Raiden is the most beautiful white German Shepherd you’ve ever seen, both inside and out.
But he’s internally reactive. I prefer to describe him as ‘internally reactive’ rather than fearful, because I see him as being on a spectrum of reactivity. He’s not globally fearful; he does warm up to people and places. He is perfectly happy at home, but quickly becomes overwhelmed and will freeze or try to go home when he goes places. The working structure that I employ with outwardly reactive dogs (those who explode when fearful) works just as well for inwardly reactive dogs.
Caption: Raiden’s reward for getting out of the car and hanging out with Cheryl is his Frisbee. Just over 100′ away, at the barn, the rest of the class is observing.
Like most (but not all) dogs who come to me for private lessons, he quickly warmed up to me and decided that I’m ok. By the end of our 4 private lessons, he was perfectly happy to work for me and to play Frisbee with me (his favorite thing to do, even more than eating).
When he started in the reactive dog class, he would get out of the car and have a hard time looking at Cheryl for his click. It took him three weeks to really begin to work. The first week was rough because Cheryl forgot his Frisbee. After that, things got better; not only did he work for his Frisbee, but he also started taking food more easily.
Because Raiden just shuts down over most distractions outside, he doesn’t go for walks. Our job in reactive class was to give him a place and a structure within which he could realize that bad things won’t happen. By Week 5, he was getting out of the car and doing tricks and skills for Cheryl, running around for his Frisbee, and doing calming curves with other people and dogs.
So on Week 6, we decided to start doing ‘send-offs’. This is where the dog sits next to his person, and the person sends him off to touch someone else’s hand (hand target). The owner clicks and the dog comes back to his person for a treat. We started with me because I am familiar to him. He was happy to see me and the worst he did was want to sniff more of me than just my hand. Often I won’t allow dogs to do this because it sets them up to become overwhelmed, and that results in a reaction. But with Raiden, the worst that would happen is that he would back away, so I let him sniff a bit, and we greeted each other and did the send-off again.
Caption: In the first part of this video, Ali choreographs the events for this session. Raiden first works by the car with his owner, Cheryl, and Ali. Later, Shelly will join in. Cheryl will send-off Raiden to target Shelly’s hand in return for a treat. Throughout the session you can see that Raiden is very aware of his surroundings and responds very cautiously to a wide variety of sights and sounds.
The next step was to have another person near me while I did send-offs with him. He was curious about the other person, but leery. Raiden, it turns out, doesn’t like to repeat things more than twice, so we sent him to touch Sandi’s hand almost right away. His trepidation was immediately clear, but he was very brave and touched her hand, so Cheryl clicked and called him away and they played Frisbee. He was rewarded on multiple levels; us going away, him going away from us, clicking and treating, Frisbee, and praise. It was excellent!
The second time we did this, he was able to do two send-offs with Sandi before we turned away and he played.
This week, we started with me again, and then brought Shelly in, who is taller than Sandi. He was very curious again, but leery. His body language is very clear…when he is worried he becomes a bit frenetic, looking around, ears go back, hunching a bit. Still, he was extremely interested in sniffing Shelly because she had chicken all over her hands. He sniffed her hands, her coat, and even moved across her body to sniff her treatbag! And then, he was willing to touch just once, and we rewarded him heavily by doing all the things we did before…we went away, he went away, got clicked, treated, praised, and Frisbee.
In his second session, he met another new person, and was only able to do one send-off. It’s really easy to become overwhelmed when you’re Raiden, so we grabbed the success and let him play Frisbee.
Raiden came to me with a lot of skills already under his belt, but his fear prevented him from being to function anywhere but home. Now, after only a few weeks in class, he’s met three new people up close, briefly, and is starting to find great rewards for doing so, with very little pressure. Things are going fantastic for Raiden and Cheryl!
Recent Reactive Dog Classes
