April 1, 2025 • 31 mins
Certified canine behaviorist Will Bangura shares a powerful force-free approach to help dogs with reactivity or aggression without using corrections or punishment.
• Understanding that reactive behavior stems from anxiety, stress, and fear
• Why corrections and punishment only suppress behavior without changing emotional states
• The "Look at That" (LAT) training protocol developed by Leslie McDevitt
• How to properly condition a marker for precise timing and communication
• Working at the right distance where your dog notices triggers but remains calm
• The critical importance of working "below threshold" where your dog isn't stressed
• How counter-conditioning changes your dog's emotional response to triggers
• Why progress requires patience, consistency and temporarily managing your dog's environment
• Setting realistic expectations for a process that may take weeks or months
• Gradually decreasing distance to triggers as your dog builds positive associations
Visit my website for the detailed Training Guide on How to Train out Reactivity and Aggression with (LAT) Look at That Dog Training
If you love what we do, please give us a five-star review, share this episode with friends who have reactive dogs, and subscribe so you never miss an episode of Dog Training Today.
If you need professional help please visit my Dog Behaviorist website.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Do you have a dog that's reactive, or maybe even
more so, your dog's aggressive,you know, do you ever go on
walks and your dog sees anotherdog or sees another person and
starts flipping out on the leash?
Or maybe somebody is passing byyour house and your dog is
looking out the front window,absolutely flipping out.
(00:23):
Looking out the front window,absolutely flipping out.
Or how about do you have a dogthat when it's in the car and
anybody goes by, it freaks out?
Maybe when you're walking andyour dog sees a bicycle or a
skateboard or a scooter go by,it starts barking and lunging
and absolutely losing it.
(00:43):
Well, we're going to talk allabout how to fix that in 60
seconds.
Don't go anywhere.
Speaker 2 (00:53):
Raised by wolves with canine DNA in his blood.
Having trained more than 24,000pets, helping you and your fur
babies thrive, live in studiowith Will Bangura answering your
pet behavior and trainingquestions.
Ladies and gentlemen, pleasewelcome your host and favorite
pet behavior expert, willBangura.
Speaker 1 (01:18):
Would you like to go on?
Are y'all ready for this?
Good day?
Dog lovers, hey, thanks forjoining me for another episode
of Dog Training Today.
I'm your host, will Bangora, acertified canine behaviorist and
(01:40):
certified behavior consultant.
Certified trainer, force-freecertified yes, I've got all
kinds of alphabet letters aftermy name, but that was not always
the case.
I was a balanced trainer.
I used to use aversives, prongcollars, choke collars,
electronic collars, but noweverything that I do is positive
(02:02):
reinforcement.
And one of the biggest areasthat a lot of pet parents and
even a lot of trainers thinkthat they have to use correction
, they have to use punishment,is when a dog is reactive or
aggressive, and that'scompletely opposite of what we
(02:22):
want to do, opposite of what wewant to do.
Most dogs, if they are reactive, most dogs if they're
aggressive, it's because they'vegot anxiety.
They are stressed out about aparticular trigger.
Maybe they're fearful of otherdogs or other people.
(02:42):
But maybe you've got a dog as Iwas saying in the opener that
is highly reactive to thingsthat zip by really fast, like
kids on skateboards or scootersor bicycles or joggers.
Maybe your dog gets a littlebit possessive, a little bit
territorial when anybody walksby the property.
(03:05):
Maybe your dog's outsidebarking at everybody through the
fence, Maybe your dog's in thehouse looking out the window or
the door and doing that on adaily basis.
Well, those things not only arestressful for your dog, but
it's frustrating for us petparents, isn't it?
Well, today I'm going to talkabout how we can deal with
(03:30):
reactivity, and it doesn'tmatter what your dog is reactive
to it could even be a sound,but typically the technique that
I'm going to be talking aboutis done with visual triggers.
And what I want to talk abouttoday have you heard about look
(03:51):
at that dog training?
Yeah, look at that.
Or some people just abbreviateit L-A-T, lat.
Well, look at that.
Dog training, or LAT, wasdeveloped by Leslie McDevitt,
and if you want to really learna lot about how to help reactive
(04:14):
dogs, how to help dogs that arereactive and aggressive, that
goes through in depth, in detail, step-by-step instructions.
There's three videos.
One of the videos 45 minuteslong.
(04:34):
The other two are pretty short.
They're about five minutes longeach, but you can find that at
phoenixdogtrainingcom.
Go to my blog atphoenixdogtrainingcom.
Look for the article on Look atthat Dog Training.
Look for that training guide.
I'll go ahead and I'll put thelink in the comments, the
(04:57):
description for this podcast,but before I get into how we
actually use Look at that DogTraining to help reactive dogs,
can you do me a huge favor?
You know, one of the thingsthat always surprises me is that
the vast majority of peoplethat listen to this podcast on a
(05:18):
regular basis have notsubscribed.
Please subscribe so that younever miss an episode of Dog
Training Today.
And also, if you love what wedo, if you like the information
here, please hit that pausebutton, take a second, give us a
review.
The reviews are how thispodcast will rank higher, how
(05:43):
more people then get thisinformation to be able to help
dogs that are struggling andsuffering with reactivity and
aggression.
All right, let me get into themeat of today's podcast Now.
There's a couple things that weneed to do to get ready to
utilize this protocol for dogsthat are reactive and aggressive
(06:05):
.
The first thing that we need todo is we need to have a really,
really powerful, positivereinforcer and in most cases,
this is going to be very, veryhighly palatable food rewards
like little tiny cut up piecesof chicken, little tiny cut up
(06:27):
pieces of hot dog or cheese.
What you want to do is you wantto find what your dog
absolutely loves the most, andwe want a bunch of those, but
they need to be small, about thesize of a pea.
You're going to want a treatpouch also.
Now, once you've got your highvalue food rewards, once you've
(06:49):
got your treat pouch, thequestion then becomes do you
have a marker?
Do you use markers in yourtraining?
Now, for some of you, you don'tknow what a marker is.
Now, for some of you, you don'tknow what a marker is, and some
(07:20):
of you have heard about, maybe,clicker training.
Well, a clicker is just onekind of a marker.
Right, instead of that clicksound, we could use a verbal
marker.
And let's say that we use theword nice.
Right, nice doesn't meananything to the dog.
I say nice.
Well, the dog doesn'tunderstand what that word is.
It has no value, it's neutral,just like the sound of that
(07:43):
clicker.
But what we want to do, becausetiming is so critical in
training dogs, we want to pairand associate our high-value
food rewards, our positivereinforcer, with a marker like
the word nice or with the soundof a clicker, and what that does
(08:05):
once the food has beenconditioned to the marker,
whether it's the word nice,whether it's a thumbs up right A
visual marker If you've got adeaf dog, or whether you're
using a clicker right A visualmarker If you've got a deaf dog,
or whether you're using aclicker.
What a marker does, once it'spaired and conditioned with food
, over and over it is a signalto the dog.
(08:33):
When you say nice, when youclick the clicker and again,
anything can be a marker, butyou just have one for this
particular exercise.
But it's a positive, reinforcermarker, it's a bridge to the
food and what it does is itsignals to the dog immediately
that you're getting a foodreward, because it might take us
(08:54):
a couple seconds to get thefood out of the treat pouch and
actually get it in the dog'smouth.
You know a lot of people aretraining with food but the dog
has very little understandingthat the food is related to any
(09:15):
particular behavior or the foodis related to any kind of
emotional response.
And that's because of timing,of timing, you literally have
about one to two seconds max toget the food in the dog's mouth
for them to connect the dotswhen you're trying to pair that
with a behavior you might likeor an emotional state where the
dog's more confident and lessfearful.
And communication is absolutelykey, and the better our timing
(09:39):
is, the better our communicationis with the dog.
So how do you create a marker?
Well, you're going to wantabout 30 tiny little pieces of
this high-value food reward.
Now, whether I'm using the wordnice or whether I'm using a
clicker, the process is going tobe the same.
I'm going to click, give thedog a treat, wait for the dog to
(10:01):
finish that food reward, clickagain, give another treat.
Click again, give another treat.
Click again, give another treat.
I'm going to do that about 30times in a row.
Click treat, click treat, clicktreat, click treat, click treat
, click treat.
Or, if I'm using a verbalmarker, nice treat, nice treat,
(10:25):
nice treat.
You get the idea we're going torepeat that over and over 30
times in a row and we're goingto do that for about three days.
Now, on day four, after you'vegone through three days, of what
we call marker conditioning,associating and pairing the
(10:46):
sound of the clicker to the foodor the sound of your verbal
marker to the food or yourthumbs up visual signal to the
food.
If you've got a deaf dog, onceyou've done that conditioning,
we need to know does it signalthe dog when it hears the marker
, whether it's the click or theverbal marker, nice.
(11:08):
Does it signal to the dog thatit's getting a high value food
reward that it absolutely loves?
We need to know.
Did it work?
And the way that we do that onday four, when you're just
hanging out with your dog, yourdog's not doing anything.
It's got to be awake, notasleep, and your dog's got to be
close enough to you that it'sgoing to hear either a click on
(11:31):
the clicker or your verbalmarker Nice.
I'm just using that as anexample.
But what you want to do on dayfour, when your dog's not
expecting it, you want to clickthe clicker or you want to say
nice, or use whatever markeryou're using.
Now what you're looking for?
Does your dog come running toyou looking for the food reward?
(11:53):
If your dog does, you know thatyou've been successful in
conditioning your reward marker.
If your dog doesn't comerunning to you and it could hear
the click or it could hear yourverbal marker, if you're using
a word but it doesn't come toyou, well, you haven't done
(12:15):
enough conditioning or yourtiming of conditioning was poor.
When you click, you've got togive the treat right away.
The sequence is important,though.
Click, then grab the food, giveit to the dog.
Don't have food in your hand.
Don't start reaching for thefood.
Don't start putting food inyour dog's mouth before you
(12:35):
click it's.
Click, grab the food quickly,get it in the dog's mouth.
Click, grab the food quickly,get it in the dog's mouth before
you click it's.
Click, grab the food quickly,get it in the dog's mouth.
Click, grab the food quickly,get it in the dog's mouth 30
times in a row.
Day four you're going to test itNow.
If your dog comes running toyou on day four when it hears
its marker, now you're ready tostart doing the.
(12:55):
Look at that.
Or LAT dog training for dogsthat are reactive and aggressive
.
Okay, all right.
Now what we want to do is weare going to have a controlled
setup for a training session.
Okay, you have to know whatyour dog's triggers are, and we
(13:15):
want to work one trigger.
We don't want to do what'scalled trigger stacking.
Don't put your dog in asituation where there's four or
five or three or even two thingsthat your dog is nervous or
fearful or reactive oraggressive towards One thing.
So, as an example, let's saythat you have a dog that is
(13:35):
reactive to other dogs, have adog that is reactive to other
dogs?
Well, anybody that has areactive dog will tell you
there's a distance that your dogcan be far enough away.
Where your dog notices anotherdog but really doesn't care.
There's no reactivity, yourdog's not stressed, your dog can
(13:57):
focus on you, listen to you,your dog will take a food reward
.
But then there's a distancewhen you get too close where
your dog won't take food, whereyour dog won't listen to you,
where your dog can't focus.
And if you keep getting closer,your dog's going to get more
and more stressed out and thenyour dog has a meltdown and
(14:17):
becomes reactive on the leashright.
When we're doing this training,let's say I'm using that example
, I've got a dog that isreactive towards other dogs.
I'm going to have a helper withthe dog.
Help me.
If I can't find a helper, thenI might use a very realistic
looking fake dog, a stuffed dog.
(14:39):
Always better if I can have ahelper and have a real dog.
But you can do the work withfake dogs, with stuffed dogs.
Same thing if your dog triggerson people, if you can't find a
human helper, you can use amannequin for a while, because
what we want to do is we want tofind the distance.
We want to find the distancewhere we're far enough away from
(15:01):
the trigger, where your dognotices it but really doesn't
have a care in the world.
If your dog is stressed out,you are too close.
You can't do the work.
When your dog is stressed out,when they're reactive, when
they're stressing out, they'renot in a place where they can
learn, they're in fight orflight and their memory and
(15:23):
learning is going to becompromised.
Find the distance, the safedistance, and this is the
process.
I'm just going to break it downin its simplest form.
If you want more details, likeI said, go to my website at
phoenixdogtrainingcom it's oneof them and go to my blog.
(15:43):
Find the article on Look atthat Dog Training, where it's a
very it's more of a trainingguide than an article and
there's several videos there aswell.
But, in a nutshell, what wewant to do is have our dog at a
safe distance where it reallyisn't stressed out, isn't going
to care about the trigger.
Whether it's a dog trigger,whether it's a person trigger,
(16:06):
whether it's a kid on a bike ora skateboard, doesn't matter.
We set that up, we'recontrolling the situation with a
helper.
We know when that trigger isgoing to come into view.
Now what I like to do with myhelpers is talk to them on
speakerphone and I'll say okay,we are ready, I've got my treats
(16:29):
, I got my treat pouch.
My dog, it's got its harness on, I got the leash, we're at a
safe distance.
And when I say we're ready now,my helper comes out with the
dog, but at that safe distance.
And when I say we're ready now,my helper comes out with the
dog, but at that safe distance.
And the dog is going to noticethe strange dog.
And as soon as your dog noticesor even begins to look in that
(16:53):
direction, you're going to clickyour clicker.
Now, if you've done a good jobconditioning your dog with the
food, if your dog loves the foodand you found something really
palatable, because you're atthat safe distance, as soon as
your dog hears that click, or ifyou're using a verbal marker
like nice, your dog's going toturn away from the dog.
(17:13):
It was just looking at and lookto you for the food.
Sounds really simple, doesn'tit?
Almost too simple.
Trust me, this is magic.
It really works.
Your dog looks at the dog.
The trigger click the clicker.
Your dog looks back to you.
Give the food reward.
Your dog looks again back atthe trigger.
(17:35):
Click the clicker, give a foodreward.
You're going to do that overand over and over.
I like to do it for severaldays to a week, right.
And when I'm doing thesetraining sessions I'm doing it
for about five to seven minutes.
They're short but I'll have thetrigger move out of view.
(17:55):
And when there's no trigger,there's no clicking, there's no
food rewards.
But all of a sudden the triggercomes into view.
As soon as the dog looks at it,I click or I say nice, give my
verbal marker, whatever kind ofmarker I'm using, but just make
sure you're consistent with onemarker for this.
In this case I'm going to usethe clicker.
(18:15):
The dog looks at the trigger,click, dog looks back to me.
A reward.
Rinse and repeat over and overand over.
What I'm doing is I'mconditioning a response in the
dog, number one that it startsto learn and it becomes a habit,
it becomes predictable.
(18:36):
The dog learns.
When I look at another dog, I'mgoing to get a food reward.
I'm going to get the click andI'm going to get the food reward
.
I'm going to hear my marker andI'm going to get my food reward
.
This is a pattern that I amtraining into the dog.
I want the dog to have thatexpectation no-transcript.
(19:04):
And I'm going to change theprocess just slightly after I've
conditioned that.
So here I am week two, and itmight be three weeks, I don't
know.
But I go back to this situationwhere I've got another staged
controlled training session.
I've got a helper, the helper'sout of view.
I say we're ready.
(19:27):
Helper comes into view with thedog at a safe distance.
The dog looks at the trigger,but this time I don't click.
And when you don't click andthe dog had the expectation hey,
when I look at this other dog,I'm going to get a click and a
(19:48):
food reward.
Well, when that doesn't happenand your dog is used to that
happening, your dog looks at theother dog.
There's no click.
Pretty soon your dog's going tolook back at you like, hey,
where's my click, where's myfood?
That's exactly what I want tohappen, because now the way I'm
(20:10):
going to do it is when the doglooks at the trigger, I'm
waiting for the dog to look backto me, and now that's when I'm
going to click my clicker,that's when I'm going to signal
to the dog that it gets a foodreward.
So now I've changed things up alittle bit where the criteria
is you look at the dog, you lookback at me, then you hear your
(20:33):
marker and you get your foodreward.
So there's a couple of thingsthat are happening.
I'm giving the dog somethingvery specific to do when it sees
a trigger, and that's look backto me.
I reward that behavior, I clickmy clicker, I give the dog the
food reward.
I do that over and over andover again.
(20:53):
These sessions are short.
They're about five to sevenminutes.
I have this happening five,four, six times a week.
Yeah, it's okay to take one ortwo days off a week if you need
to, but you've got to do this atleast four times a week for it
(21:16):
to be effective.
Okay, now, in addition toteaching the dog a different
behavior than lunging andfreaking out when it sees a
trigger, we're teaching the dogto hey, you see a trigger, look
(21:37):
back to me and good thingshappen.
But we're using principles ofcounter conditioning.
Counter conditioning is just afancy phrase for pairing
something positive with atrigger that the dog didn't like
to change the dog's perceptionassociation and change the dog's
underlying emotional state fromone of oh, that used to be
scary, now I can't wait to seethe strange dog because I get
(22:00):
high value food rewards.
Now, if you're doing this tooclose to the trigger and your
dog is stressed out, this is notgoing to work.
And this is a process.
This can take weeks, it cantake a month, it could take two
months, but gradually,systematically, as your dog
(22:22):
begins to have positiveexperiences.
It sees the trigger, it looksback to you, we click, we give
it a food reward.
But when the trigger is gone,there's no clicking, there's no
food reward.
But up here comes the triggerDog looks, dog looks back at me.
I click, I reward.
What we're doing is we'rechanging the dog's underlying
(22:45):
emotional state.
The dog was stressed out,fearful, reactive, aggressive.
But if we're too close, we'regoing to get that same behavior
and here's what everybody'sdoing wrong.
You think the way that you'regoing to deal with this is your
dog gets reactive and aggressive.
You're going to correct yourdog and listen.
(23:06):
Correction is just a nice wordfor punishment aggressive.
You're going to correct yourdog and listen.
Correction's just a nice wordfor punishment.
If you're yanking on the leashor yelling at your dog, no, all
that's doing is suppressing thatoutward behavior.
Now your dog might stop beingreactive for a short while, but
you've done nothing to changeyour dog's underlying emotional
state.
(23:26):
Your dog still views thattrigger as something scary that
it feels like it's got to gointo fight or flight.
It's trying to communicate hey,back off.
If that's happening, you aretoo close too soon.
You always want to work at asafe distance where your dog
doesn't have a care in the world.
We call that working belowthreshold doesn't have a care in
(23:51):
the world.
We call that working belowthreshold.
If your dog is nervous, if yourdog is anxious, if your dog is
not completely relaxed in itsbody language, if your dog won't
respond to cues and commands,if your dog won't focus on you
and listen to you, if your dogwon't take food rewards, you are
too close.
You need to back up foodrewards.
(24:12):
You are too close.
You need to back up.
Get to a distance where you cando this work, spend a couple
days, spend a week, spend acouple weeks at that distance.
What you're doing is you'recreating this new positive
association with the trigger.
And once you've got it at thatdistance and it's solidified and
it's conditioned andconditioning means repetition
(24:33):
over and over and over then trymoving five feet closer.
If your dog stays relaxed, ifyour dog can listen to you, if
your dog can respond to cues andcommands, if your dog will take
food, great, you've gotten alittle bit closer.
But you haven't gone over athreshold.
Because if you go over athreshold, well, you might be
(24:56):
able to recover that trainingsession, but a lot of times,
well, you've got to call it theend of the session until the
next one.
We don't want your dog.
The whole goal is for your dognot to be reactive and it's not
about correcting outwardbehavior.
It's about changing theassociation and the underlying
emotional response your dog has.
(25:17):
Because, listen, once your dogdoesn't have anxiety, stress and
fear towards triggers, onceyour dog views those triggers as
something wonderful andpositive, that reactive and
aggressive behavior goes away,it melts.
There's no need for it becausethe dog isn't feeling stressed
(25:38):
out.
Well, gradually, systematically, over time, you're going to go
closer and closer and closer,but do this in very little
increments.
Don't get greedy.
Don't go from a distance whereyour dog is calm and relaxed and
then move up 100 feet.
That's too much, too soon.
(25:59):
Anytime you're doing this workand your dog becomes reactive,
or your dog, like I said, startsdisplaying some stress signals
in its body language, or itwon't take food or it won't
listen, it won't look back atyou.
Your dog's over threshold.
You've gotten too close toosoon.
This is a process.
(26:21):
How long is it going to take?
Well, every dog's going to be alittle bit different.
Now, while you're working thisprocess, now, while you're
(26:42):
working this process, whileyou're trying to modify your
dog's underlying emotional state, to modify its behavior, you
can control the environment.
You can get your dog at a far,safe enough distance where it
doesn't care, so that you can dothe work.
Listen, if, while you're tryingto do this training, your dog
keeps having intermittentreactive episodes, you're
(27:05):
fighting a losing battle.
That's like trying to fix abroken water pipe without
turning off the main water valve.
Listen, avoiding the triggers.
That's not the fix, but it'sthe first step to the fix.
Because if your dog keepsrehearsing these behaviors over
and, over and over again.
They just get more and morehabituated, more and more
(27:25):
ingrained, more and moreconditioned and that makes it
more difficult to condition out.
I was talking.
Let me give you a little story,a little anecdote.
So I was working with a clientand their dog was highly
reactive to other dogs.
And look, I get it, you want towalk your dog dog needs
(27:47):
exercise.
But while we were trying to dothis work, the pet guardian was
taking their dog for daily walksevery day, twice a day, and
each walk the dog reacted andhad a meltdown about three
different times for every walk.
So think about it, you know,three to six times a day, two
(28:10):
walks, the dog's having a badexperience and having a meltdown
.
And the same pet guardian wasdoing about four or five
training sessions a week doingthis using look at that dog
training LAT.
(28:30):
By the way, I don't know if Imentioned this, it was developed
by leslie mcdevitt.
We need to give her credit.
Fantastic woman, lesliemcdevitt, you're going to see a
45 minute video in the trainingguide if you do go to phoenix
dog training and you go to myblog and you find the article on
look at that dog training.
She's got a 45 minute videothat I've got embedded in there
(28:51):
and, like I said, I've got twoother five-minute videos from a
couple other trainers that arefantastic.
So that it's not just youhearing it with this podcast,
it's not just you reading it inthe guide, but you're also
actually seeing it work hands-on.
Because I'm telling you, ifyou've got a dog that's reactive
(29:13):
, if you've got a dog that'saggressive and I don't care what
it is, whether it's a person,whether it's an adult, whether
it's a kid, whether it's a dog,whether it's a bicycle, whether
it's the mailman coming thisworks fantastic.
Now, it's not going to happenovernight.
There are no quick fixes.
(29:34):
Anybody that tells you they gota quick fix, I guarantee you it
involves punishment and thatjust suppresses outward behavior
.
Nothing changes truly withpermanence and reliability of
change.
Until that dog has a differentunderlying emotional response to
(29:58):
the trigger, wonderful thingshappen and it elicits these
wonderful emotions, thatbehavior, that reactivity, that
aggression.
It just melts away.
It just melts away.
(30:18):
Well, folks, that sound meanswe are out of time.
I wanted to do just a quick30-minute podcast here.
Do me a favor, like I said, ifyou love what we do, give us a
five-star review.
Make sure that you share thiswith other folks on your social
media.
Share it with friends andfamily, or anybody that you know
that has a dog that's reactiveor aggressive.
(30:40):
Make sure that you subscribe,make sure that you like our
podcast.
This is a labor of love.
Until the next podcast, untilwe talk, happy training.
Have a good day.
I'm out of here.
Bye.
Do you have a dog that's reactive, or maybe even
more so, your dog's aggressive,you know, do you ever go on
walks and your dog sees anotherdog or sees another person and
starts flipping out on the leash?
Or maybe somebody is passing byyour house and your dog is
looking out the front window,absolutely flipping out.
(00:23):
Looking out the front window,absolutely flipping out.
Or how about do you have a dogthat when it's in the car and
anybody goes by, it freaks out?
Maybe when you're walking andyour dog sees a bicycle or a
skateboard or a scooter go by,it starts barking and lunging
and absolutely losing it.
(00:43):
Well, we're going to talk allabout how to fix that in 60
seconds.
Don't go anywhere.
Speaker 2 (00:53):
Raised by wolves with canine DNA in his blood.
Having trained more than 24,000pets, helping you and your fur
babies thrive, live in studiowith Will Bangura answering your
pet behavior and trainingquestions.
Ladies and gentlemen, pleasewelcome your host and favorite
pet behavior expert, willBangura.
Speaker 1 (01:18):
Would you like to go on?
Are y'all ready for this?
Good day?
Dog lovers, hey, thanks forjoining me for another episode
of Dog Training Today.
I'm your host, will Bangora, acertified canine behaviorist and
(01:40):
certified behavior consultant.
Certified trainer, force-freecertified yes, I've got all
kinds of alphabet letters aftermy name, but that was not always
the case.
I was a balanced trainer.
I used to use aversives, prongcollars, choke collars,
electronic collars, but noweverything that I do is positive
(02:02):
reinforcement.
And one of the biggest areasthat a lot of pet parents and
even a lot of trainers thinkthat they have to use correction
, they have to use punishment,is when a dog is reactive or
aggressive, and that'scompletely opposite of what we
(02:22):
want to do, opposite of what wewant to do.
Most dogs, if they are reactive, most dogs if they're
aggressive, it's because they'vegot anxiety.
They are stressed out about aparticular trigger.
Maybe they're fearful of otherdogs or other people.
(02:42):
But maybe you've got a dog as Iwas saying in the opener that
is highly reactive to thingsthat zip by really fast, like
kids on skateboards or scootersor bicycles or joggers.
Maybe your dog gets a littlebit possessive, a little bit
territorial when anybody walksby the property.
(03:05):
Maybe your dog's outsidebarking at everybody through the
fence, Maybe your dog's in thehouse looking out the window or
the door and doing that on adaily basis.
Well, those things not only arestressful for your dog, but
it's frustrating for us petparents, isn't it?
Well, today I'm going to talkabout how we can deal with
(03:30):
reactivity, and it doesn'tmatter what your dog is reactive
to it could even be a sound,but typically the technique that
I'm going to be talking aboutis done with visual triggers.
And what I want to talk abouttoday have you heard about look
(03:51):
at that dog training?
Yeah, look at that.
Or some people just abbreviateit L-A-T, lat.
Well, look at that.
Dog training, or LAT, wasdeveloped by Leslie McDevitt,
and if you want to really learna lot about how to help reactive
(04:14):
dogs, how to help dogs that arereactive and aggressive, that
goes through in depth, in detail, step-by-step instructions.
There's three videos.
One of the videos 45 minuteslong.
(04:34):
The other two are pretty short.
They're about five minutes longeach, but you can find that at
phoenixdogtrainingcom.
Go to my blog atphoenixdogtrainingcom.
Look for the article on Look atthat Dog Training.
Look for that training guide.
I'll go ahead and I'll put thelink in the comments, the
(04:57):
description for this podcast,but before I get into how we
actually use Look at that DogTraining to help reactive dogs,
can you do me a huge favor?
You know, one of the thingsthat always surprises me is that
the vast majority of peoplethat listen to this podcast on a
(05:18):
regular basis have notsubscribed.
Please subscribe so that younever miss an episode of Dog
Training Today.
And also, if you love what wedo, if you like the information
here, please hit that pausebutton, take a second, give us a
review.
The reviews are how thispodcast will rank higher, how
(05:43):
more people then get thisinformation to be able to help
dogs that are struggling andsuffering with reactivity and
aggression.
All right, let me get into themeat of today's podcast Now.
There's a couple things that weneed to do to get ready to
utilize this protocol for dogsthat are reactive and aggressive
(06:05):
.
The first thing that we need todo is we need to have a really,
really powerful, positivereinforcer and in most cases,
this is going to be very, veryhighly palatable food rewards
like little tiny cut up piecesof chicken, little tiny cut up
(06:27):
pieces of hot dog or cheese.
What you want to do is you wantto find what your dog
absolutely loves the most, andwe want a bunch of those, but
they need to be small, about thesize of a pea.
You're going to want a treatpouch also.
Now, once you've got your highvalue food rewards, once you've
(06:49):
got your treat pouch, thequestion then becomes do you
have a marker?
Do you use markers in yourtraining?
Now, for some of you, you don'tknow what a marker is.
Now, for some of you, you don'tknow what a marker is, and some
(07:20):
of you have heard about, maybe,clicker training.
Well, a clicker is just onekind of a marker.
Right, instead of that clicksound, we could use a verbal
marker.
And let's say that we use theword nice.
Right, nice doesn't meananything to the dog.
I say nice.
Well, the dog doesn'tunderstand what that word is.
It has no value, it's neutral,just like the sound of that
(07:43):
clicker.
But what we want to do, becausetiming is so critical in
training dogs, we want to pairand associate our high-value
food rewards, our positivereinforcer, with a marker like
the word nice or with the soundof a clicker, and what that does
(08:05):
once the food has beenconditioned to the marker,
whether it's the word nice,whether it's a thumbs up right A
visual marker If you've got adeaf dog, or whether you're
using a clicker right A visualmarker If you've got a deaf dog,
or whether you're using aclicker.
What a marker does, once it'spaired and conditioned with food
, over and over it is a signalto the dog.
(08:33):
When you say nice, when youclick the clicker and again,
anything can be a marker, butyou just have one for this
particular exercise.
But it's a positive, reinforcermarker, it's a bridge to the
food and what it does is itsignals to the dog immediately
that you're getting a foodreward, because it might take us
(08:54):
a couple seconds to get thefood out of the treat pouch and
actually get it in the dog'smouth.
You know a lot of people aretraining with food but the dog
has very little understandingthat the food is related to any
(09:15):
particular behavior or the foodis related to any kind of
emotional response.
And that's because of timing,of timing, you literally have
about one to two seconds max toget the food in the dog's mouth
for them to connect the dotswhen you're trying to pair that
with a behavior you might likeor an emotional state where the
dog's more confident and lessfearful.
And communication is absolutelykey, and the better our timing
(09:39):
is, the better our communicationis with the dog.
So how do you create a marker?
Well, you're going to wantabout 30 tiny little pieces of
this high-value food reward.
Now, whether I'm using the wordnice or whether I'm using a
clicker, the process is going tobe the same.
I'm going to click, give thedog a treat, wait for the dog to
(10:01):
finish that food reward, clickagain, give another treat.
Click again, give another treat.
Click again, give another treat.
I'm going to do that about 30times in a row.
Click treat, click treat, clicktreat, click treat, click treat
, click treat.
Or, if I'm using a verbalmarker, nice treat, nice treat,
(10:25):
nice treat.
You get the idea we're going torepeat that over and over 30
times in a row and we're goingto do that for about three days.
Now, on day four, after you'vegone through three days, of what
we call marker conditioning,associating and pairing the
(10:46):
sound of the clicker to the foodor the sound of your verbal
marker to the food or yourthumbs up visual signal to the
food.
If you've got a deaf dog, onceyou've done that conditioning,
we need to know does it signalthe dog when it hears the marker
, whether it's the click or theverbal marker, nice.
(11:08):
Does it signal to the dog thatit's getting a high value food
reward that it absolutely loves?
We need to know.
Did it work?
And the way that we do that onday four, when you're just
hanging out with your dog, yourdog's not doing anything.
It's got to be awake, notasleep, and your dog's got to be
close enough to you that it'sgoing to hear either a click on
(11:31):
the clicker or your verbalmarker Nice.
I'm just using that as anexample.
But what you want to do on dayfour, when your dog's not
expecting it, you want to clickthe clicker or you want to say
nice, or use whatever markeryou're using.
Now what you're looking for?
Does your dog come running toyou looking for the food reward?
(11:53):
If your dog does, you know thatyou've been successful in
conditioning your reward marker.
If your dog doesn't comerunning to you and it could hear
the click or it could hear yourverbal marker, if you're using
a word but it doesn't come toyou, well, you haven't done
(12:15):
enough conditioning or yourtiming of conditioning was poor.
When you click, you've got togive the treat right away.
The sequence is important,though.
Click, then grab the food, giveit to the dog.
Don't have food in your hand.
Don't start reaching for thefood.
Don't start putting food inyour dog's mouth before you
(12:35):
click it's.
Click, grab the food quickly,get it in the dog's mouth.
Click, grab the food quickly,get it in the dog's mouth before
you click it's.
Click, grab the food quickly,get it in the dog's mouth.
Click, grab the food quickly,get it in the dog's mouth 30
times in a row.
Day four you're going to test itNow.
If your dog comes running toyou on day four when it hears
its marker, now you're ready tostart doing the.
(12:55):
Look at that.
Or LAT dog training for dogsthat are reactive and aggressive
.
Okay, all right.
Now what we want to do is weare going to have a controlled
setup for a training session.
Okay, you have to know whatyour dog's triggers are, and we
(13:15):
want to work one trigger.
We don't want to do what'scalled trigger stacking.
Don't put your dog in asituation where there's four or
five or three or even two thingsthat your dog is nervous or
fearful or reactive oraggressive towards One thing.
So, as an example, let's saythat you have a dog that is
(13:35):
reactive to other dogs, have adog that is reactive to other
dogs?
Well, anybody that has areactive dog will tell you
there's a distance that your dogcan be far enough away.
Where your dog notices anotherdog but really doesn't care.
There's no reactivity, yourdog's not stressed, your dog can
(13:57):
focus on you, listen to you,your dog will take a food reward
.
But then there's a distancewhen you get too close where
your dog won't take food, whereyour dog won't listen to you,
where your dog can't focus.
And if you keep getting closer,your dog's going to get more
and more stressed out and thenyour dog has a meltdown and
(14:17):
becomes reactive on the leashright.
When we're doing this training,let's say I'm using that example
, I've got a dog that isreactive towards other dogs.
I'm going to have a helper withthe dog.
Help me.
If I can't find a helper, thenI might use a very realistic
looking fake dog, a stuffed dog.
(14:39):
Always better if I can have ahelper and have a real dog.
But you can do the work withfake dogs, with stuffed dogs.
Same thing if your dog triggerson people, if you can't find a
human helper, you can use amannequin for a while, because
what we want to do is we want tofind the distance.
We want to find the distancewhere we're far enough away from
(15:01):
the trigger, where your dognotices it but really doesn't
have a care in the world.
If your dog is stressed out,you are too close.
You can't do the work.
When your dog is stressed out,when they're reactive, when
they're stressing out, they'renot in a place where they can
learn, they're in fight orflight and their memory and
(15:23):
learning is going to becompromised.
Find the distance, the safedistance, and this is the
process.
I'm just going to break it downin its simplest form.
If you want more details, likeI said, go to my website at
phoenixdogtrainingcom it's oneof them and go to my blog.
(15:43):
Find the article on Look atthat Dog Training, where it's a
very it's more of a trainingguide than an article and
there's several videos there aswell.
But, in a nutshell, what wewant to do is have our dog at a
safe distance where it reallyisn't stressed out, isn't going
to care about the trigger.
Whether it's a dog trigger,whether it's a person trigger,
(16:06):
whether it's a kid on a bike ora skateboard, doesn't matter.
We set that up, we'recontrolling the situation with a
helper.
We know when that trigger isgoing to come into view.
Now what I like to do with myhelpers is talk to them on
speakerphone and I'll say okay,we are ready, I've got my treats
(16:29):
, I got my treat pouch.
My dog, it's got its harness on, I got the leash, we're at a
safe distance.
And when I say we're ready now,my helper comes out with the
dog, but at that safe distance.
And when I say we're ready now,my helper comes out with the
dog, but at that safe distance.
And the dog is going to noticethe strange dog.
And as soon as your dog noticesor even begins to look in that
(16:53):
direction, you're going to clickyour clicker.
Now, if you've done a good jobconditioning your dog with the
food, if your dog loves the foodand you found something really
palatable, because you're atthat safe distance, as soon as
your dog hears that click, or ifyou're using a verbal marker
like nice, your dog's going toturn away from the dog.
(17:13):
It was just looking at and lookto you for the food.
Sounds really simple, doesn'tit?
Almost too simple.
Trust me, this is magic.
It really works.
Your dog looks at the dog.
The trigger click the clicker.
Your dog looks back to you.
Give the food reward.
Your dog looks again back atthe trigger.
(17:35):
Click the clicker, give a foodreward.
You're going to do that overand over and over.
I like to do it for severaldays to a week, right.
And when I'm doing thesetraining sessions I'm doing it
for about five to seven minutes.
They're short but I'll have thetrigger move out of view.
(17:55):
And when there's no trigger,there's no clicking, there's no
food rewards.
But all of a sudden the triggercomes into view.
As soon as the dog looks at it,I click or I say nice, give my
verbal marker, whatever kind ofmarker I'm using, but just make
sure you're consistent with onemarker for this.
In this case I'm going to usethe clicker.
(18:15):
The dog looks at the trigger,click, dog looks back to me.
A reward.
Rinse and repeat over and overand over.
What I'm doing is I'mconditioning a response in the
dog, number one that it startsto learn and it becomes a habit,
it becomes predictable.
(18:36):
The dog learns.
When I look at another dog, I'mgoing to get a food reward.
I'm going to get the click andI'm going to get the food reward
.
I'm going to hear my marker andI'm going to get my food reward
.
This is a pattern that I amtraining into the dog.
I want the dog to have thatexpectation no-transcript.
(19:04):
And I'm going to change theprocess just slightly after I've
conditioned that.
So here I am week two, and itmight be three weeks, I don't
know.
But I go back to this situationwhere I've got another staged
controlled training session.
I've got a helper, the helper'sout of view.
I say we're ready.
(19:27):
Helper comes into view with thedog at a safe distance.
The dog looks at the trigger,but this time I don't click.
And when you don't click andthe dog had the expectation hey,
when I look at this other dog,I'm going to get a click and a
(19:48):
food reward.
Well, when that doesn't happenand your dog is used to that
happening, your dog looks at theother dog.
There's no click.
Pretty soon your dog's going tolook back at you like, hey,
where's my click, where's myfood?
That's exactly what I want tohappen, because now the way I'm
(20:10):
going to do it is when the doglooks at the trigger, I'm
waiting for the dog to look backto me, and now that's when I'm
going to click my clicker,that's when I'm going to signal
to the dog that it gets a foodreward.
So now I've changed things up alittle bit where the criteria
is you look at the dog, you lookback at me, then you hear your
(20:33):
marker and you get your foodreward.
So there's a couple of thingsthat are happening.
I'm giving the dog somethingvery specific to do when it sees
a trigger, and that's look backto me.
I reward that behavior, I clickmy clicker, I give the dog the
food reward.
I do that over and over andover again.
(20:53):
These sessions are short.
They're about five to sevenminutes.
I have this happening five,four, six times a week.
Yeah, it's okay to take one ortwo days off a week if you need
to, but you've got to do this atleast four times a week for it
(21:16):
to be effective.
Okay, now, in addition toteaching the dog a different
behavior than lunging andfreaking out when it sees a
trigger, we're teaching the dogto hey, you see a trigger, look
(21:37):
back to me and good thingshappen.
But we're using principles ofcounter conditioning.
Counter conditioning is just afancy phrase for pairing
something positive with atrigger that the dog didn't like
to change the dog's perceptionassociation and change the dog's
underlying emotional state fromone of oh, that used to be
scary, now I can't wait to seethe strange dog because I get
(22:00):
high value food rewards.
Now, if you're doing this tooclose to the trigger and your
dog is stressed out, this is notgoing to work.
And this is a process.
This can take weeks, it cantake a month, it could take two
months, but gradually,systematically, as your dog
(22:22):
begins to have positiveexperiences.
It sees the trigger, it looksback to you, we click, we give
it a food reward.
But when the trigger is gone,there's no clicking, there's no
food reward.
But up here comes the triggerDog looks, dog looks back at me.
I click, I reward.
What we're doing is we'rechanging the dog's underlying
(22:45):
emotional state.
The dog was stressed out,fearful, reactive, aggressive.
But if we're too close, we'regoing to get that same behavior
and here's what everybody'sdoing wrong.
You think the way that you'regoing to deal with this is your
dog gets reactive and aggressive.
You're going to correct yourdog and listen.
(23:06):
Correction is just a nice wordfor punishment aggressive.
You're going to correct yourdog and listen.
Correction's just a nice wordfor punishment.
If you're yanking on the leashor yelling at your dog, no, all
that's doing is suppressing thatoutward behavior.
Now your dog might stop beingreactive for a short while, but
you've done nothing to changeyour dog's underlying emotional
state.
(23:26):
Your dog still views thattrigger as something scary that
it feels like it's got to gointo fight or flight.
It's trying to communicate hey,back off.
If that's happening, you aretoo close too soon.
You always want to work at asafe distance where your dog
doesn't have a care in the world.
We call that working belowthreshold doesn't have a care in
(23:51):
the world.
We call that working belowthreshold.
If your dog is nervous, if yourdog is anxious, if your dog is
not completely relaxed in itsbody language, if your dog won't
respond to cues and commands,if your dog won't focus on you
and listen to you, if your dogwon't take food rewards, you are
too close.
You need to back up foodrewards.
(24:12):
You are too close.
You need to back up.
Get to a distance where you cando this work, spend a couple
days, spend a week, spend acouple weeks at that distance.
What you're doing is you'recreating this new positive
association with the trigger.
And once you've got it at thatdistance and it's solidified and
it's conditioned andconditioning means repetition
(24:33):
over and over and over then trymoving five feet closer.
If your dog stays relaxed, ifyour dog can listen to you, if
your dog can respond to cues andcommands, if your dog will take
food, great, you've gotten alittle bit closer.
But you haven't gone over athreshold.
Because if you go over athreshold, well, you might be
(24:56):
able to recover that trainingsession, but a lot of times,
well, you've got to call it theend of the session until the
next one.
We don't want your dog.
The whole goal is for your dognot to be reactive and it's not
about correcting outwardbehavior.
It's about changing theassociation and the underlying
emotional response your dog has.
(25:17):
Because, listen, once your dogdoesn't have anxiety, stress and
fear towards triggers, onceyour dog views those triggers as
something wonderful andpositive, that reactive and
aggressive behavior goes away,it melts.
There's no need for it becausethe dog isn't feeling stressed
(25:38):
out.
Well, gradually, systematically, over time, you're going to go
closer and closer and closer,but do this in very little
increments.
Don't get greedy.
Don't go from a distance whereyour dog is calm and relaxed and
then move up 100 feet.
That's too much, too soon.
(25:59):
Anytime you're doing this workand your dog becomes reactive,
or your dog, like I said, startsdisplaying some stress signals
in its body language, or itwon't take food or it won't
listen, it won't look back atyou.
Your dog's over threshold.
You've gotten too close toosoon.
This is a process.
(26:21):
How long is it going to take?
Well, every dog's going to be alittle bit different.
Now, while you're working thisprocess, now, while you're
(26:42):
working this process, whileyou're trying to modify your
dog's underlying emotional state, to modify its behavior, you
can control the environment.
You can get your dog at a far,safe enough distance where it
doesn't care, so that you can dothe work.
Listen, if, while you're tryingto do this training, your dog
keeps having intermittentreactive episodes, you're
(27:05):
fighting a losing battle.
That's like trying to fix abroken water pipe without
turning off the main water valve.
Listen, avoiding the triggers.
That's not the fix, but it'sthe first step to the fix.
Because if your dog keepsrehearsing these behaviors over
and, over and over again.
They just get more and morehabituated, more and more
(27:25):
ingrained, more and moreconditioned and that makes it
more difficult to condition out.
I was talking.
Let me give you a little story,a little anecdote.
So I was working with a clientand their dog was highly
reactive to other dogs.
And look, I get it, you want towalk your dog dog needs
(27:47):
exercise.
But while we were trying to dothis work, the pet guardian was
taking their dog for daily walksevery day, twice a day, and
each walk the dog reacted andhad a meltdown about three
different times for every walk.
So think about it, you know,three to six times a day, two
(28:10):
walks, the dog's having a badexperience and having a meltdown
.
And the same pet guardian wasdoing about four or five
training sessions a week doingthis using look at that dog
training LAT.
(28:30):
By the way, I don't know if Imentioned this, it was developed
by leslie mcdevitt.
We need to give her credit.
Fantastic woman, lesliemcdevitt, you're going to see a
45 minute video in the trainingguide if you do go to phoenix
dog training and you go to myblog and you find the article on
look at that dog training.
She's got a 45 minute videothat I've got embedded in there
(28:51):
and, like I said, I've got twoother five-minute videos from a
couple other trainers that arefantastic.
So that it's not just youhearing it with this podcast,
it's not just you reading it inthe guide, but you're also
actually seeing it work hands-on.
Because I'm telling you, ifyou've got a dog that's reactive
(29:13):
, if you've got a dog that'saggressive and I don't care what
it is, whether it's a person,whether it's an adult, whether
it's a kid, whether it's a dog,whether it's a bicycle, whether
it's the mailman coming thisworks fantastic.
Now, it's not going to happenovernight.
There are no quick fixes.
(29:34):
Anybody that tells you they gota quick fix, I guarantee you it
involves punishment and thatjust suppresses outward behavior
.
Nothing changes truly withpermanence and reliability of
change.
Until that dog has a differentunderlying emotional response to
(29:58):
the trigger, wonderful thingshappen and it elicits these
wonderful emotions, thatbehavior, that reactivity, that
aggression.
It just melts away.
It just melts away.
(30:18):
Well, folks, that sound meanswe are out of time.
I wanted to do just a quick30-minute podcast here.
Do me a favor, like I said, ifyou love what we do, give us a
five-star review.
Make sure that you share thiswith other folks on your social
media.
Share it with friends andfamily, or anybody that you know
that has a dog that's reactiveor aggressive.
(30:40):
Make sure that you subscribe,make sure that you like our
podcast.
This is a labor of love.
Until the next podcast, untilwe talk, happy training.
Have a good day.
I'm out of here.
Bye.
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