Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Greetings.
This may be better suited for a training discussion. However, here goes: Willy is a two year-old Kelpie. He has been coming along quite well with his training and does fine in crowds, restraunts, etc. He spends many days at my wife's office and has quite a fan club amongst her coworkers and customers. My wife is the office manager of a special service district that covers our local rural water and sewer, volunteer fire depts, ambulance etc. Willy has been spending time with the search and rescue guys and doing parallel duty getting bonded with a couple of autistic kids in our local community. Very recently, he has taken to uttering a kind of growl when people enter the office. Assuming territorial issues, we have been moving his bed to different locations and taking his toys away when it occurs. Any ideas? This is obviously unacceptable behavior as it immediately puts people off.
Thanks.

Very recently, he has taken to uttering a kind of growl when people enter the office. Assuming territorial issues, we have been moving his bed to different locations and taking his toys away when it occurs. Any ideas? This is obviously unacceptable behavior as it immediately puts people off.
>>Thanks.

-What is your actual reaction immediately after this growl happens? IF there is any verbal, physical, anything but a neutral reaction, the growl could be getting reinforced and the dog is just thinking that is what is supposed to be done. What likely happened is after the first incident, someone was so surprised that the dog growled at someone, a big deal was made out of it followed by a flurried reaction of steps like taking toys away and hurridly moving the bed etc. Now, the dog is thinking, "When a person approaches this area, I need to put up my guard because the humans around me change drastically." It's a viscious cycle and the dog really is only doing what it thought you wanted it to do.

So, to break this cycle (there initially may have been a component of territorial and/or resource guarding) you need to remain very neutral and unemotional if this situation were to happen again. Yet, you need to do some detective work to figure out what was the exact trigger for the initial growl and PREVENT it from happening again until you can show your dog the appropriate response is to not go on guard when people enter the room, but instead remain neutral and passive. If you are 100% sure it's the act of someone coming into the area, then sit next to your dog, have someone approach, watch your dog and give the dog treats BEFORE any growl happens. Dogs can hear, see, and smell very well and they give many signals before growling. In this instance, the moment you see your dog listening intently for the person approaching you would give a treat. Keep your dog in a neutral comfortable position and keep everything upbeat and pleasant. Don't make this a strict training session, keep it casual and fun. Then, once the person gets through the doorway, have them treat the dog as well. Do this several times and throughout the week have treats next to the doorway for anyone and everyone to treat the dog with when they come in the room (as long as no defensive postures were made).

On top of showing the dog that there is no cause to put up their guard at the office, you need to teach the dog a "leave it" or "I'll take care of this" type of behavior. My dogs are allowed to alert me (bark) when things change, but they need to stop alerting when I'm dealing with it. I use a "go lay down" (they need to go lay in their dog beds until I call them) when we are at home and a "leave it" (stop paying attention to that) when we are away from home. Both are very easy commands to teach with just a few repetiions a day.

Hopefully some of this info helps out.
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Chelle and the rest of the crew including, but not limited to Kita and Taiko (the shiba inu wrestle maniacs), Adi (reserved and dignified tabby cat), and all 28 reptiles

Dang. That's good stuff. It all makes sense. Count on a full report after I put a bit of this into practice. Thanks again.

>>Dang. That's good stuff. It all makes sense. Count on a full report after I put a bit of this into practice. Thanks again.

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

Yes, it's very good stuff! One other thing I would recommend is to remove the dog from that situation when you are not right there paying total attention to working with him. You don't want him to have any more practice at doing the vocal behavior.
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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