Dog Sports for Reactive Dogs

Having a reactive dog means a lot of the traditional dog world and dog events are shut to you if your dog has trouble controlling themselves around other dogs. And reactive dogs are very often the dogs who need a job. High energy. Sharp. Busy brain.

These days with advances in technology and dog training, there are a lot more options for competing and titling with a reactive dog. Now you can send in a video of your dog performing and your dog can earn titles in a variety of different sports. This is also a great option for people who live far away from dog sport venues. 

Agility: The Virtual Agility League "provides a non-traditional, skills-based agility venue that allows people to submit dog agility performances for review by video. To give reactive or distracted dogs an equal chance to show off their agility skills, and recognition for the people who love and patiently work with them."

Disc Dog: If your dog is a frisbee pro, Pamela Johnson offers disc dog titles by video. She also offers canine freestyle routine and trick titles. 

Musical Freestyle: Dogs and humans show off a dance routine choreographed to music. "Rally Freestyle Elements offers video entries in Musical Freestyle for those that either live too far from live events or for those dogs not suited to the show environment."

Nosework: Nosework is traditionally recommended for reactive dogs, both as a way to build confidence and because the sport is set up to accommodate reactive dogs and their needs. This sport is also good for dogs with various disabilities. 

Parkour: In Dog Parkour, dogs use skills from human parkour and dog agility to overcome obstacles. "Dog Parkour helps with confidence and overcoming fears, and it is a low impact but challenging activity for any canine athlete."

Rally - FrEe:  This sports combines cues from Musical Freestyle and the competition format of Rally-Obedience. "It emphasizes the precise execution of fundamental freestyle and obedience skills while encouraging creative and novel behaviors on a Rally-Obedience style course." 

Trick Dog: Shake. Roll over. Sit pretty. Fetch! Do More With Your Dog! offers trick dog titles from novice to champion.

Photo by Grace W.

Dracula's Grave

Bait and Switch

Mr. N would like to file a complaint with the Bureau of Dog Affairs. He was explicitly promised a "walk" but instead was roped into taking Halloween photos. He thinks this is a bait and switch. 

Do you agree? 

Bookstore Display Model

Mr. N practices strength and balance training on top of a tiered bookshelf. He is used to heights but the texture of the bookshelf meant he had to sit with poise. Being a good display model also means having excellent sit/stay skills. Sometimes people mistake him for a stuffed animal.

Does he add to the display?

Immense Sacrifice

Mr. N hopes humankind appreciates the immense sacrifice he has made by getting TWO baths in one week.  Unfortunately, we were both exposed to MRSA during a therapy visit so the ER said to give him a bath as a precaution. 

Is Your Dog a Rule Follower or a Rebel?

Mr. N is a dog that likes being good. I swear he preens when another dog is being "bad" and he is 

"good." If one of his friends has to go back on leash and he is still off-leash, he prances about expressively and flouts his freedom. 

He very rarely loses his off-leash privileges but I had to leash him one time on the beach because he was obsessed with trying to play with this one dog on a flexi-leash. After he disregarded his second warning, he went on the leash. After a decent amount of distance away from the dog, I un-leashed him. He kept looking back at me and checking to see if it was OK to walk ahead. He does not enjoy being "bad." 

I think part of it is he likes law and order and the other part that he is a total mama's boy and wants to stay in my good graces. This isn't to say he is never naughty but he does try very hard to be good. 

When canine visitors enter our kitchen, he disapproves. He is not allowed in there unless expressly invited.  Even if other dogs are in the kitchen looking for crumbs or sniffing the treat bin, he never joins them. If I drop a treat by mistake, he'll wait to see if I really meant to give it to him. 

He also believes that good behavior should be rewarded and appropriately. Sometimes after reactivity training (which is probably the hardest for him), we'll pass by a dog and I'll dole out a treat for not reacting. And he'll look at me as if to say, that was really, really hard. That dog was talking smack about me and I didn't even say anything back! I think I deserve more treats. Most of the time, I'll agree with him and treat him to his satisfaction. 

Whereas our foster pup could care less about human approval or rules if it conflicted with what he wanted. He was always trying to sneak into the kitchen. And he stole food out of Mr. N's mouth. Literally. Mr. N was aghast at his behavior and would run and tattle. We used to call them Goofus and Gallant. 

Is your dog a rule follower or a rebel? 

Mr. N says he has done his part. Treat now please?

Too Sick for a Walk

The sick pup in his sick bed.

Mr. N was super listless this morning. Even the walk word wouldn't budge him out of bed and he always wants to go for a walk. He had been having a stomachache for a few days but I took this as a sign that we needed to go to the vet asap.

Luckily, we were able to get a same day appointment and they gave him fluids and anti-nausea medication. When we got home, he decided that he would eat from my hand and ate his first meal in two days.

After lots of napping and another small meal, he had a spurt of energy and ran around the living room chasing a toy for a half hour and demanded his chews. Little Dog is on the mend.

Dog Modeling for a Photo Shoot

Mr. N's shoot for City Dog Magazine

Portland Horse Project and Mr. N

If you look closely, you'll spot metal rings on the sidewalks of Portland. They date back to the early 1900's when people would tie up their horses and carts to the rings. Portland continues the tradition by adding rings when new sidewalks are built. Scott Wayne Indiana came up with the idea of adding toy horses to the rings as a public art project (Portland Horse Project) and it became popular with Portlanders. 

Mr. N says he is not a horse and he finds being tied to the ring  very insulting. 

Warm Winter (and Fall) Soup for Dogs

The rainy season in Portland means that Mr. N is a soggy shivering little dog no matter how many layers of water-proof clothing he wears. After he gets his paws (and sometimes belly) washed, he gets a quick towel dry and then a warm snack.

This post was sponsored by Chewy. They are not responsible for the contents of this article. All opinions expressed are our own. 

I don't believe in warming up raw food so he usually gets warmed up canned food. Right now, he's eating Weruva Steak Frites with Beef, Pumpkin & Sweet Potatos in Gravy from Chewy.com for his cold winter snack.

Weruva with added water

He laps it right up and leaves a clean bowl. He stops shivering. The extra calories are good for him too. He expends a lot of calories keeping warm during the rainy months.

Do you give your dogs special warm food during the cold season? 

Canine STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics)

How to Train Your Leash Reactive Dog with the LAT method

Mr. N walks nicely on a leash, 99.9 percent of the time. Children can walk him and they have under supervision and in quiet areas. That 0.1 percent is what gets him in trouble. Mr. N is what is known as a "frustrated greeter." He gets super excited to see other dogs and he will pull and bark and lunge on leash.

He is a lot better than he used to be. The very sight of a dog would send him into a barking, lunging frenzy. Now, he can walk and ignore other dogs across the street. We're still working on passing dogs on the same sidewalk. He can sometimes walk past very calm dogs who are lying down and not looking at him.

Mr. N ignoring the dog behind the fence who is barking at him. He says it's very hard.

We've been making this progress mostly with the LAT (Look at That) method from Leslie McDevitt's book, Control Unleashed. The premise is pretty simple. When your dog looks at a trigger (dogs, scary strangers, bikes, squirrels, skateboards etc), you reward them for looking at the trigger. It sounds counter-intuitive but it works! They learn to neutralize the trigger and focus back on you. Eventually, the dog will look at the trigger then automatically look back at you. This works both for dogs who are over-excited like Mr. N and dogs who are anxious or fearful.

You should start by practicing the cue with neutral objects that your dog won't react to then gradually add in lower-level distractions then work your way up to higher-level ones. For the neutral object, you could use a bottle or other household item and point at it and when your dog looks at the bottle, use a marker word like "yes" or click with a clicker and reward.

Mr. N knows he did a good job by looking at the other dog and not reacting. He thinks he deserves his treat now.

For the reward, you must use something the dog finds immensely rewarding. Reactivity work is very difficult for the dog and the reward must match. No kibble or dry treats! Unless your dog is willing to jump off a cliff for those. Mr. N is picky about his rewards so I can pretty much only use meaty treats and cheese. Right now, we're using Look Who's Happy treats that we were sent to review because Mr. N deems them worthy, they take a second or two to chew (less time to think about barking), and they're healthy and made with good ingredients so if he sometimes gets a ton of treats for not barking, so be it.

Look Who's Happy provided us with three bags of treats. Tenacious Little Terrier was not compensated for this review post. All opinions expressed are our own.

It's important to make sure your dog is not past threshold (calm and not over-aroused) when you do this. It has to be at a distance your dog can handle. So if you have to start at a football field's distance, that's what you do. Other things will affect your dog's threshold. With Mr. N and dogs, the following can impact his threshold: motion, speed, multiple dogs at once, dogs paired with a skateboard/bike, dogs giving him a hard stare, off-leash dogs, the other dog barking.

Mr. N practicing LAT by the dog park

Trigger stacking is also important to keep in mind. Multiple triggers will affect your dog's ability to keep it together. I always think of it as akin to dieting. If you're presented with multiple temptations throughout the day, (doughnuts at breakfast, co-worker's birthday cake at work, lunch invitation and offers of pizza for dinner) it's a lot easier to give in. You only have so much impulse control. You may be good all day and then something sends you over the edge and you gorge on ice cream. Same goes for your dog. They may ignore the first five dogs and then after the sixth one will turn into a screaming maniac.

Mr. N has conquered bikes and joggers and squirrels and cats for the most part using this method. We're continuing to work on his hardest challenge, dogs. He tries very hard and sometimes he backslides but we're getting there.

No dogs were barked at during the making of this post.

It is very difficult to capture a squirrel and dog in the same frame.

Welcome to First Monday's Positive Pet Training Blog Hop hosted by Cascadian Nomads, Tenacious Little Terrier and Rubicon Days. Please share your responsible pet owner positive pet training tips by linking a blog post or leaving a comment below. Any positive reinforcement training posts or comments are also always welcome. The Positive Pet Training Blog Hop goes all week long. Our next hop will begin Monday, Nov. 2nd with a training and exercise theme and continues for a week. 

Giant Bubbles in the Park

During our afternoon walk, Mr. N and I meandered down to the river and were greeted with the sight of dozens of bubbles floating in the air. 

Occasionally, the bubble performers bring their giant bubble wands and create enormous bubbles during sunny afternoons. We've always missed their performances before so we paused to watch the bubbles float and melt away in the Indian Summer air. 

A toddler came running over, waving her hands in excitement and paused in front of a stream of iridescent bubbles. Entranced. It wasn't just the children who delighted in the spectacle. Just about everyone who walked by paused for a glimpse and the reminder of pure joy and childhood.

Mr. N was briefly intrigued but then decided there were more other interesting things in the park like the geese and the Aussie that was illicitly playing fetch behind us twenty feet away off-leash. Little Dog was very good and held his sit stay despite bubbles popping by his head and the Aussie.