Reptile & Amphibian Forums

First, here's a brief background. A dog has aggression problems and one trainer is working with him on these problems. When the dog is with this trainer, his aggression has, for all intensive purposes, disappeared.

Now my questions. How difficult is it to generalize this to other handlers? Once he really has it down with the trainer, does it take very long to convince him to behave the same way with other handlers? The dog has not been tested with other handlers yet but I'm assuming that he'll need to be taught that the same ideas apply to other people, not just the trainer.

Of course you've figured out that I'm talking about Kaiser here. His training has not progressed this far yet, but I'm trying to prepare for what I'm going to have to do *if* it does get there.

My other question is this. Obviously I know that we'll have to keep up a strict maintenance routine with spot checks without warning and dry runs of various situations without "warming up" so to speak. How often should we go through his exercises and perform these checks to make sure that the training is sticking? I know, "as often as we can!" but what would be the minimum? Weekly, daily, several times per day? All of his training is going excellently well so far and I want to make sure that *if* it does come to the point where Kaiser can come home and live a relatively normal life (I know it's likely that that will never happen).. But if it does, I want to make sure that we really stay on top of it and check very often to make sure that all this training doesn't start to fade away..

Thank you, for any thoughts you might have.. I know you don't really agree with my decision to keep Kaiser, for fear that I may put other people at risk, but we have to try this one last thing.. And it's really, truly looking like there will be positive results.. Whether they'll be positive enough to save his life is yet to be determined and if, after all of this, there is still any sign of his former aggression I assure you, I won't hesitate to have him put down.

>>First, here's a brief background. A dog has aggression problems and one trainer is working with him on these problems. When the dog is with this trainer, his aggression has, for all intensive purposes, disappeared.
>>
>>Now my questions. How difficult is it to generalize this to other handlers? Once he really has it down with the trainer, does it take very long to convince him to behave the same way with other handlers? The dog has not been tested with other handlers yet but I'm assuming that he'll need to be taught that the same ideas apply to other people, not just the trainer.
>>
>>Of course you've figured out that I'm talking about Kaiser here. His training has not progressed this far yet, but I'm trying to prepare for what I'm going to have to do *if* it does get there.
>>
>>My other question is this. Obviously I know that we'll have to keep up a strict maintenance routine with spot checks without warning and dry runs of various situations without "warming up" so to speak. How often should we go through his exercises and perform these checks to make sure that the training is sticking? I know, "as often as we can!" but what would be the minimum? Weekly, daily, several times per day? All of his training is going excellently well so far and I want to make sure that *if* it does come to the point where Kaiser can come home and live a relatively normal life (I know it's likely that that will never happen).. But if it does, I want to make sure that we really stay on top of it and check very often to make sure that all this training doesn't start to fade away..
>>
>>Thank you, for any thoughts you might have.. I know you don't really agree with my decision to keep Kaiser, for fear that I may put other people at risk, but we have to try this one last thing.. And it's really, truly looking like there will be positive results.. Whether they'll be positive enough to save his life is yet to be determined and if, after all of this, there is still any sign of his former aggression I assure you, I won't hesitate to have him put down.

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

It is difficult to generalize training to other handlers, and there is no guarantee that it can be done. The best chance is probably when they are new to the dog. Changing established patterns is harder than starting in a new situation where the dog is open to learning about this new person. That's one reason adult dogs coming into new homes can do so wonderfully well if the match between handler and dog is basically a good one. Changing the situation in a home where things have gone wrong is much more difficult. There are so many complicating factors.

I don't recommend ever trying to trigger a behavior to see if the problem is still there. Instead, I recommend handling the dog in such a manner that the undesired behavior is never triggered, and that an incompatible behavior is very strongly established and kept strong through regular training and practice. Life provides enough testing. We should never try to provoke a dog, even for the best of reasons. It backfires, big time.
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Kathy Diamond Davis, author, "Therapy Dogs: Training Your Dog to Reach Others," 2nd edition, and the free Canine Behavior Series articles at http://www.veterinarypartner.com/Content.plx?P=SRC&S=1&SourceID=47

I was basing this on "Mine!" by Jean Donaldson. She recommends that after training has come to a certain point there should often be "cold trials". For instance if the training was based on having the dog allow you to take something from his mouth, occasionally you should take something from him without first doing the exercises warming up to it. This will give you an indication of whether the dog will be somewhat predictable if the same thing were to ever happen in real life.

Thank you for your opinion.