Meet Kronk! We adopted him ~3 years ago, after being given up on by 2 other families. When we adopted him, it was clear he was never socialized and is very reactive to other dogs and some people (Specifically men, which makes me wonder what kind of life he had as a pup). We’ve been working with a specialized Vet and Trainer for 2 years now, and he’s on some anxiety meds. He’s improved quite a bit, but he’s also gotten quite protective of my wife. So while I can walk him with only small reactions, my wife cannot. He’s very reactive and is a bite risk when someone gets close. And since he’s a cutie black lab, everyone wants to get close to pet him even when he’s actively snapping at them since they’re “Good with dogs” 😑 Anyways, we found a place that does a 3 week board and train to work with aggression, but I’m not sure how effective they are. I don’t think he’s going to get much better with us, since we have to focus on safety instead of training. And since he’s been given up on twice, I don’t want him to think we’re abandoning him since its a long program. Does anyone have experience with these type of training programs?
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YouTube is full of trainers, many of them are horrible, but some are actually good and they’ll answer questions, or schedule web consults.
Find a good one, and ask them.
My suspicion is that any behavioral training that doesn’t involve you, and everyone else in your household, will be all for naught.
Effective training might require some boarding for the trainer to get a handle on the issue, and then then working with his immediate handlers on how to solve the human part of his behavior equation.
Get multiple opinions from different trainers, see if they overlap, and then move forward.
Here’s one example of a good trainer with a YT channel:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC6vdCX3-G6oDGajvQFreLLA
He also runs boarding, training, and web consults.
But, please don’t just take my word on his credibility. I’m just someone who’s watched some of his videos, and liked what I saw, that’s it’s. I’m not a dog training expert, or a shill, so take my opinion for whatever you feel it’s worth, or don’t.
Thanks for the advice! I agree, the best training would involve us which is one reason why I’m hesitant on board & train. But he’s stagnated for a while on his current training plan, so trying to find new options.
Not really answering the question but have you ruled out medical issues? You could be describing our dog and it turned out he’s got pretty bad hip dysplasia on both sides. Because both are bad he doesn’t limp at all and the outward signs are really subtle but he’s now on a bunch of pain killers and has gotten much better. He’s also booked in for a hip replacement next month.
My gf is a trainer who does board and trains and it’s quite effective but only if everyone at home with the dog follows instructions and the rules suggested for the dog.
A dog will be great with us but will regress very quickly if the family doesn’t stick to the structure provided. And the new structure and rules are especially important once the dog is back home because when they go back home, they think they can go back to their old behaviors.
And finally, if it’s a purely positive training, then it absolutely will not work for cases like this.
A lot of purely positive are against “balance” training where we use tools like eCollars and prong collars and will correct the dog. They claim it’s abusive and conflate eCollars with shock collars (two very different things and you absolutely should be against shock collars). But on the flip side, they’re okay with putting down dogs like this.
I could go on forever, but you really want a balanced trainer who is willing to use tools, but not one of those super macho trainers who borderline abuse dogs.
eCollars, prong collars, kennel training and proper balanced training save dog (and possibly human) lives.
Around 4 years ago we got a “problem” dog that’s worse than yours from a shelter and he’s been fine with the tools and the structure we put in place and he’s living a great life.
So tldr: find the right trainer, follow the rules and you should be fine. But if you slip up with the structure and get loose with the rules, the dog can start regressing.
A lot of purely positive are against “balance” training where we use tools like eCollars and prong collars
Probably because science doesn’t support
But do go on with how anecdotally “they work and people just don’t use them right and all these are different things”
I think most reasonable dog owners will stick with proven science-based training and their vet recommendations. Anecdotally my vet said they are horrible. I even asked another because I had a friend who swore by them at her training school. Anecdotally two vets said the same thing .
Anecdotally one of that trainer’s personal dogs she used prongs and ecollars to train mauled a kid and another dog at her training school so now she’s getting sued
Anecdotally, of course
We’re well prepared to actually follow training plans following up. We’ve been consistent with our current one for 2 years. We’re just looking for other options since his progress has stagnated, even though he has progressed a ton (like we can actually go to a park, and he will be happy and relaxed now). Not against negative training, we’re only going off of what our current trainer tells us, which is “Since its fear based aggression, the best way to correct it is to use positive reinforcement so that he learns that people and other dogs are good things”. Thanks for sharing your experience! I think we’ll set up a consultation with this new trainer and see.
I put my doodle in a local board and train for 3 weeks a little over a year ago for his separation anxiety. When he came back, his separation anxiety was totally solved. I think the value is really in having someone who can dedicate all of their time to focusing on the behaviour you want to train. Like maybe I could have trained my dog’s separation anxiety myself, but I’m neither a professional dog trainer, nor somebody who can dedicate more than an hour or two every day to dog training.
If you’re worried about your dog feeling like you’ve abandoned him, maybe ask the trainer if you can visit a couple of times? Or, what I did was give the trainer I hired one of my t-shirts that I had worn for a day, so it smelled like me, and asked her to keep the shirt near my dog’s bed.
We were in the same boat, but tried “boot camp” and they said they couldn’t help her. Points for honesty I guess.
We’ve also had a rescue about three years. In some ways she’s very well trained, or she’s smart and cooperative. However she’d been a year at the shelter and been abandoned before that, so definitely not socialized. She has a scar on her snout that looks suspicious, and she reacted strongly against men. Basically I sat on the floor for two weeks tossing her treats before she would approach. Now she’s the most loving and protective dog to our family, she lets the cleaner in with a warning, is generally ok with people, and loves our neighbors. She is much improved.
However we were never able to stop her from pulling when on leash, never stop her from being dog reactive, and people better not surprise her.
The biggest thing she needs is that socialization, but reacts so strongly that no one is willing to risk their pet (nor I the liability). I hope it’s posturing since the couple times an off leash dog approached, it didn’t lead to anything, but she’s awfully aggressive with it