d112358 Posted March 5, 2014 Report Share Posted March 5, 2014 My foster BC has a number of issues to get under control in order to become adoptable (resource guarding, handling, obesity). The shelter I'm working with has resource guarding down as their highest priority, but I'm becoming more concerned about his handling issues. He doesn't like strangers near his collar. I don't qualify as a stranger anymore (I've had him for six weeks), and can take his collar on and off and brush mats out around his ears. My problem is that he's so damn gregarious. He sees new people and wants to come over and flirt with them - in a manner that most people would interpret as asking to be petted. Short pets are okay, but anything under the chin or behind the ears results in a quick succession of freeze, whale-eye, snap. Because I was plenty aware of his handling issues, I don't let strangers approach him (or vice versa), and have only let my guard down with other shelter vols who assure me they're familiar with him. I know the escalation sequence because they've been lulled in by his 'pet me' demeanor. This behavior is known with a clear trigger, so I don't feel it qualifies as unpredictably dangerous. However, I'm at a bit of a loss trying to countercondition away 'handling by strangers' and even if I could I don't think I'd ever trust him to be bomb-proof. That leaves changing his default greeting behavior. He has an excellent default sit (almost on top of your feet), but that sets him up for chin/ear petting. My current plan is to go with a default nose touch to hand then return to handler, along with a lot of CU box work to make the handler more important than strangers. I'm hoping this doesn't backfire on me and make it harder for him to bond with someone new. Any thoughts? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sekah Posted March 5, 2014 Report Share Posted March 5, 2014 Aloofness, to me, is an aspect of a dog's personality. What I think you'd want to focus on would be all aspects of self control and default focus around distractions. I would probably implement a strict no petting policy with strangers, despite what your dog might want. I have a friend who's trained her flighty NSDTR to place her chin in the palms of strangers on cue as a greeting behaviour, but I have a feeling that any degrees of hands-on-ness could be opening the door for him snapping. What about putting him on a y-front harness? Is it the collar being handled itself which is problematic? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
d112358 Posted March 5, 2014 Author Report Share Posted March 5, 2014 I've already preemptively done a no-petting policy with strangers, though now it extends to 'anyone who is not currently living with him'. It's hard to keep people away from him who know him and have worked with him, though - he's not my dog, and these people have the same or higher standing with the organization, so it's hard for me to set boundaries with them. His original handling issue was only reacting when you went near his belly - no wonder, he had some epic matting under his front legs that took me a couple of weeks of living with him to handle him enough to find and a couple more to completely get rid of. Since no one could get a harness on him and he flipped out a few times at the slip lead, they started using the collar for everything and that's how the collar/ear sensitivity started. I use a Sporn for walking him nowadays, since he pulls hard and I can get him to step into the loops with minimal hands-on direction. I should probably borrow an EasyWalk and see he trusts me enough to adjust it properly. It pains me because I remember the first time I worked with him six months ago, naively trying to put a harness on him. He gave a lovely protracted warning display: long freeze, hard stare, head check; I stopped before he snapped at me, we made up quickly, he asked for some affection and easily went on leash with his collar. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sekah Posted March 5, 2014 Report Share Posted March 5, 2014 Are you doing some basic counter conditioning/desensitization to the collar being grabbed? The collar grab game is a good place to start. I'd be doing heavy, heavy CC/DS whenever you have the opportunity with a note to his future caregivers to continue it for the rest of his life. I have a friend with a Pyr shepherd that was flighty as a puppy and was improved greatly by CC/DS, but now that the dog is 6 years old, he's snapping again... at people's faces... for getting too close. I think my friend let her guard down and bad habits are coming back up to the surface without maintenance. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shetlander Posted March 5, 2014 Report Share Posted March 5, 2014 I would do lots of clicking and treating for every time I touched around his collar, patted him around the chin and ears. Starting very light, maybe not even touching and building up to normal or even enthusiastic rubbing, petting and holding onto/messing with the collar. I like to teach my dogs that a “collar grab” is not something to avoid or get upset about, by doing lots of clicking and treating each time I touch, then grab, then grab and pull their collars. It becomes a game or at least a cookie fest and they associate collar grabs with good things, not something to duck and avoid. Maybe that sort of approach would help with this dog? ETA: Just saw the above post and that is an excellent point that this may require maintenance over the dog's lifetime. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mum24dog Posted March 5, 2014 Report Share Posted March 5, 2014 Our collie is 8 years old and we still have a No Touching rule with strangers. Like yours he looks as if he wants to be petted but his tolerance is very limited and you have to know him very well to know when to stop. Strangers don't and I'm not prepared to put them at risk. Counter conditioning only goes so far with a dog like him. He's very tactile with close family (although it wasn't always the case), can be handled by a very few outsiders with care, but mostly it isn't worth the risk. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
d112358 Posted March 5, 2014 Author Report Share Posted March 5, 2014 I think I will add CC back into the mix. It was used to varying effect at the shelter, so when he came home with me I implemented a paradigm shift for the handling and backed way off. I took food out of the mix, because it seemed to be more stimulating and make his behaviors a bit more manic. Instead, I let him hang out near me and offered as much affection as he wanted, backing off before he had the chance to get uncomfortable and removing myself altogether if he got overstimulated. He quickly became a lap dog, and I had to figure out creative ways of keeping him from obsessively licking my face. We graduated to massage, and then grooming. I'm taking his collar on and off every day or two and combing behind his ears. He gets head-to-toe massage, with plenty of belly rubs and chin scratches every day, and a little bit of combing every day as well. I still don't bring a lot of energy into these sessions, because he will get overstimulated and (gently) mouthy with me if I move too fast. I have used a collar grab when the cat containment system failed; he was visibly agitated (panting), very focused on the cat, but didn't grab me or otherwise react. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pam Wolf Posted March 9, 2014 Report Share Posted March 9, 2014 counterconditioning will probably be necessary on and off during the dog's life, so don't quit with it. People WILL try to pet your dog (ask anyone with a service dog requesting people not pet the dog while working!). Train him to accept it for those times when you cannot prevent stupid people Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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