The Hardest Dog I've Trained

I’ve worked with a few particularly challenging dogs in the past six years. Today, I want to share about one dog in particular.

I met this dog (we’ll call him Danny) and his family in 2018. The primary behavior problem was his reactivity. When he saw other dogs during walks he would bark, pull on the leash, whine and was generally hard to control. They’d had him for about a year and a half when we started training.

His family diligently worked through a series of in-home sessions with me, and although they saw improvement in the other areas we also addressed, his reactivity progress seemed to plateau. I’ve had several opportunities to work one-on-one with him since then, and Danny is definitely a tough nut to crack!

What made him so challenging?

Intense distraction. Forget the dogs. Danny was extremely distracted by the outdoors itself—even without any other dogs or people present. He was so preoccupied with the environment that getting even basic behaviors from him took a TREMENDOUS amount of effort (if I could get them at all).
We often talk about gradually making things more challenging for the dog in training, but Danny needed a whole other level of “gradual” in order to make progress and be successful.

Lacking enthusiasm. Although Danny enjoyed treats, he wasn’t always enthusiastic about training—even indoors. If the dog isn’t interested in working with me indoors, he probably isn’t going to be interested in working with me outdoors. For reactive dogs, that must be fixed before we can expect to succeed on a walk.

Progress. Danny stands out because of how little progress he made in proportion to our efforts to change his behavior. Despite dedicated practice with his owners, and multiple opportunities to work one-on-one with me, Danny could not seem to succeed outside the house.

The Prognosis

So what can be done for Danny and other dogs like him? Is their behavior just hopeless? Did my training techniques just not work for dogs like him?

In Danny’s case I recommended his family talk with their vet about anxiety medication. Having actually worked with Danny myself, I knew the problem wasn’t primarily with how the family was practicing; I’m the professional and can implement the protocols exactly as instructed.
But if the problem isn’t the implementation, doesn’t that mean Danny’s lack of progress was tied to the techniques themselves? How does limited progress with correct practice lead to medication as a next step instead of a different technique?

For Danny, as with all dogs, we look at the big picture. Danny was an anxious dog. His family reported it, his response to the training indicated it, and I saw it when I did take him out for a walk. We weren’t talking about a generally comfortable dog who struggled in just this one area.

Although there is always something more to learn about training and a new technique or modification to try, the techniques I was using with Danny were pretty elementary and have been used with other dogs to effect prior to and since his case. What new techniques I’ve learned since then I would love to try with him now, but I wouldn’t be surprised if we encountered more of the same.

Danny’s ultimate problem was that his acute preoccupation with the outdoors got in the way of him learning what we were desperate to teach.