Car Chasers, Anyone Got One?

[BMAK]

(not my dog) but this working dog loves to try to chase cars on lead. he is not allowed offlead in fear he will go after the cars he is a new dog and is about 5 m.o..

how do you stop/influence this behaviour?

[W Sibs]

I will get a trainer/behaviourist to have a look.

[kelpiekaye]

Its the dogs herding instinct coming into play. My girl used to try and chase cars when I took her for a walk. I told her off, distracted her and sat in areas of heavy traffic till she got used to it. She stopped doing it. Channel the energy into something else more acceptable.

[Pretty Miss Emma]

I have a car/bus/bike/runner/etc chaser!! It's a bit of a working dog thing I think (not to say they all do it, but it seems at some point they all have a go!!).

There is absolutely no way known that I will let Kenzie off lead where there are things I know she will chase and lets be honest her life is still perfectly fine like that! She gets plenty of exercise and mental stimulation. So my first thing would be to reinforce it is not essential for a dog to go off lead, it is ideal if you can WORK with the dog off lead but not essential.

Anyway, that's a bit off track.

I've recently had an immense amount of success in a very very short time frame with the "Look at that" game from Control Unleashed. Kenzie is a pretty soft dog so punishment is really not good for her, plus I'm more interested in trying to reward her for good before resorting to punishment. So the look at that game is rewarding her for looking at something before she has a chance to react to it. So she looks at something (eg. car) and I bridge and reward her immediately, as a result of hearing her bridge word she looks at me to get the reward, thus breaking her attention on the "trigger" and redirecting it to me.

The day we started playing it I instantly saw improvement. Yay!!! We've now been doing it for a bit and when a car goes past she watches it and then instantly looks up to me. I'm very happy with this! I know it is not an instant fix, it something that you have to keep working on forever (the level you work at it would obviously change, but as with all training they need reminders every so often). But I'm finding it is a fun way to get rid of this undesirable behaviour, it makes me calmer, Kenzie thinks it's a great game and it's working for us!

There's a lot more to it than the little description I gave here, but that is the basics of it!!

[sparkycat]

I have a friend with a kelpie that chases trains ! she has to be very careful to check the timetables

[Jigsaw]

Traffic, moving cars, bikes, motorbikes etc can be visually stimulating to the dog and the urge to chase can kick in (herd). Working at a distance from the moving vehicles where the dog can focus on the handler is where I usually start. I've found that with some dogs they will still accept food but it is not really working as a reinforcement for the behaviour you're asking, just an interruption in their fixating on the car, it's a fine line sometimes with a few variables. I also like to increase the value of the owner to the dog through building on the relationship with games and looking at the reinforcement history between owner and dog.

Well done PME on working with your dog and finding a something that works for you and makes you feel in more control. "Control Unleashed" is a great book. The "look at that" game can work well for this type of thing but you still need to start it in a low distraction environment.

[JoeK]

I have a car/bus/bike/runner/etc chaser!! It's a bit of a working dog thing I think (not to say they all do it, but it seems at some point they all have a go!!).

There is absolutely no way known that I will let Kenzie off lead where there are things I know she will chase and lets be honest her life is still perfectly fine like that! She gets plenty of exercise and mental stimulation. So my first thing would be to reinforce it is not essential for a dog to go off lead, it is ideal if you can WORK with the dog off lead but not essential.

Anyway, that's a bit off track.

I've recently had an immense amount of success in a very very short time frame with the "Look at that" game from Control Unleashed. Kenzie is a pretty soft dog so punishment is really not good for her, plus I'm more interested in trying to reward her for good before resorting to punishment. So the look at that game is rewarding her for looking at something before she has a chance to react to it. So she looks at something (eg. car) and I bridge and reward her immediately, as a result of hearing her bridge word she looks at me to get the reward, thus breaking her attention on the "trigger" and redirecting it to me.

The day we started playing it I instantly saw improvement. Yay!!! We've now been doing it for a bit and when a car goes past she watches it and then instantly looks up to me. I'm very happy with this! I know it is not an instant fix, it something that you have to keep working on forever (the level you work at it would obviously change, but as with all training they need reminders every so often). But I'm finding it is a fun way to get rid of this undesirable behaviour, it makes me calmer, Kenzie thinks it's a great game and it's working for us!

There's a lot more to it than the little description I gave here, but that is the basics of it!!

This is good example of fallout on reality the dog owners getting from the treat trainers scare everyone talking bull. Soft dog is good becuase on soft dog it only taking small punishment for consequence to happen for the chasing behavior, is hard dog that needing big correction and harsh punishment for consequencing so is stupid advice in the training to saying soft dog is no good for the punishment, soft dog works best on the punishment becuase you only needing soft correction for the soft dog, yes.

Is ok for using redirect exercise to manage the chasing but without consequence will never fix the behavior on the reliable becuase redirecting never teaching the dog chasing is bad and when he think chasing is better than looking for treat, he shoot off and chase, so better he never off leash. Redirect can work on dog with little bit of chase in the gene, but big chase in the gene of the dog on high driving is not fixed without the consequence is not happening.

[Shaar]

Yes

Only mine is racist... he only chases white cars.

Youtube - Brody chasing cars

Edit - By the way this is a fully fenced dog park! I wouldn't let him near the road off leash.

Edited June 3, 2011 by Shaar

[corvus]

I've recently had an immense amount of success in a very very short time frame with the "Look at that" game from Control Unleashed.

So has everyone else. I used it to get my friendly dog to stop his frustration lunging when he saw another dog on leash. It worked very well. I still use it occasionally, but haven't had him lunging at all since I started using it.

[Agility Dogs]

I've recently had an immense amount of success in a very very short time frame with the "Look at that" game from Control Unleashed.

So has everyone else. I used it to get my friendly dog to stop his frustration lunging when he saw another dog on leash. It worked very well. I still use it occasionally, but haven't had him lunging at all since I started using it.

I haven't ever read the control unleashed, but from what I gather we use something similar. Went from having a MANIC car chaser (on lead) to having a dog who now looks at me whenever she sees a car in an isolated setting, on a busy road she no longer looks at cars or me.

Key is to make it more rewarding for her to look to me than it is to look at the cars.

[BMAK]

the whole this is this dog was with me before being re-homed and he was a true working dog through and through bred for it too, i have had him off lead at a park near a busy road and large car park many times no problems i have had him at the beach and i was the only thing he was interested in, recall was nearly perfect every call, minus him rounding up birds a few times. and he showed no interest in cars, only the chuck it stick and fetching. he is not a soft dog and would be a top working dog with herding, but they would only use positive methods in which i don't think would work not talking about hitting or anything aha but a quick check i think would help him to take them seriously.

Edited June 3, 2011 by BMAK

[Pretty Miss Emma]

the whole this is this dog was with me before being re-homed and he was a true working dog through and through bred for it too, i have had him off lead at a park near a busy road and large car park many times no problems i have had him at the beach and i was the only thing he was interested in, recall was nearly perfect every call, minus him rounding up birds a few times. and he showed no interest in cars, only the chuck it stick and fetching. he is not a soft dog and would be a top working dog with herding, but they would only use positive methods in which i don't think would work not talking about hitting or anything aha but a quick check i think would help him to take them seriously.

My first thought in reading this bit is that maybe the new owners aren't maintaining the dogs training in this area and being consistent - maybe he's testing the boundaries!! And it seems like he's getting away with it!! Just a possibility.