Reactivity has become something we regularly have to confront with Brodie, especially within the last few months (aka, when he really hit his adolescence…) Recognizing and addressing his triggers has completely changed how we approach it!
If you’ve been following along or have read any of our previous training posts (or many of our other posts), then you know that Brodie was always an OVERLY friendly dog, especially towards humans. He absolutely loved meeting new people as a puppy! Always a lick or a wiggle butt ready for pets. But back in October we had some (out of nowhere) trouble with what seemed like leash reactivity and slight aggression towards some humans…not all, but some. It was very random and hard to predict.
What we didn’t know or recognize at the time were the things that were setting Brodie off…it actually took us months to learn and realize this!
We started to recognize the things that set him off and caused him to react. These “triggers” are what we have started to use to help up manage his reactivity and fear in certain situations. We try not to let him hit his threshold of tolerance, but knowing the triggers has helped us to prevent that from happening as often as it used to! Our goals are to keep him as calm and happy as he possibly can be.
So what are his triggers and how did we recognize and realize what they were? Well there was a lot of watching him, process of elimination, and trial and error (a lot of error) to figure it out. At first we thought it was people who had or smelled like cats. But then there was a situation with no cats or friends who had them and no reaction…
So the trial and error continued until one day when I was watching a dog video on YouTube or Instagram (for the life of me, I can’t remember what I was watching), but it said that some dogs have a fear of hats. They can’t get a good read on the human if they can’t see their whole face or eyebrows. And then it clicked! Every time (or at least 90% of the times) that Brodie has or had a reaction to a human that came off as aggressive, it was when people were wearing hats or hoods. This situation with our friend’s dad that started this whole reactivity/aggression journey-he was wearing a hat when he walked in.
Both people he had a reaction to on our camping trip were wearing hats AND the woman on the hiking trail a few weeks after that was ALSO wearing a hat… So there we go. We finally figured out the trigger and decided to test it out with some trusted dog savvy friends and lo and behold, when they took off their hats, Brodie’s whole demeanor would change!
Now were still working through some other triggers that we haven’t fully figured out yet, plus he’s been always been reactive towards dogs, but that will come with our increase in training and observations. We’re honestly just happy to figure out the big one that was causing us SO much stress when we went out and about with him. The ability to let people know that he isn’t friendly if they are wearing a hat and everyone being able to understand that trigger has calmed our anxiety so much. And now we start our journey to counter conditioning to hopefully help Brodie get past this trigger and fear of hat!
I’ve been doing a lot of research and book reading about how best to help Brodie. And I decided that we are going to work on some new R+ (positive reinforcement) training techniques to help out when faced with his triggers (hats, squirrels, and other dogs when he’s on leash) and help him to stay at or below threshold when he is faced with them.
Right now, we are working on both Clicker Training and something I’ve recently read about called “Engage/Disengage” which I’ve heard can significantly help when Brodie is faced with one of his triggers! We also are going to be working on the “Touch” and “Go Say Hi” cues to help him gain confidence in meeting new people that he is unsure of.
Wish us luck and drop some advice on these in the comments if you’ve had success with them!
All these photos are from our recent trip to visit “Uncle” Brent at his house in the woods! Can’t wait to go back and visit again!