[Ntrails]

> There may be long-term behavioral problems..

I know this is right - but I feel obliged to point out that this is true with a new puppy too.

Training dogs properly is work, and inconsistent or incomplete training only gets harder and harder to fix. Plenty of dogs in shelters are there because owners could not rectify their own mistakes. Not from malice, or lack of caring. Simple unknowing incompetence.

Don't be too quick to judge those who give dogs up

[raffraffraff]

I've rescued several greyhounds from the racing industry. One time, after our old greyhound "Pasha" died, we decided to take on a challenge: a greyhound who was rehomed several times, and even abandoned by a shelter (run by a bleeding heart who had no idea how to handle dogs). Lily was a crazy black greyhound who hated all dogs and was afraid of most people. Her name wasn't Lily - she was 6 years old and didn't have a name that she responded to. For the next 2 months we basically had these rules:

* Always have treats in your pocket

* Avoid triggers (dogs) but whenever Lily sees one at a distance, give her a treat

* If she acts aggressively, don't yank the leash or shout, put a treat at her nose and call her name

That's it, in a nutshell. It works for basically any behavioural problem in any dog. (Of course, the breed will have its own personality type - they all do). 6 months later Lily would go nose-to-nose with a rabid chihuahua and remain calm. She was one of the best dogs I've ever had. Still miss the old thing.

She died last year, and we rescued 2 greyhounds (brother/sister). Dorrie is fine but Merlin was, for reasons unknown, afraid of certain types of street light. Which is a massive pain in the ass of you live in a city. We followed the exact same rules, and within a few weeks he was ignoring them. (Still gets spooked at random stuff, like the moon, or light reflected from a kitchen knife onto the ceiling)

[dgb23]

We have a new dog since a month (podenco mix) that had about 5 previous owners and is 4-5 years old. Lovely but very rough edges. Even a few scars on his nose and head so our guess is that he was at least in one tough fight.

Similarly he has problems with other dogs (not with our other podenco, who he loves). He is insecure, stares, starts to go full aggro if they stare back etc. We try to be as careful and consequent as we can. The good thing is he is a very fast learner, not as stubborn.

We give him praise and treats typically after he did well on an encounter (which we keep at fair distance as well). It wouldn't occur to me to give it to him beforehand.

Your method seems simple and I get why it would work, but it's counterintuitive. Can you elaborate? It is something that worked specifically for her for some reason? Or do you think the simple conditioning thing just works. My intuition would be that he has to show the desired behavior and then gets praise/treats. What do you think?

[bo1024]

Not the person you asked but I’d guess it has to do with managing the emotions or anxiety that lead to the bad behavior. The way I think of it is I don’t want to teach the dog to overcome negative emotions, I want to help them not have negative emotions in the first place. If possible.

[raffraffraff]

This, exactly. I think that the idea is to teach to dog how to interrupt the negative emotion with something positive. It gets to the point where they interrupt it themselves without your intervention. With Lily, it got to the point where she'd see a small dog or a cat, and she'd look straight up at me (good girl!)

To begin with, practice randomly when there is no trigger. Have a sneaky treat ready and say the dog's name. If it's difficult to begin with (because they don't know their name), try putting the treats into a small plastic container and shaking it, or taking the plastic packaging of their treats. They learn to respond to that noise very quickly. Words are more complex, but if you say their name when you make the noise they'll start responding to that too. Always carry accessible treats.

5 months since we adopted untrained (pretty wild) greyhounds, I can get either of them to sprint to me by calling their name, sit, high-five, lie down... no matter what's going on around them. That response makes it easier to discourage cat-chasing and to reduce their prey drive.

[munificent]

I think you're approaching it from an operant conditioning model where the treat must come after as a consequence of good behavior. But what they describe sounds like reciprocal inhibition:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Desensitization_(psychology)#R...

The idea is that you can't feel opposing emotions simultaneously. So if you can make the dog feel relaxed (by giving a treat beforehand), it interferes with their ability to feel anxiety.

They aren't earning the treat for choosing not the be anxious. The positive emotional feeling from the treat prevents the anxiety from occurring.

[raffraffraff]

This is also an excellent explanation

[raffraffraff]

With Lily we didn't take the risk of bad behaviour during an encounter. We would just ply her with treats and tell her she was a good girl as we walked by a small yappy dog. I think she started associating those encounters with positive emotions.

[dgb23]

Thank you! I'm not very experienced with dogs (my partner is) and I'm still too much in my head instead of with the dog. I think I might be trying a bit too hard (or rather too often) to train him instead of just managing situations in a nice way if that makes sense.

[munificent]

I'm not saying this to judge the dogs' original owners. In many cases, the dog was feral and there is no original owner.

The important point is that dogs go through developmental milestones just like people and when you get a dog that has already finished its puppyhood, you have lost the opportunity to be present during those milestones and train the dog. Dogs can learn as adults, of course, but correcting bad behaviors is a lot harder. When you get a younger dog (shelter or not), they are more plastic and easier to train.

Yes, of course, it's on you to actually do that training well, but at least you have the chance. When you buy an adult dog, which is what most shelter dogs are, you're kind of stuck with what you get.

[hbn]

Right, but when you don't know the dog's breed (i.e. it's 17 types of cross-breeds) nor its history (if it's gonna have PTSD from being abused or fighting for its life in the streets), it's a much safer bet to get a purebred or simple/common cross of 2 breeds where you can Google the general behaviours of those types of dogs, and you know its entire history of life up to that point: being born, then laying around with its siblings and mom

[cgriswald]

You really want a common cross that has been breed from that same cross for generations. Otherwise what you get is an unpredictable grab bag of behaviors from the original breeds.