I was paying extra attention to this the last 3 days and i noticed that about 8 of 10 people: hold their dogs close preemptively (most of the time nothing happens wiht those) dogs bork and need to be held back people cross to the other side
Is nobody bothering to properly train their dogs anymore? What is happening in the dog scene? is anybody else experiencing this?
One of my dogs has some crazy weird leash aggression. It’s not even aggressive “aggression” - she’s just an 80lb friendly beast that wants to meet other dogs and people, and she has no qualms about pulling you down if you’re not ready.
It’s a hell of a habit that I haven’t been able to get her to break. I am the guy that will cross the street with my dogs if you’re on the sidewalk coming my way - just to keep things stress free.
I’m not sure about the time scale you’re referring to, but I have some expeirence with dog training and I’ve been interested in dog training history lately, so maybe I have insight for you. Also, I want to qualify this whole tirade by saying this is a USA-centric breakdown; other countries have different cultural histories with their dogs, and while the underlying animal behavior is the same, I can’t speak to whether dogs in other countries are “well” or “poorly” trained.
Prior to the 1900s, dogs weren’t really thought of as companion animals the way they are now. Dogs were usually from working lines-- hunting dogs, setters, pointers, terriers, ratters, herders, shepherds, guard dogs, sled dogs, etc. They were considered somewhat adjacent to livestock. In these situations, dogs were often “trained” by their breeding. You don’t have to tell a working line rat terrier to kill rats, they just do. Sheepdogs will herd children if there aren’t sheep around. Just try keeping a working line husky from pulling in a harness… you can do it, but it’s working against it’s nature. Mostly around this time, a person had multiple dogs of breeds with natural instincts to do the job they wanted them to do, and the dogs did it. The ones that did it best were bred by their owners, and the next generation was better than the last. It’s also important to note that the major written documents describing dog training at this time mostly emphasized rewarding the dogs with meat and praise when they are good, and ignoring them when they are bad.
During and around WWII, there was a new interest in training dogs for policing, warfare, and personal protection. It became more common to have one-dog-one-handler arrangements, and since most working lines of guard dogs were more “bark at intruders and bite strangers” kinds of dogs instead of “dutifully and silently stand by until ordered to kill” dogs, there was an interest in developing training methods to achieve the desired result without needing to breed new working lines.
From this desire during WWII, two schools of thought arose. One was the “traditional” method (not very traditional after all…) which arose from trainers like William Koelher. These methods emphasized discipline, “corrections”, and punishment. The other school of thought had its roots from behaviorists like Marian Breland Bailey (an advisee of BF Skinner) that illustrated the power of operant conditioning and positive reinforcement. They both started around the same time (1930s-1960s) but for one reason or another the traditional methods were more popular, and the reinforcement methods were seen as lesser “tid-bit training techniques” based in “the prattle of ‘dog psychologists’”.
It turns out they were both working with a similar framework-- dogs learn by associating an action or stimulus with a positive or negative outcome. The argument was whether positive or negative outcomes were better at inducing learning gains. At this point, mountains of research shows that positive reinforcement wins out every time, meaning that the behaviorists were more correct than the traditionalists.
Still, as I mentioned, the traditional methods were more popular for a long time. People still think they need to “be an alpha” or leader to their dogs, that they need to discipline the dog so it respects them, that punishing the dog is the way to achieve good behavior. Choke and shock collars, leash corrections, and “alpha rolls” are still common training techniques despite the evidence that they are counterproductive. Additionally, you’ll remember what I said about the behaviorist/reinforcement methods being more aligned with training techniques recorded before WWII-- when farmers were training herding dogs, they weren’t "alpha roll"ing them, they were giving them meat when they did their job and ignoring them when they didn’t.
Anyway that’s a whole fucken essay in itself, but the point I’m trying to make is this: prior to WWII, dogs were trained by being paid in daily food and by having the chance to breed. Many working dogs are still trained like this, perhaps giving you the impression that dogs “used to be trained well”. Companion dogs are a more modern development and there continues to be two schools of thought about how to train them. People who look deeply into evidence-based dog training methods train their dogs with positive reinforcement-- these dogs are usually what we consider “well trained” dogs, and overwhelmingly these dogs exist in affluent areas where dog owners have the money to pay for expensive trainers, and where they have the free time to train the dog consistently. As class disparity grows, it is becoming more common for people in poorer areas to lack access to the education about the best methods, so they tend to default to “traditional” methods that were more popular in the 20th century. These dogs are… less “well trained”. Even if someone wants to put in a lot of effort to learn how to train dogs, they might just not have access to the most up to date knowledge. Additionally, there’s evidence that dogs trained with these methods are more susceptible to a lack of generalization than reinforcement trained dogs, which is to say they might act fine in most situations, but they act worse (more fearfully, less predictably) in novel scenarios. That’s part of why you might see “well trained” dogs who suddenly and disasterously act out.
One last side note: often dogs who are reactive (the term for dogs who freak out and start screaming when they see a person or a dog or a bike, etc.) are not necessarily untrained. Reactivity is a fear response; you can imagine they might be like a normal human with a spider phobia. They might be 100% perfectly behaved in every situation… except for when a dog walks by. In this situation, the other dog is like a spider.
Traditional training might suggest that you try to order the dog to stop freaking out and punish them if they don’t stop when they see another dog, but that’s like punishing someone with a spider phobia for freaking out when they see a spider. The reinforcement methods instead try and convince the dog that other dogs (spiders) are actually harmless. This is shown to reduce reactivity much more than punishment. Still, reducing reactivity is like really really hard, just as fixing phobias in humans is. Even if someone is working very hard with training and using the best available techniques, the dog might still freak out when they see another dog (thus looking like they “aren’t trained”, according to your post).
And LAST last note, maybe the difference you’re perceiving is from covid? A lot of people got a lot of dogs but couldn’t take them out to socialize and train them due to lockdown. Additionally, during covid a lot of adoption agencies literally ran out of dogs, meaning that dogs that would usually be euthanized because of behavioral issues were instead adopted out to families. Compounded with a lack of socialization, and the fact that many people still use “traditional” training methods, maybe you’re just seeing a lot of reactive, fearful dogs? Hopefully that will improve over time!
Anyway thanks for reading my whole fucken essay, lol… I wrote this while on a plane so I guess that’s why I was bored enough to write this much. Hope you get something out of it!
You seem well versed on this subject. One of the reasons I kinda gave up on my dog’s leash aggression is that she’s also just kinda old (12 yrs now - I got her when she was around 7) and it feels like she’s just “set in her ways” at this age. Is it your opinion the older a dog gets, the harder it will be to train them?
I think there’s a lot of evidence that for most things (like “new tricks”) there isn’t any learning disadvantage for older dogs.
However, leash reactivity/aggression is not about teaching a dog a new trick (or even a new behavior) as much as it is trying to change an underlying emotional response to stimuli. I don’t know anything about your dog, and there are lots of reasons why dogs can react like that on leash (fear, intense desire to play and socialize, actual aggression), but usually if the dog is freaking out they are past the point where the “logical” part of their brain can make decisions for them.
The human analogy is that people of all ages can learn new skills, like how to cook a new recipe or build a cabinet or something. But if a person has a fear of heights, they can’t just learn the skill of not being scared of heights. That requires rewiring the base emotional response, which takes time and has a high rate of failure.
For dogs I worked with, we usually asked ourselves if we thought the dogs reactivity was lowering their quality of life. That is to say, does your dog need to be calm on leash to live a happy life? If you live in a city and she needs to navigate past dogs every time she goes to the bathroom, I’d say it’s worth trying to make that less stressful for her. If she lives in the suburbs or in a rural area, and she barely ever encounters other dogs anyway, why bother? The human analogy is: if a person works on skyscrapers for a living, they probably need to not be scared of heights, but many people are scared of heights and live totally fine and happy lives from the ground. Of course, a human can have some control over their environment and career, but dogs don’t have that luxury. We work with them where they are.
It’s also worth noting that even the best “rewiring methods” take a long time and usually only work to reduce the fear, not eliminate it. We do it because it will really improve the dog’s quality of life, not because we (selfishly) want a perfectly behaved dog to bring everywhere and do everything with.
A side note is that there are critical periods for dog socialization and development just like in humans. I haven’t looked into this in a while but me memory is that it occurs at like 8-12 weeks of age. Puppies in this period learn about how to interact and communicate with other other dogs in the same way we learn language early in life. If they aren’t socialized in this period, they usually struggle to effectively socialize for the rest of their lives. Still, this isn’t necessarily the cause of leash reactivity, so I’m just throwing it in as a side comment if you want to learn more.
AND lastly, if you do decide you need or want to work on your dog’s reactivity, I strongly recommend Grisha Stewart’s BAT 2.0. I am not affiliated with her in any way, but this is the technique recommended by reinforcement-based training organizations and has the most likelihood of reducing reactivity in my personal experience. The textbook is like literally hundreds of pages long and covers a ton of case-scenarios. It would take time to read and learn to do the protocol, and you need a BAT leash (a 15 ft leash) and lots of practice managing it, but I have seen dogs go from freaking out and screaming from seeing another dog >100 yrds away to being able to (tensely) stand to the side of a sidewalk and contain their panic as a dog passes. It won’t make a reactive dog confident and bomb proof, but it can make a huge difference when applied carefully and consistently, especially with other methods like look-at-that/counterconditioning, Karen Overall’s calmness protocol, and engage-disengage games.
Thank you for the well written and thought out response. I live in a suburban area so we aren’t constantly around people/dogs necessarily on our walks. I use the gentle leader harness for both her(catahoula) and my pit/lab mix. I’ve found it best to just ignore other dogs that walk by, across the street of course and she seems to somewhat pick up on that energy. She’s also getting older in her years and I think that’s chilling her out as well.
My dog was doing well until a "trained" dog, off the leash, attacked her. Wounded face, badly bruised ribs.
Then, about a year later, a "trained" dog, off the leash, ran up to her and went to sniff her, she took it as a threat, and another fight happened. No blood this time, but still.
Then about a year later... a "trained" dog, off the leash... same fucking story.
10 years later, I am more vigilant and proactive. If another "trained" dog is around (telltale because of the lackadaisical behavior of the owners), I get my dog right up to heel on the other side of my body and get ready.
At least 10 times over those 10 years, I have a dog running at my dog with an owner just standing there yelling "don't worry, they're nice!", me replying "MINE ISNT", and then them jogging leisurely over while I am hunched over trying to keep the 2 apart.
I dont care how well you think you've trained your dog, be a responsible owner. If it isn't your home (front yard NOT included) or a dog park, leash. Also, don't approach a dog you don't know. You don't know their history. Be aware of your surroundings and pick a route that keeps your dog leash distance from the other dog.
This “Don’t worry he’s nice” shit is pretty irresponsible imo. Ignoring the fact that animals are still unpredictable regardless of their track record, people can sometimes have real trauma with dogs and letting your dog just trot up to people willy nilly could really upset someone. Also something could happen to the “nice” dog if the person or other animal isn’t nice and frankly the owner of the nice dog would have only themselves to blame.
2 dogs have been injured by my dog for it and I just can't blame my dog.
Felt bad for a while and then just couldnt justify it anymore.
And let me be clear, we have had friends dogs over to the house, done controlled introductions and it has been fine. Took her to a kennel one time when we went on a trip and no fights reported because it was a professional staff and a controlled environment.
However, when a strange dog runs up and puts a nose in her butt without pause, she starts biting.
That first time she didn't have her guard up and got seriously injured stayed with her. Simple as that and I can't blame her.
I’ve always had well trained dogs, but I currently have one I just cannot seem to get under control with other dogs on walks. She will pull and bark anytime I get anywhere near another dog. Seems vicious, she just wants to play so bad… I have another dog and they play but he’s more chill than her and she just wants to play so badly with every random dog in the world. Treats, spankings, training collar, bark collar, nothing has worked.
5th dog, only one I wasn’t easily able to train. Probably because she’s an abused rescue dog and I just can’t break her of it. Sometimes it’s just not easy. I have to choke up on her and cross the street to not freak people with dogs out.
I’m copying this comment I just wrote elsewhere because I think you might find it useful:
“I think there’s a lot of evidence that for most things (like “new tricks”) there isn’t any learning disadvantage for older dogs.
However, leash reactivity/aggression is not about teaching a dog a new trick (or even a new behavior) as much as it is trying to change an underlying emotional response to stimuli. I don’t know anything about your dog, and there are lots of reasons why dogs can react like that on leash (fear, intense desire to play and socialize, actual aggression), but usually if the dog is freaking out they are past the point where the “logical” part of their brain can make decisions for them.
The human analogy is that people of all ages can learn new skills, like how to cook a new recipe or build a cabinet or something. But if a person has a fear of heights, they can’t just learn the skill of not being scared of heights. That requires rewiring the base emotional response, which takes time and has a high rate of failure.
For dogs I worked with, we usually asked ourselves if we thought the dogs reactivity was lowering their quality of life. That is to say, does your dog need to be calm on leash to live a happy life? If you live in a city and she needs to navigate past dogs every time she goes to the bathroom, I’d say it’s worth trying to make that less stressful for her. If she lives in the suburbs or in a rural area, and she barely ever encounters other dogs anyway, why bother? The human analogy is: if a person works on skyscrapers for a living, they probably need to not be scared of heights, but many people are scared of heights and live totally fine and happy lives from the ground. Of course, a human can have some control over their environment and career, but dogs don’t have that luxury. We work with them where they are.
It’s also worth noting that even the best “rewiring methods” take a long time and usually only work to reduce the fear, not eliminate it. We do it because it will really improve the dog’s quality of life, not because we (selfishly) want a perfectly behaved dog to bring everywhere and do everything with.
A side note is that there are critical periods for dog socialization and development just like in humans. I haven’t looked into this in a while but me memory is that it occurs at like 8-12 weeks of age. Puppies in this period learn about how to interact and communicate with other other dogs in the same way we learn language early in life. If they aren’t socialized in this period, they usually struggle to effectively socialize for the rest of their lives. Still, this isn’t necessarily the cause of leash reactivity, so I’m just throwing it in as a side comment if you want to learn more.
AND lastly, if you do decide you need or want to work on your dog’s reactivity, I strongly recommend Grisha Stewart’s BAT 2.0. I am not affiliated with her in any way, but this is the technique recommended by reinforcement-based training organizations and has the most likelihood of reducing reactivity in my personal experience. The textbook is like literally hundreds of pages long and covers a ton of case-scenarios. It would take time to read and learn to do the protocol, and you need a BAT leash (a 15 ft leash) and lots of practice managing it, but I have seen dogs go from freaking out and screaming from seeing another dog >100 yrds away to being able to (tensely) stand to the side of a sidewalk and contain their panic as a dog passes. It won’t make a reactive dog confident and bomb proof, but it can make a huge difference when applied carefully and consistently, especially with other methods like look-at-that/counterconditioning, Karen Overall’s calmness protocol, and engage-disengage games.”
We train ours to walk at heel, loose leash. But if they are together they will still pull and bark aggressively at other dogs. They are in training, not completely trained.
I’m not sure what you mean by properly, though. I would consider the dog walking close to me & slightly behind a good trained walk, and do if possible cross to avoid giving them temptation if there is a dog. Better to give them a chance to be good, than to have to correct them.
Hard to say. I trained my last one to walk at heel but he would always start pulling as we started to get home. As soon as he could see it he wanted to pull.
But I did have him trained to stop and sit any time we had to cross a street. The few times he would get out, he wouldnt cross the streets and we’d find him around the block.
He had zero interest in other dogs. Whenever I took him anywhere, he just wanted to be a complete lap dog. He’d whine if he wasn’t on lap sitting. That said, whenever we walked past other people or dogs, I’d keep him on an extra short leash incase the other dog might try to do anything.
I live with my folks in a gated community. There’s still dog poop on the sidewalks and in the grass even though there are designated dog poop disposal stations with bags and bins all across the community.
It’s similar to how some people don’t put their cart into a cart corral after loading their groceries even though the corral is nearby. I just boil it down to laziness and apathy at that point.
I sometimes hike in a town where people are absolutely obsessed with dogs, and they definitely don’t behave themselves most of the time. This isn’t always in an unfriendly way, many dogs just like people, but nobody even has dogs so much on a leash. There is a house near me whose dogs are way uncontrolled, and one day I walked past it only for four dogs to run out of their backyard to try to tell me to get off their lawn. The owner then apologized and scolded his dogs and asked them why they misbehaved. Well, for starters, you got time to train ten dogs?
Which brings up a good point, it’s always the dog enthusiasts with dogs that misbehave.
A coworker got a German shepherd, insisting she grew up with the breed and knew how to train them and exercise them properly.
She went to a training class where she and her dog theoretically learned “heel”, coworker just didn’t listen. I had the dog on a leash, commanded “heel”, it came right over to my left, and coworker was baffled because she didn’t know her dog would do that.
If my coworker is at all representative of the average dog owner, it’s the owners that need the training.
I hold my dog tight to me when anyone is near, but she is very reactive to other dogs. I like to think I have a clue and put in the effort, but we got her as a four year old rescue who had been abused and spent a year in a kennel. There’s only do much you can do: she got rejected from boot camp, and no one wants to risk their pet near a ferocious looking adult animal of her size. This kind of training really has to be done with a puppy, and is much more difficult when someone doesn’t
My town just built a new rail trail near me and I’m kind of sad that I really can’t walk her on it, with the number of dogs already there
I saw a ton of well-behaved pups on a hiking trail this morning. Of those that were off-leash, all were respectful of strangers. Not one misbehaved. Some were on leashes. I assume that some of those could be off-leash without incident. Not one dog behaved poorly.
This is not to say that there aren’t a ton of dumbasses who raise their dogs to have no boundaries. Just shining a light on a bunch of responsible dog-people who were doing a great job.
Most people don’t train their dogs but it’s not a new trend. I’d wager that the last time you could rightly say “most people train their dogs” was in the first couple decades of domestication
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