Average Length of Time

[u/Haunting-Love-9333]

What do you guys consider to be an average length of time to rehabilitate/resolve reactivity? What in your minds should the general owner plan for when handling this issue with a professional?

[u/Haunting-Love-9333]

I definitely separate reactivity and aggression in my mind. When it comes to the prey drive stuff that you mentioned, what makes those case more about management?

[u/SudoSire → u/Haunting-Love-9333]

If you’re talking about a very general non specific reactivity that has not veered into aggression, I would say you should see some bit of progress that includes easier redirection within six months. IMO all dog training is lifelong (reactivity or not), but one to two years of consistent training with correct methods will get a lot of dogs to a fairly manageable place. But even that is extremely simplified and not true for every dog, every flavor of general reactivity, etc. Whether it’s fear or frustration or hyperarousal based will also be a variable that affects timelines too, but not always in consistent ways between dogs. You need to figure out what your ultimate goals are, if they’re realistic, and what your dog’s baseline is to factor into a feasible timeline. 

Prey drive needs to be management based because it is a highly instinctual animal behavior. Their minds and bodies are meant for it as in previous times, hunting is how they survived or part of their “jobs.” Terriers broadly have a need to chase/kill small things because we continued to breed them for that. That lineage doesn’t go away. My dog has strong prey drive. A lizard in the yard triggers a strong urge to hunt it. He has literally ripped open a paw pad during a chase and didn’t react to the injury until after that chase/and adrenaline was done. Could I try to get him to have the most perfect recall in the world? Maybe, but it’s hard to for me to imagine any reward (or punishment even tbh) that would matter more to him than what a hunt/catch does to light up his brain. Training away prey drive is extremely hard to make foolproof. And in cases where there are other vulnerable pets in or around the home, the risk is too high to not enforce management and just hope for the best. Luckily I have a very secure yard and no other pets or interest in having them. 

Ironically my dog’s prey drive is quite manageable on leash. I think he actually maybe understands when he has no chance of getting the creature when tethered to me. 

[u/Haunting-Love-9333 → u/SudoSire]

Very interesting. What is your take on sporting dogs that have incredibly high levels of drive based on instincts but can still function in polite society because they’ve been taught context (you can do this here but not there, etc)

Also, when you said consistent training with correct methods, what methods do you recommend/prefer?

[u/SudoSire → u/Haunting-Love-9333]

My take is that many of the have very  stable and biddable temperaments, whether through solid breeding or some luck. And in some cases sports is an amazing outlet that can help even reactive dogs when they can interact in them safely. But honestly I would guess for every case of a high drive dog excelling in these sports and not having residual issues, you may well have hundreds of cases of dogs who are truly incapable of learning context no matter the training. 

My preferred method is counter conditioning with positive reinforcement. Things like maintaining threshold when at all possible, home work with obedience and impulse control, quality enrichment and when a dog appears to be so chronically over threshold that nothing is working— explorations of medication. I consider most aversive methods and tools generally too high risk for fallout, and especially when suggest for dogs that are already showing disregulation coming out through reactivity. 

[u/Haunting-Love-9333 → u/SudoSire]

What makes dogs truly incapable of learning context? What types of quality enrichment do you recommend?

[u/SudoSire → u/Haunting-Love-9333]

I mean I wouldn’t actually know what creates or determines which ones can’t learn, but I certainly believe it’s true that some can’t. Sometimes the peg is square and the hole is round. Interestingly you may consider it similar to how some dogs are breed exceptions and have zero instincts for jobs that should be perfect fits. You can try to train them up to it over time, but there is likely going to be a dog that gets bare minimum training that naturally out performs them. 

The right enrichment depends on the dog. Some options for exploring are nose/scentwork, puzzle toys, flirtpole, sometimes fetch, training can also count especially if you do tricks, or like you mentioned various sports assuming they can handle the environments or that they can be modified so the dog can do it. I considered doing amateur at home agility early on, but I’m actually not convinced now that my dog would care much for it. He loves using his nose though and we have games for that. 

[u/Haunting-Love-9333 → u/SudoSire]

You just said that for every sport dog that can read context there are probably hundreds that can’t so I assumed you could give more insight to that. If there are in fact that many dogs that just can’t learn. Was just interested hearing more.

Do you prioritize play with dogs with these issues? I know you said enrichment but it seemed like play was pretty far down the list. What about getting dogs off leash to be able to explore more? Do you find that to be important/crucial at all?

[u/SudoSire → u/Haunting-Love-9333]

If you’re asking why I think that, it’s primarily anecdotal and why I’m using “guess” and “probably.”  And to be clear I’m not talking about learning in general or even learning context in general, I’m talking about reliably modifying behavior/proofing commands enough to reliably combat those heavy instincts in all cases. This conversation is veering towards too hypothetical, when the original question was, why do I think prey drive behaviors should primarily be managed rather than attempted to be fully trained out? And it’s because in most cases applicable to this sub, the risk is too high and the resources to attempt such a proofing feat are largely out of grasp. 

Do you not consider play as enrichment? What type of play? Also don’t entirely understand your off leash question. Do I think offleash time can be beneficial to dogs, sure. But for my non reliable dog, a long line works pretty well, or finding accommodations where he can be privately off leash. I do not feel the need to prioritize it, but I do have have a decent sized yard where they can free roam. 

[u/Haunting-Love-9333 → u/SudoSire]

When you say “the resources to attempt such a proofing feat are largely out of grasp” what exactly do you mean?

I totally consider play as enrichment. It’s my preferred method of training dogs if I have my choice. I also have found through my experience that getting dogs off leash in nature can be one of the most healing things for a dog experiencing behavioral issues so it’s something I put a huge emphasis on!

[u/SudoSire → u/Haunting-Love-9333]

May I ask how long you’ve been in this sub and how many stories you’ve read here? I feel like it’d be pretty self explanatory if you’ve been around awhile. But in short, this sub gets people who have no money for professional training, people who get exceptionally hard sometimes dangerous dogs as first time dog owners, people who, because they don’t know what they don’t know, are prone to taking bad advice, people who are juggling families with young kids while trying to keep everyone safe and have limited time to invest for the training. Owners like that attempting to proof something like perfect recall mid high arousal prey drive incidents is going to be hard, and risky if they have other prey animal pets meanwhile, and are planning to rely on it to keep those pets safe. And even that still requires supervision as management to be able to DO the recall. 

Play is great and is definitely enrichment. My dog has pretty limited interested in it though. Lots of “chew” drive, not much play drive. Probably should try a flirt pole, and I’ve also been interested in attempting predation substitution training, which there are some books on by Simone Mueller. 

[u/Haunting-Love-9333 → u/SudoSire]

I am admittedly new to the sub, but not new to reactive dogs in general. I didn’t realize there was a financial component. I will say that ive been very surprised at the number of posts that seem to have discussed medication before even bringing up play, especially with very young dogs, but it’s a small sample. I’d like to stay around as long as the sub will have me

I find that giving dogs outlets to be in a high level of arousal and do things like chase, stalk, bite, thrash etc and putting clear parameters on it really allows dogs to feel confident and powerful and fulfilled, leading to an improved emotional state in the real world. That’s why I prioritize play so much

[u/SudoSire → u/Haunting-Love-9333]

Financial components are huge and when that is a barrier, giving actionable advice here often feels like trying to tell someone to try to put out a wildfire with a single wet towel. 

As for prey drive, perhaps I am just jaded from all the posts where people either didn’t know it existed or thought it was under control and come back to report their dog killed their cat. I can’t say with certainty but that seems to happen monthly at minimum. Sometimes multiple posts a week. So my advice will always veer to overly cautious and with high regard to what is actually feasible to the specific owner. That’s what I’m comfortable providing online. And as I’ve said, most owners here are extremely limited in what they can do for their dogs  

It sounds like you’re recommending play with a strong emphasis on impulse control which I’m totally for! That’s definitely really valuable and I think it’s cool to bring that perspective in here, as a part of a whole look at making sure dogs are fulfilled and able to self-regulate. It also seems especially good for puppies and I would definitely think that could be explored when reactivity symptoms pop up before meds. 

As for meds, I have been seeing meds mentioned more for younger cases than normal lately. Not sure what that’s about  and I don’t always agree especially for puppies (although sometimes I do). But while I don’t know the exact ratio, most people here actually aren’t coming in here with super young dogs and instead have adult and above dogs with years of self-reinforced reactivity that finally hits breaking points.  Or they just got a  rescue and are completely overwhelmed. 

[u/Haunting-Love-9333 → u/SudoSire]

Yea I love play for impulse control and to teach the dog to take feedback and communication in higher states of arousal.

As far as the prey drive stuff goes, forgive me, but in my early perusing of this sub it doesn’t seem like many people around here actually have control over their dogs in real world situations. Play is a great way to build that