against the car door, barking and clawing frantically at a passing dog. The only thing I’ve changed in these circumstances is that I’m now telling her “good girl!” in a soothing tone when these “attacks” occur, whereas before I was either ignoring her or telling her to knock it off. Any ideas on why this has gotten worse?
“The Charge” has its own consciousness, it wants to come out and as a dog heals in one aspect, the Charge seeks the way out in another area. So you should really fast her and get her focused on food while riding in the car, then she also has to learn the down, which will be applied later once you create an energy circuit between you and her in the car. To create the energy circuit, take her to a parking lot and have a friend with a dog, and so it’s safe for you to drive around, and when she sees a dog she turns to you and then has to gnaw your hand open to get to the food as a form of resistance. Typically these secondary areas are easier to heal than the first because you are establishing precedence. Concentrate on this area and back off of squirrel work. Then we’ll talk about the panic DOWN.
Should I push with her inside the house? Ever since improving outside, she’s been increasingly sitting in front of the living room windows waiting for something to explode at. If no pushing inside, what’s a good way to resolve the issue indoors?
A quick question about the platform – does Happy need to get onto it by himself, or can I give him an intermediate step up then remove it? I am using the grooming table as his platform, because it is the right height (about 22 inches), and light enough to move around. Not much room to maneuver his body, but he can do the sit and lie down and getting up. He is reluctant to climb up on his own, though if I pull up a lawn chair he will hop right up with that intermediate (12 inch) step.
Also an update on elevators and getting into the car – we hit traffic and unexpectedly stayed over at a place with an elevator on the way home from vacation. Happy acted like he had been riding elevators his whole life, haha! He waited nicely by the door, got in and took food, got out when the door opened, relaxed as could be about the whole thing. Re: getting into the car, Happy goes into the car on his own no matter where we’re at now. Occassionally after a walk he will want to cool off next to the car for a few minutes before getting in, so rather than make him the object of attraction by asking him to get in, I tell him he’s a good boy and get down to work brushing him…if he sees me fiddling with the nail trimmers and/or the ear wash bottle, he’s all of a sudden ready to go and runs right up the steps.
Finally, a compliment from my husband – we were walking with Happy off leash and two super-excited golden retrievers appeared around a bend, way ahead of their owners. Happy sniffed and ran around with them a bit, then I whistled for him and he heeled right next to me and we walked on, and played a little with his toy (the retrievers were still playing and running around trees, darting into bushes, etc.). My husband couldn’t believe I didn’t even call him and he just ran right back to us. The best part is that it never even occurred to me that he wouldn’t stick with us, the other dogs were a fun diversion but the walk together was the main attraction for our little group.
Matter of factly washing an ear when he balks at getting in the car (instead of bribing or commanding him, which never works) is actually a quick and easy way to ensure that both of his ears get cleaned once a week or so. I hope it’s in keeping with NDT and I’ve not created a different problem…