Leash Dog-Dog Reactions

I'm not sure if its TV shows or just natural human reaction but it seems that whenever a dog reacts/lunges/barks at another dog while on leash, the reaction of the owner is to always jerk the leash and yell at the dog.

Even dogs that are simply tugging to investigate or greet another dog while on leash are routinely jerked back into walking position by many owners.

Many people I believe are at a loss for what to do when your dog is reacting either aggressively or curiously to another stimulus while on leash, and both require very different methods of treatment - however one thing in common is that jerking your dogs leash doesn't help.

If your dog is reacting aggressively to another dog/person/stimulus jerking the leash and yelling at the dog will start to classically condition your dog. The dog is going to start to form this picture in his mind:

Dogs show up = my neck hurts and I get jerked around thus = dogs are bad news.

Now many people will observe that if your jerk a dog enough he may stop to react (yup we see this on TV shows) - this is true, but that doesn't mean his reaction is cured, but rather suppressed. Likely that same dog, once free of his leash, would react on his building emotional state that dogs = bad and an attack is very likely. This is not a dog you could trust off leash when he is "safe" from his punishers.

So jerking your dogs leash does nothing to cure or fix the emotional state of WHY he is reacting that way, but simply temporarily suppresses it. If your an addicted smoker, I can tie your hands up and take away your cigarette package and then stand back and say "Look he's not smoking" and thus claim my solution has cured you.

The problem of course is soon as you have your free will and mobility back, you'd head right out to buy another pack.

The key is to cure the emotional state of why the dog is reacting, and the only true way to do this is through that same pattern of classical conditioning.

Instead of dogs = my leash jerked = dogs are bad, you change the equation in your dogs mind to:

dogs = I get lots of treats thus = dogs are awesome!

I won't go into all the finer detail of how this is done, these types of corrections are best done with the help of a qualified trainer. If you'd like to learn more however there's plenty of books in my online store that cover this topic, FIGHT! by jean donaldson is a good one.

The key point to note here is that your not creating an expectation that your dog will get a treat every time another dog shows up. What your doing is changing the emotional state, so that even if he doesn't get a treat when a dog shows up, the past history of that happening will give him a positive view of the approaching dog, instead of a negative one. Phasing out the treats will still leave your dog with a positive mindset, even when the treats are no longer flowing freely. You can also train operant behaviors around other dogs if you need to, like sitting or coming to you if off leash.

If your dog is simply trying to investigate something, say he wants to sniff that pile of poop on the sidewalk, is jerking him away going form an equation of:

poop = my leash getting jerked = poop is bad?

Not likely (but it could), but it will certainly lead to other issues.

First, it will damage your relationship with your dog. Whenever you inflict pain on your dog, your not going to be his most favorite person, that's just universal for all species.

Second, Your dog isn't going to have any clear expectations on how to get what he wants. Unless you've trained him to "leave it" jerking him away from things doesn't teach him why he shouldn't be going after that object, or how to avoid the punishment. What else can't I sniff at along this walk? How do I stop from getting jerked around so much? If you don't answer these questions for you dog, he's going to be hopelessly confused and upset.

So in short - if your dog does something you don't like on leash, please don't make your first reaction to jerk him around. Certainly if your dog is lunging or about to attack you need to manage the situation, but once everyone is safe, please don't be the person that stands there yelling "NO" and jerking up on the leash well after the encounter has passed, your not doing your dog, or yourself, any favors.