{"id":3891,"date":"2021-12-21T06:56:12","date_gmt":"2021-12-21T12:56:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/petpundit.com\/?p=3891"},"modified":"2021-12-21T06:56:12","modified_gmt":"2021-12-21T12:56:12","slug":"teaching-a-dog-reactive-dog-not-to-react-to-other-dogs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cathyrosenthal.com\/blog\/2021\/12\/21\/teaching-a-dog-reactive-dog-not-to-react-to-other-dogs\/","title":{"rendered":"Teaching a dog-reactive dog not to react to other dogs"},"content":{"rendered":"

Dear Cathy,<\/span><\/p>\n

My daughter recently bought a three-year-old French Bulldog from a breeder who did not provide all the information about the dog. Our main concern is the dog is not friendly to other dogs and starts to bark and appears to want to attack the other dogs. Is there any way of training our dog out of this habit?<\/span><\/p>\n

Another concern is the dog doesn\u2019t appear to know its name (Millie) and doesn\u2019t appear to react to noise. We think the dog may be deaf. My daughter\u2019s vet said it is hard to test a dog for hearing. Just wondering if you had any thoughts on this problem.<\/span><\/p>\n

Lastly, the dog is stubborn and just wondering if this is a natural trait of French Bulldogs or just Millie? <\/span><\/p>\n

— Stephen, Valley Stream, New York<\/span><\/p>\n

Dear Stephen,<\/span><\/p>\n

I view dogs as individuals and not by their breeds, so let\u2019s go with it\u2019s \u201cjust Millie,\u201d when it comes to personality traits. Just in case her \u201cstubbornness,\u201d however, is related to hearing loss, <\/span>b<\/span>egin training her with hand signals. You can make up your own hand signals for each command, and then pair them with verbal commands, in case she can still hear. If she can\u2019t hear, hand signals will make learning go quicker.<\/span><\/p>\n

If Millie is not friendly to other dogs, it\u2019s likely she was not well socialized as a puppy with other good-natured dogs who could have helped her learn appropriate social cues. Because there are many dogs like this now, some communities have \u201cGrowl\u201d classes for dog-aggressive dogs. These classes retrain your dog by exposing them to other dogs and rewarding them for good behavior.<\/span><\/p>\n

If you can\u2019t find any classes like this in your area, basic obedience classes can help too. The more a dog learns to respond to a \u201csit-stay\u201d command, for example, the more likely she will \u201csit-stay\u201d on command when a dog is walking by you on the street.<\/span><\/p>\n

Street passes are an important place for Millie to learn nonreactive behavior. During dog walks, give her high value treats whenever another dog passes, keeping her on the opposite side of the street as the passing dog.\u00a0 These treats teach her that when other dogs are present good things happen. Repeating this practice every day will help Millie learn that dogs passing by are not to be feared but welcomed.<\/span><\/p>\n

C<\/span>athy M. Rosenthal is a longtime animal advocate, author, columnist and pet expert who has more than 25 years in the animal welfare field. Send your pet questions, stories and tips to <\/span><\/i>cathy@petpundit.com<\/span><\/i><\/a>. Please include your name, city, and state. You can follow her @cathymrosenthal<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Dear Cathy, My daughter recently bought a three-year-old French Bulldog from a breeder who did not provide all the information […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[51,248],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cathyrosenthal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3891"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cathyrosenthal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cathyrosenthal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cathyrosenthal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cathyrosenthal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3891"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/cathyrosenthal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3891\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cathyrosenthal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3891"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cathyrosenthal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3891"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cathyrosenthal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3891"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}