Dog Walks are nightmare

Question:
I have a six-year-old Jack Russell bitch. She loves people but can be aggressive with other dogs when on the lead. Occasionally, when she is off the lead, she also jumps up at people. She is well behaved and intelligent in every other way.

I've tried all the recommended ways of correcting my dog's behavior and feel it is spoiling my pleasure of her when I take her out.

I am considering a three-week course for her at a residential training school, or trying a remote-controlled spray collar. What do you think?

Answer:
I would strongly recommend seeking one-to-one professional instruction, given in your presence and not by a residential training school; unless it is one that insists that the owners come in for the last week and work with their own dogs under the trainer's instruction.

Dogs are what we call context learners - they learn behavior specific to the location and circumstances in which they are taught. If your dog is sent away to the school without you, she will not associate her new behaviors with your presence or the area where she is normally exercised. While she may become perfectly behaved with the trainer at the school, she may revert to her old learned responses when she comes home.

Dog Training aids and dog gadgets can play a role in behavior modification, but it is important to consider their use carefully. You need to be sure about the motivation for the problem and the mechanism by which the gadget operates. If, as with the remote-controlled collar, the aim is to interrupt the behavior with an aversive stimulus, it is important to ask whether this action might intensify or exacerbate the unwanted response.

There can be a range of motivations for your dog reacting inappropriately in the presence of other dogs and people. Two of the most likely are fear and frustration, neither of which is likely to be helped by using an aversive device. The aversion could be associated with the presence of the dog or person rather than the inappropriate behavior, and if this were so, you could inadvertently induce a negative association, This is more likely to increase, rather than decrease, the effects of fear or frustration, so I would suggest it is not a sensible thing to try for your dog.

Instead, look for ways to alter her perception of dogs and people, so that she modifies her own response. Concentrate on the application of positive reinforcement for desired behavior rather than the interruption or punishment of inappropriate responses.

_{source Your Dog Mag.}