Is your dog reactive when seeing other dogs/ strange dogs in the neighborhood? Try the Jolly Routine.  Click "read more" just below.

Have you considered at all working to help your dog form a new idea about strange dogs? It really helps when the owner can manage to play-act a bit, but also with due sincerity, to start to feel that dogs are nice furry creatures on four legs, hardly out on a mission like Attila the Hun to conquer the world. Not all strange dogs are our enemies or anything to fear.

When I'm working on a desensitization program with a dog who has fears/anxieties about strange dogs/other dogs, I like to look for opportunities. In fact, any strange dog will do for this exercise. From a distance when I first spot the other dog, I say to my student dog in a happy voice, "Oh look, a dog!" <treat/treat> Let my dog take a gander in the new dog's direction, <treat/treat> and continue. We may stop a moment just to watch other dog. "Nice dog," I'll say. <treat/treat>. And then perhaps that will be enough, so we turn around and go back to where we started.

Or, perhaps a strange dog wants to come to say hello. Okay, not a big deal. I always have a jacket pocketful of dog cookies treats, such as broken Milkbone treats, to toss to a strange dog. It's quite amazing how quickly a strange dog can forget all about sniffing both ends of my dog when I have cookies to deliver all around. And then I can chalk that up as one more successful experience at meeting a strange dog.

Suddenly, the whole notion of *strange dog/other dog* becomes something not to fear but perhaps, instead, seeing strange dog becomes predictive of the food-delivery system, and then everyone feels good about it. I'm not suggesting for one moment that we'll bring about an emotional change with one such practice. Not at all.

I look for such opportunities constantly, and I try to find at least three new distractions a day while training to help the student dog progress beyond that little plateau where he may be stuck at the moment.

It is the trainer William A. Campbell to whom we attribute the suggestion to use 'the jolly routine' when meeting other dogs. That's within the owner's power. Think, "No problem. No problem, at all." Be matter of fact. Project confidence. Project the emotion you want your dog to experience.  That requires some thinking about in advance and then a little determination to carry through. If we can work to change our own behaviors when meeting other dogs, that will go a long, long ways to helping our dogs to relax and simply accept that other dogs are part of the environment. No big deal at all.

© 2002 Barbara D. Brill, North Chili, NY. All rights preserved. No further reproduction without express written consent.