Whippy's fear aggression has been getting worse as rapidly as the weather has been getting nicer. Last week I could not let her off lead as she became skittish off lead as well as twice as aggressive on lead.
BAT was not working, when we'd turn the other dog would follow us 9 times out of 10, so she was not getting rewarded. We tried sticking to on lead areas, but would still meet dogs on flexi leads and dogs off lead
We tried just roaming the streets but never saw enough dogs to practise BAT on.
This came to head last week when I completely and utterly exploded at a particularly annoying spaniel owner
and ended up making a show of myself.
The next day I simply could not cope with taking Whippy on her usual, long walk, so I took her with the greyhound, who has shorter walks. I noticed she was marginally calmer when walking with him, so lengthened his walks to match Whippy's usual walk time and walked them together.
What used to happen when she walked with Devil Dog, is that I'd push Devil Dog forward/or release him while we did our BAT retreat, to greet any errant dogs whilst trying to control Whippy and body block the other dog/s from greeting her. Devil Dog on greeting the strange dogs would be a bit "omigod, it's so great to see you, I'm so happy, this is the best day of my life, evah, let's have a bouncing competition, quick, let's run madly in circles and bark with glee at each other" all of this did little to calm Whippy.
I still use the same trick of pushing the Grey to the front to meet any loose dogs, but his reaction is more "Hmm, so you want to sniff me, well okay, I suppose, I'll just be licking this grass here. Oh, you want to dry hump my leg? Well, I guess that's okay, I'll just have a little sniff over here. Bouncing? Me?!? No, that requires energy and I need all of my energy for sleeping" This inevitably calms the strange dogs and oddly keeps them much more engrossed in the grey and less likely to pester Whippy. Whippy stays much calmer and has even stopped the mini beast act, for the main part.
Today she only barked at 2 out every 10 dogs we passed. She's far from cured, she's still very tense when passing other dogs but is much calmer.
A few times she even moved closer to the strange dogs, but soon backed off when they noticed her.
At the very end of our walk we met a very impolite JRT. It was a JRT who attacked her and caused all of this. I was certain she'd do her usual snarling mini beast act when it got closer but she didn't instead she watched it sniffing the grey. She was tense and it got a "Fuck off and stay away" snarl when it tried to get closer to her, but no frothing mini beast.
Is this just the wee bits of training we have managed finally kicking in or is the grey's calm, confidence rubbing off on her?