Sounds interesting Mark. What's her method?
All in good time
If a dog is dog reactive, in the past we would try to change the emotional response by classical conditioning and pairing the scary dog with a high value reinforcer such as food which takes time by teaching the dog to look at the scary dog then look back at you for a reward.
When a dog is fearful of another dog what do you think the greatest reward would be??
The way Kelly put it I thought was brilliant.
If you and a friend were in a sweet shop and had bought chocolates when all of a sudden a masked raider breaks in to the shop wielding a gun or knife what would you want? Your friend feeding you another chocolate?
The most reinforcing thing in this situation would be distance between you and the mad man.
It's the same for a fearful dog, what he wants the most is for the other dog to go away.
Kelly exposes the dog to what it finds scary and if the dog aggresses the scary person stays right there, but if the dog offers another behaviour other than the aggressive response then the scary person or dog turns and puts distance between the dog and them reinforcing the non aggressive behaviour.
This is a form of negative reinforcement, but done in a way so not to expose the dog to prolonged stress.
Does it make sense?
