Not surprisingly, I’ve had my share of car chasers and stalkers. You can say that’s part of fostering Border Collies. The two in the video posted below were what I call “suicidal car chasers”. If they weren’t leashed, they would more than likely chase cars and get killed.
It is possible, considering they have survived to this point, that they have learned not to get hit, but I would rather not find out! In my experiences, they also tend to be reactive in general; cars, bikes, people, joggers, and other dogs. There are other ways to modify car chasing but I like to use clicker/food to start with. It marks the precise moment with a distinctive and loud sound in a mechanical way. Some do not like to use clicker BECAUSE they say it is too “mechanical” and non-emotional. It can be but I actually like that about clicker when I’m working with highly aroused/obsessive Border Collies. One thing I don’t recommend is to use force, pain, shock, or any type of physical punishment. You can either make the issue worse or potentially make the dog fearful of cars in general…or you.
Here are few tips.
- Determine the threshold so that you can work under it. You want to prevent the dog from rehearsing the behavior. By the way, I always get “baseline” videos of my foster dogs because I want the adopters to be aware of the issues the dogs have/had. Once I get the baseline video, I don’t put the dogs in the situation again.
- Build a solid and positive relationship before working on the issues.
- Find out what motivates the dog and increase it so that you can use it to reward him. I prefer to use high value food at first. You can get more repetitions when you reward with food. Forget about using just praise, your reward must be way higher than what he’s obsessed with. You have two choices: Use an extreme punishment to stop the chasing or an extreme reward to get another behavior. Which one do you and your dog prefer??
- Minimize his exposure to the stimuli unless you are training. Cover the windows, walk him when it’s quiet, drive to a different neighborhood if your area is too busy.
- Distance Distance Distance! If your dog reacts at 50 yards, start at 70 yards. If your driveway is not long enough, work him behind a barrier to eliminate the visual stimulation. With one of my car chasers, I started out by placing him in the house, behind the front door where he couldn’t see the cars but could hear them.
Remember, if your dog is already barking or spinning, YOU are setting him up for failure. Each time you put him in a situation where he gets to react, then you are strengthening the behavior. Work with him at the level where you don’t have to tighten the leash, jerk the collar or yell at the dog. Watch the video above and see how secure but relaxed my leash is in the last half.
Bordernerd 