Damaged: Helping A Dog With PTSD: Keeping Dogs Safe, #2

By Jamie Robinson

For the last 15 years, I've been mostly training Service Dogs.  I started training Service Dogs because I was getting a lot of clients with Service Dogs who were reactive, fearful, and even aggressive.  This was mostly before the Medical Alert and Psychiatric Service Dogs were being trained.

 

So most of the dogs I was helping to empower were Guide Dogs, Hearing Dogs and basic Assistance and Mobility Dogs.  There were a few trainers like me that started training service dogs at about the same time.  But mostly, Service Dogs came from large programs that survived on donations and bred their own dogs.

When one of their dogs developed behavior issues for whatever reason, the programs offered to replace the dog.  They had either no interest in rehabilitating the dog or possibly didn't know how.  Whatever the reason, their clients didn't want to surrender their Service Dog, they just wanted it fixed.  Hence the number of people who started coming to me.  At that time, I did mostly behavior training and empowerment training.

 

So, I started training service dogs knowing I could do it in such a way that it would be unlikely for each dog to develop behavior issues.  What I didn't count on was the "fakes" that started showing up a few years later.  Those dogs who are untrained, most likely excited, frustrated or reactive, that people who feel entitled are treating as though they were highly trained Service Dogs and taking them into public spaces.

 

This means that legitimate teams are having to deal with being charged at, lunged at, barked at, snapped at, and even attacked by these untrained dogs.  Both the Service Dog and the handler are affected. It can even cause PTSD in one or both when entering public places.

 

In a dog, PTSD often exhibits as reactivity and aggression.  This is mostly a means to either scare other dogs away or make them go away.

 

So here in this book is how I rehab a dog who has had a traumatic experience and is now reacting adversely to the triggers that predict that experience occurring again.  It doesn't matter whether that dog is a Service Dog, a Therapy Dog, or a Pet Dog, this program works and has been in use by me and my clients for 20 years.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Jamie Robinson
• Release date: Nov 25, 2023
• ISBN: 9798215428528

Jamie Robinson

These words from a client and good friend, tell it all. I don't do this often but now that I know my friend has this on Amazon - would like to recommend her to you. She had years of experience in training animals but mostly dogs. She started specializing in service dogs several years ago. Her method (non aversive and reward based) had proven successful for those who do the work consistently and well.  Jamie does not just train dogs - she teaches them (and you) how to think things through. She became known internationally as being the first successful trainer for people with MCAS (Mast Cell Activation Syndrome), allowing them to lead a more normal life.  But whatever your specific needs are - she probably has a program designed to help you. If not - she can create it designed to your specific needs. I have a few years of personal experience with her training via foster dogs, and then my own service dog and during this training we became friends.

Book preview

Damaged: helping a dog with ptsd

How to help your dog recover from attack or harassment.

Contents

Empowering Your Dog

Empowerment Training

Reading Materials

Change Is Expected

Observing The Obvious

Beyond Patience

Seeking Perfection

Choice training

The Extinction Burst

Body Language Skills

Dogs With PTSD

Types of Canine PTSD

Single Instance Learning

Identifying Stress in Your Service Dog

Thresholds and Trigger Stacking

Threshold

Trigger stacking

Consult Your Dog at Every Step

Moving and Playing

What is stress?

How does a dog respond to stress?

Effects of stress overload

Learn how to manage stress.

Focus, Engagement and Attention

Focus

Engagement

What Is Engagement

Creating Attention

The Effect of Criteria:

How Does Focus Affect a Dog’s World

Why Dogs Choose Distractions Over You

The Effect of Timing:

Why Is Your Dog Unfocused

Understanding how your dog feels the world.

How to Relax Your Dog.

Are You The Cookie?

Focus Games Set 1

Look Up Here

Look Over Here

Come Around and Look

Focus Games Set 2

Counting steps

Reverse Heeling

Moving Focus

Focus Games Set 3

Chasing Food

Chasing Patterns

Moving Positions

Focus Games Set 4

Ten Step Focus Game

Mat Training Focus Game

Object Focus Game

Follow the Yellow Brick Road Focus Game

Focus Games Set 5

Back and Forth Focus Game

Counting for Focus Game

Four Hands Focus Game

Go Over There Focus Game

Handling Arousal

Find The Triggers

Control It

Follow the Bouncing Ball

Fast and Furious Fingers

Ask Permission

Go Wild and Freeze

Pop-Up Game

Targeting

Chase My Hand

Hand Touch

Touch and Go

Touch and Hold

Stick To The Hand

Paw Target

Hold The Wall

Confidence Building

Interest and Attention

Please Don't Hide, Handling Introversion

Copy That

Step Over Down

Walk In Patterns

Stop!

Think It Through

Follow The Hand

Bop The Hand

1000 Words of Please

Visual and Auditory Targeting

Look At That

Look and Walk Away

Watch That

Do You See That

Where’s That Sound?

I Can Make Sounds!

Noises On Off

Similarities and Differences

This is a game for humans.

Find Something Similar

What is object recognition?

Name That

Watch That

Do You See That Part II

Why Is That Table In My Way

Walk In Patterns

Handling Objects

Stomp It

Smack It

Knock It Down

Whack It From The Sky

I’m Diggin It

Digging Chores

Box In A Box

The Den

A Room For Every Behavior

EXAMPLES:

Leash Handling Skills

Concentration Skills and Stress

The following are signs that you could be mishandling the leash:

Tools Required For Leash Walking

Equipment that is not needed

Leash Walking Skills

Moving Through The Environment Calmly

Walk About

What’s Up Ahead

Game 1: Race to the end

Game 2: Go on cue

Game 3:  Drunkard’s Run

Game 4:  Into the woods

Emergency Behaviors

Four Steps To an Emergency Distance Sit/Stay

Place

Door Bell Dash

Elvis Has Left The Building

A Line In The Sand

Canine Game Theory

Play Training

What Is a Game

Cooperation

Quantifiable

Challenge

Rules

Goal

Purpose

Intention

Focus

Structured Games

How To Play These Games

Tools of the Trade - Equipment Makes a Difference

The Function of Play

Why Play?

Why Do We Focus On Play

Play As Reinforcement

Naked Play

Object Play:

Food Play

Quiet Play

Social Play

Shaping With Markers

Capturing A Behavior

Shaping With Games

The Goal of Shaping

Timing, criteria and reinforcement are critical in marker shaping

Timing, criteria and reinforcement while shaping with games.

How Shaping with Games Differs

The Legal Stuff

Informed consent

Our Guarantee

Copyrights

Empowering Your Dog

For the last 15 years, I’ve been mostly training Service Dogs.  I started training Service Dogs because I was getting a lot of clients with Service Dogs who were reactive, fearful, and even aggressive.  This was mostly before the Medical Alert and Psychiatric Service Dogs were being trained.

So most of the dogs I was helping to empower were Guide Dogs, Hearing Dogs and basic Assistance and Mobility Dogs.  There were a few trainers like me that started training service dogs at about the same time.  But mostly, Service Dogs came from large programs that survived on donations and bred their own dogs.

When one of their dogs developed behavior issues for whatever reason, the programs offered to replace the dog.  They had either no interest in rehabilitating the dog or possibly didn’t know how.  Whatever the reason, their clients didn’t want to surrender their Service Dog, they just wanted it fixed.  Hence the number of people who started coming to me.  At that time, I did mostly behavior training and empowerment training.

So, I started training service dogs knowing I could do it in such a way that it would be unlikely for each dog to develop behavior issues.  What I didn’t count on was the fakes that started showing up a few years later.  Those dogs who are untrained, most likely excited, frustrated or reactive, that people who feel entitled are treating as though they were highly trained Service Dogs and taking them into public spaces.

This means that legitimate teams are having to deal with being charged at, lunged at, barked at, snapped at, and even attacked by these untrained dogs.  Both the Service Dog and the handler are affected. It can even cause PTSD in one or both when entering public places.

In a dog, PTSD often exhibits as reactivity and aggression.  This is mostly a means to either scare other dogs away or make them go away.

So here in this book is how I rehab a dog who has had a traumatic experience and is now reacting adversely to the triggers that predict that experience occurring again.  It doesn’t matter whether that dog is a Service Dog, a Therapy Dog, or a Pet Dog, this program works and has been in use by me and my clients for 20 years.

Empowerment Training

Empowerment training is about showing our dogs that the environment is something they can affect and control.  Most training is about instilling control onto our dogs instead of showing them how to have self-control and understanding.  Without self-control, a dog can never truly be aware of his environment or fully socialized.  Socialization has more to do with the environment than it does with people and other dogs.

In this class you will be establishing a history of reinforcement for choice, understanding, decisions and willingness to operate on the environment and the objects in it.

According to James O’Heare, to empower a dog you must teach him industriousness, persistence, resilience and creativity. 

Industriousness means that the dog is willing to work; industriousness is also the willingness and ability to engage with not only the human involved but the environment itself.  Industriousness also means to work hard and steadily, mostly ignoring distractions or finding that the work itself is more rewarding. This is the basis behind engagement with the human handler and without it, engagement is improbable.

Persistence is basically not giving up if the goal is attainable.  Persistence is that quality that allows someone to continue doing something or trying to do something even though it is difficult or opposed by others. Persistence contains with it the ability to continue even though the motivators have disappeared.  The goal and the rewards inherent in reaching the goal are important enough that there is no need for continued motivation.

Creativity is a phenomenon whereby something new and somehow valuable is formed. Creativity for our dogs can best be expressed as problem solving.  Namely, how your dog responds to problems and new situations. Response to problems usually takes on one of three ways: reaction, surrender, invent. React and your dog is basically shutting down and letting motor patterns take over. Your dog is literally turning off the range of possibilities and perception s/he would normally have. Surrendering to defeat is also a shut down. Surrendering disempowers your dog from her capacity to solve problems.

Creativity is nurtured by freedom and stifled by the continuous commands, labeling of behavior, the necessity for human direction, and pressure to conform to an ideal that has little to do with the reality that is a dog and that restrict most dogs lives whether they are working, sporting or just pet dogs.  In the real world few questions have one right answer; few problems have one right solution; that’s why creativity is crucial to helping our dogs live in our world with our rules. 

Resilience was defined by most as the ability to recover from setbacks, adapt well to change, and keep going in the face of adversity.

Resilience is a dog's intensity of response to environmental stimuli and their recovery time. A dog with a lot of resilience won't be as affected by trauma and will bounce back faster. Resilience requires: Sense of safety and security - reduce sensory overload, audible, visual, and olfactory stimulation.

Like any other training, first we will ensure that your dog’s basic needs are being met.  Those needs are the physical ones of food, water, medical attention if necessary, exercise, play and mental challenge. During this phase of empowerment training there should be no punishment, no intimidation, no pain or discomfort and as little fear inducing experiences as possible.  Whether your dog is a senior, an adult or a puppy, this phase is what socialization should have been and will reintroduce the dog to viewing all environments as pleasurable.

This phase should last for a couple of weeks at minimum and should be done before you start the training part of this class.  Your dog should be interested in playing before moving forward from this phase.  Any and all medical issues should be dealt with, and a program at least started on any issues found by your vet.

Phase two is reintroducing already known behaviors like sit and down.  In many cases this requires different cues and hugely different methods of teaching.  As in the beginning phase there should be only positive experiences, lots of reinforcement, consistency, and making sure that the dog does not become overwhelmed with new behaviors or hours of training.  Doing no more than 5-minute training sessions is hugely important in this phase.  Each known behavior should be worked on for several days before asking for a different behavior.  This is to ensure that your dog is comfortable learning new things and old things in new ways and starts understanding that s/he has a voice in this endeavor.

Phase 3 is about persistence which according to James O’Heare is to inoculate the dog against and rehabilitate depressed responding and learn to tolerate and overcome frustration.  Depressed responding is sometimes referred to as learned helplessness.  Depressed response happens because of an inability to choose or being overwhelmed with choice.  When one loses the power to choose they become subjugated to the control of others. Losing the power to choose, one becomes the slave of that which stops them from making choices of their own volition.

This phase teaches escape and avoidance behaviors and how to choose between them based on circumstances.  Coping behaviors are also taught in this phase that are different than the behaviors the dog is currently using to deal with life.  Choice and the ability to decide are slowly and quietly introduced as games with rewards of varying value to the dog. Safety signals and behaviors are also taught so that the dog can always choose to inform the handler that s/he can’t make a decision at this moment.  These signals and behaviors allow the dog to rest and recuperate.

Phase 6 is about industry.  Because industriousness includes the work being as rewarding to the dog as any additional rewards we might offer, this phase teaches the dog that work is play and play is work. The dog must choose to work with us continuously and despite outside distractions.  Having learned about choice in previous phases, choice is the most important concept of this phase.  You will be giving your dog many situations where choice is necessary to achieve reinforcement and allowing your dog to solve the problems in these situations his way.

Phase 7 is about creativity and experimental behavior.  You will be watching for and reinforcing novel responses to known and new situations and behavior chains.  This phase utilizes free shaping, mimicry and shaping with games exclusively as these are the methods that allow a dog to express his own personality, his own viewpoint and bring to the tasks he is given his ability to create new scenarios.

Phase 8 moves us to real life.  Once you have ensured a strong history of reinforcement, motivators, play, choice, and creativity, you will be taking your dog out to gradually expose her to environmental stimuli.  What you will be looking for is creativity, industriousness, and persistence in both non – aversive and aversive stimuli.  You will be reinforcing creativity and problem solving in coping with aversive stimuli; reinforcing industriousness in using escape and coping behaviors; and reinforcing persistence in maintaining calm and focus on the tasks given as well as continued engagement with you.

Reading Materials

Change Is Expected

Over the years that I have worked with dogs and their owners, I have often been amazed at how some people can make the simplest instructions into an entire discourse on complexity. Most trainers that have noted similar occurrences can readily identify certain factors. These factors include: the owner did not follow through with the instructions they were given; there was an alteration in the application of the instructions; and some pieces of the instructions were dropped out and other pieces added that didn’t belong. The question I always ask myself is why do some people do this? Might it be something other than they simply didn’t understand the instruction?

Often issues that have been identified as training issues are in fact much more than that. In these cases, simply focusing on the dog and his behavior can lead to a less than accurate understanding of the problem. In my experience, most behavior problems are not so much training problems as they are relationship problems, and they seem to be the result of the owner somehow placing their own anxieties or phobias on the dog. The resulting problem behavior that we see is often the dog's response to these emotional issues: a reflection of the human.

One possible indication that the training process is touching something personal with the human is continued resistance to any suggestions to change the way the human responds to the dog. Change is not something most people, most creatures, like to deal with. People become heavily invested in maintaining their current life situation and despite protestations to the contrary, do not want anything to really change with their dog. Sometimes the dog becomes a crutch for the human or a prop in the human’s life instead of a companion. Too many times, in doing a board and train with a dog, nothing of the issues manifests