Recommend a behaviourist for a new rescue dog?

[Levithecat]

Can anyone recommend someone to do an online session with us, but also my wider family, before our rescues arrive? My parents, sister and I are all rescuing from Cyprus - we don’t live together but are within a few miles of each other and our dogs will be travelling together. We have all owned rescues before, but never had them arriving new together. My boy (a golden retriever mix) is 6mo and in a foster home. my parents and sister’s dogs are older and have been in kennels together - one is very nervous (lab) and one is very dominant (husky). They have had an altercation in the past.

I thought it might be helpful for us each to speak with a behaviourist before they arrive individually, then have a group session about when / how to introduce them to one another, and deal with any issues between the two older dogs. Ideally we’d like to be able to walk them together, have them stay if someone’s away etc. They have all had trauma in their lives.

Given lockdown we can look nationally, and I’d like someone who has experience of rescue pups, uses only positive methods but not relying on reward/food based.

Thanks in advance

My title should read ‘new rescue dogs’!

I'd definitely pick someone near to your local area. A lot of work can be done outside, between and together with the dogs, and it's much more effective than zoom if your dog can react to the trainer and read their body language.

What area are you based?

If you are nearby, I recommend ‘Suppawt’, they specialise in rescue dogs.

Thank you both so much. We’re near Bath (S.West). I’m also looking at books etc but think some 121/group work would be really beneficial.

Sadly nowhere near Suppawt, Archer!

Look for someone APBC or CCAB accredited - there are lists on the APBC and ASAB websites.

There's a number of good behaviourists in the Bristol area - Clair Hickson, Ros Pooley, Michelle Lord and Rosie Bescoby spring to mind - but I don't know which of those cover Bath.

Thank you Avocado - really appreciate some specific recommendations. I’ll check out the websites too.

Does the rescue not have recommendations specific for foreign rescue dogs? The vet you register them with may well be able to refer you to a good reputable behaviourists also.

But yes, they MUST be accredited as Avocado mentions.

Hi, try Facebook dog training advice and support. They have units on introducing rescue dogs, dealing with dog:dog aggression, anxiety, mixing etc etc. How where you planning to deal with training if not by using food? They will be traumatised by the move and new environment and shut down for a number of weeks if not months. I don't think I'd try to mix them before they are all settled and secure. If the husky and retriever have already been fighting they may never be ready to be friends. Sorry I've no advice on local to Bath trainers / behaviourists . Good luck.

Thanks all - I’m looking at the accredited trainers now.

Thanks for the suggestion of that Facebook group, Forest. I may be wrong, but I got the impression that training only with food as a reward could be problematic, or maybe it’s the bribery issue, eg using food to force a dog to do something that is uncomfortable for it, which can be common. I was reading some things about looking more widely than treats to reward and I suppose a bit of me thought that a trainer that only looked at using treats may not be thinking about the dog holistically.

I’ve only ever had rescues and I’m familiar with their need to decompress in the first week/s, be very shut down etc. Just in the long term we’d like to be able to socialise them together. It’s my sister and parents’ dogs that have had an issue in the past, but the rescue has described this in the context of a difficult time for the husky (an alpha), where she had been moved in and out of a number of homes. I’m hoping with consistency and a calm home as the only dog with my sis, she’ll learn to get on with the other dog who is very nervous.

I get what you mean about the food - if they are taking the bribe, but are actually over threshold then that will be detrimental. 'modern' dog training doesn't really subscribe to the alpha theory . There's also a Facebook group called beyond the bowl canine enrichment which has loads of ideas for outside the box (and quite often inside the box ) activities.

I would look in your local area for "qualified" behaviourist. Make sure their website lists their qualifications and google them.

Reward based training is really just about finding what motivates a dog, and working with that as a tool. Most dogs are motivated by food, and that tends to be the go-to for that reason, but others are motivated by things like toys or being stroked.

In the case of my own dog, he's so highly ball / fetch fixated that he can't be trained with one, because he just can't think about anything other than the ball. He even struggles with a sit if he thinks a ball might be thrown . So, we normally train with treats. However, it's a hugely interactive activity. So, when he developed a strong dislike of visitors, following a house move, our behaviourist was able to use balls and games of fetch with visitors to teach him that visitors = fetch = the best thing in the world. We've been a bit short of visitors for the last year, so this morning a slightly bemused tradesman was made to play fetch with the dog before he did the work, just so DDog doesn't go back to his old ways .

You're right that you don't want to push a dog into doing something they're not comfortable with. For instance, if the dog found bicycles scary, the worst thing to do would be to try and lure the dog closer to the bicycles using treats. A much better thing to do would be to teach the dog a "this way" command, and reward the dog for walking away from the scary thing, and staying under threshold. DDog is still fundamentally a bit worried about his biggest trigger - one that caused him to redirect bites onto my lower legs on several occasions - but now sees his trigger and looks at me because he knows a treat is coming his way (again, spotting trigger = food = good thing).

Any APBC / CCAB qualified behaviourist will be looking at your dog holistically - they're highly trained in dog body language. It's worth doing some reading up on dog body language - when I was a child (in the 90s, I'm not ancient!) none of this was ever talked about, nothing less than a growl was recognised, and people thought that a wagging tail always means a happy dog. This isn't a bad little video - it was made by one of the Bristol behaviourists I mentioned upthread

Just to pick up on your mention of 'alpha' - this is a theory that has been pretty widely debunked nowadays. The original theory was based on observations of a wolf pack (i.e. different species), in a zoo (unnatural environment), and they were essentially a random group of adults sharing a space, rather than the family groupings you'd get in the wild (which created a lot of tension and discord). A similar example would be trying to understand chimpanzee behaviour based on observations of adult male prisoners... I believe the person who did the original wolf-alpha-dominance research later said he regretted it. This isn't a bad little article on the topic www.whole-dog-journal.com/behavior/debunking-the-alpha-dog-theory/

Thanks so much for all this info!
I really appreciate it. Have joined those FB groups.

Really interesting to hear about the alpha theory stuff - totally makes sense. That’s the term the shelter used for the Husky but I’ll talk to my sister about not labelling her with that title.

Funnily enough I watched that video earlier today, Avocado - think someone mentioned it on another thread. Was fascinating. Feels like things have moved much more towards observing your dogs own unique expressions etc.

The Alpha theory in dogs is debunked dogs are a different species to wolves entirely. Huskies are not wolves. Wolves are completely different to dogs behaviour wise.