Chapter 7: Starting the CAT Process

So far, you’ve been doing your observation exercises and getting to know your pet and how he behaves in a variety of situations. Now read through the rest of the book without starting the work. This will give you a foundation for how you’ll need to prepare and proceed. Starting with a solid read-through of the procedure will get you ready for when you start the work. At the same time, continue to observe your dog’s behavior daily; it’s very important that you know your dog’s behavior well.

There are more questions in this chapter that you need to answer before you get started. Record all of the answers in your notebook or on your computer so that you can come back to it later. Without recording your process, it may be difficult to tell how much progress you’re making; this is especially true during periods when progress is going slowly. There will be times when it seems as if you’re not seeing improvement, but by checking your notes, you may see that more is happening than you realize. There may also be times when you seem to take a few steps backward. If this happens, or if you go several sessions without seeing improvement, it’s time to step back and reevaluate what you’re doing by rereading these procedural sections.

Each of the following questions is accompanied by how you will use the answer. That’s where I will explain why the information is important. Answer these questions to the best of your ability, using experiences and observations you’ve had with your dog.

Does your dog have any health conditions?

How we will use this information: To determine if the heath condition could be affecting your dog’s behavior.

When a dog doesn’t feel well, he doesn’t act like himself. Maybe he retains his good nature but is more reclusive or less active. Maybe he becomes irritable. Maybe he even growls and bites. As I mentioned previously, when my wonderful old Greyhound, Bravo, was eight years old, she became grouchy and started going off by herself to sleep in a different room, away from the family. One day, I bent down beside her to pet her, and she snapped at me. This was a behavior we had never seen before from that gentle old soul. A few days later, she stood up, and her back leg broke. She had bone cancer and was in significant pain.

Visit your vet to make sure your dog is in good health before starting an aggression treatment. When I talked to one owner, who had a Red Heeler named Rudy, about taking her dog to the vet, it turned out that he had not seen a vet in nine years because he wouldn’t allow even his owner to handle him that much. I suggested that she use a muzzle. She replied, “You can try it; I’m not going to.” Uh oh. Nowadays, I would suggest that the owner find a vet who would prescribe medications to help Rudy through the process, including something that he could be given at home before coming to the clinic, or that she hire a mobile vet to come to her home, sedate Rudy, and examine him while he was sedated. There’s no point in expecting a dog to tolerate more than he can actually tolerate. You can work on improving vet visits in a separate training project.

Ruling out health problems should be the first step in your aggression-training plan.

Rudy’s eyeballs protruded in a bizarre fashion, and this trait was exaggerated when he barked. There are several health issues of varying severity that could have caused this, one of which is an untreated thyroid problem, which sometimes results in bulging eyes. Thyroid problems are sometimes associated with aggression and irritability in dogs. In spite of being unable to get a preliminary health workup for Rudy, an assistant and I worked with him for several sessions but made no progress. He had a long history of aggression, so he definitely needed behavioral support, but he also probably had at least one health issue that needed attention before a behavioral focus could be completely successful. Had he been able to visit the vet, we probably could have done more to help him. Behavior doesn’t get much better when the dog doesn’t feel well.

Are your pet’s health conditions believed to be related to his aggression? Why or why not?

How we will use this information: To determine whether we need to start or even complete medical treatment before starting behavior modification for aggression.

As I discussed about my dog, Bravo, and my client, Rudy, health problems can be related to the onset or the worsening of aggression. Even minor health issues can affect behavior. Are you in a good mood when you have a cold or a bellyache? Probably not. Sometimes identifying and resolving a dog’s health issue is all is needed to eliminate the aggression; other times, the dog will need extensive treatment before starting behavioral training. The longer the behavior issue has been happening, the more likely you’ll need to do some behavior modification before the aggression is completely resolved.

When did your dog first behave aggressively?

How we will use this information: The first instance of aggressive behavior may provide information about the behavior the dog is displaying now. It is important to note that we can still work with the dog even if we have no idea how the behavior began, but having this information can provide a helpful tool.

Sometimes, if we know what caused the first instance of aggressive behavior, it can help a great deal in the training. This is especially true if the aggressive behavior is relatively new. I worked for a while with a German Shepherd Dog who had been “alpha rolled” (forcibly rolled onto his back and pinned down by someone in a misguided attempt for the person to establish dominance) as a four-month-old puppy. It is not unusual for alpha rolls and similar treatment to result in aggression from the dog. This kind of “training” is especially inappropriate for a puppy because it builds a foundation of fear and mistrust on which all of his future training experiences will be balanced. Because the young puppy was alpha rolled by a visitor to the home, the pup learned that strangers in his house are dangerous, which significantly impeded his family’s ability to comfortably host gatherings in their home.

We used this information to decide where we would conduct our first training sessions. We did them in the living room of the family’s home.

How long ago was the first aggressive incident you observed?

How we will use this information: Knowing how long the dog has been behaving aggressively may inform us about how ingrained the aggressive behavior is.

If the dog has behaved aggressively for a short time, the first question is, “How is his health?” Sudden-onset aggression is often associated with something that just happened, like an injury or an acute illness. The next question is, “Have there been any changes in his life recently?” Has Grandma or a new roommate moved in? Is there a new family member, like a spouse, baby, or pet? Life changes, such as new members of the family, can set a dog off balance, as can moving to a new home, having work done in the house, or even just rearranging the furniture. Being attacked or growled at by a dog on a walk or being startled by a loud noise can make a dog wary.

The larger dog warns the smaller dog to back away from his bone.

How often does he behave aggressively?

How we will use this information: The frequency of the aggressive behavior can tell us whether the dog gets upset enough to lash out just occasionally or if it is his normal way of reacting to problems.

Sometimes owners will tell me that their dog is aggressive and they need help, but it turns out that he growled at another family dog when he was six months old, another time when he was three years old, and then again last night when he was five. The rest of the time, the two dogs have been good friends. Sometimes dogs get grouchy, just like people do. When a dog displays aggression infrequently, we focus on anything out of the ordinary that may have been going on at those times. Was either dog sick? Was there a delicious treat in the area? Was one of the dogs guarding a favorite place or a favorite person? Was one of the dogs guarding an object that wasn’t necessarily one of his favorite things just because he decided to guard?

Harsh treatment as a puppy can make a dog wary of people as he grows up.

There are times when one of these infrequent attacks is just too serious, and you’ll need to manage the situation 100 percent of the time until you can work with a skilled positive-reinforcement trainer to resolve the behavior. If your dog has harmed a family pet or any human in the family, consult a trainer to help you set up safe management techniques and training in advance of working with your dog. Working with dogs who live together to resolve aggression issues is challenging. It requires that the dogs always be attentively supervised when they are together. It is very difficult to stay that tuned in all the time, so you must use safety equipment such as crates, baby gates, escape-proof exercise pens, and closed doors. These measures are not optional, and you must use them most of the time. Many dogs with interhousehold aggressive behaviors can never be loose in the presence of the other family pets.

Once you’ve identified when the aggressive behavior occurs, you must institute management right away. Feed treats only in separate rooms or in crates and remove the treats when the dogs are together. Feed meals the same way. Work on skills like “go to bed” and reward the dogs with a favorite treat instead of letting them get on the couch with you. Work on the very important skill “leave it,” which means that the dog must drop an object or move away from whatever you’re doing and pay attention. Use Exercise 3 from the observation exercises and take notes about what happened during a problematic interaction (obviously, you can’t take notes until the incident is over and everyone is safe). What does your dog do just before he attacks the other dog? What does the other dog do just before he is attacked? How can you change the environment to make that situation less likely?

If you are having multiple incidences of aggressive behavior every day, starting a behavior program sooner rather than later is essential. You may even want to discuss medication with your veterinarian for the usual instigator dog as you start your behavior plan and then later work toward weaning him off the medication.

Consider how severe the attacks are. Behavioral treatments for severe bites and air snaps are very similar except for the safety precautions taken. If the dog has injured someone, anything from a red mark to a serious wound, you must take extreme safety measures. Because many factors can affect the outcome of a treatment, and because there is a risk of the behavior getting worse before it gets better, think long and hard about whether you are up for this. Remember, I cannot guarantee that you will be able to produce success with this procedure, and, for most of you, I cannot be there to oversee your work. Look in the mirror and decide if this is something you can safely undertake. Will working with this dog’s aggression put you, the dog, your family and friends, your other pets, or your community at risk?

A dog who is aggressive toward other family pets poses additional challenges.

How many times has he behaved aggressively?

How we will use this information: To determine how common it is for your dog to resort to aggressive behavior.

Is your dog aggressive all the time, or did he behave aggressively for the first time yesterday? You are way ahead of the game if yesterday was the first time. I love to hear from pet owners whose dog behaved aggressively and they’re on the phone with me the next day. That means we can get to work and, in most cases, nip this in the bud quickly, whether you head to the vet for a complete workup or you start doing small CAT or management procedures right away.

Sometimes a pet owner waits to a call a trainer because he or she is not sure what to do or is avoiding dealing with what he or she fears may be a serious problem. The problem will most likely get worse if you delay behavior modification or other treatments. The longer the dog practices the behavior, and the more he falls back on aggression to solve his problems, the bigger the challenge will be.

Was the aggressive behavior reported to you by someone else, or did you see it yourself?

How we will use this information: To make sure that the behavior was accurately interpreted by the person who saw it.

If you didn’t see it yourself, ask the questions you’re answering now to the person who told you about the incident. In my work as a shelter behaviorist, I see and hear many reports about dogs’ behavior. When I spend time with the dog myself, sometimes I see exactly what someone told me about, and other times I can tell that the person who reported it misinterpreted what they saw. People sometimes describe aggression with vague words like, “afraid,” “dominant,” and “alpha,” or when they make assumptions like, “This dog must have been beaten by a man when he was small because he always tries to bite men.” I prefer to go to the person who saw the behavior and ask about what he or she saw. What did the dog actually, physically do? Did he try to escape? Did he try to drive someone away? What actions did he take as he did that (e.g., ran behind the couch, lunged, barked)?

What does your dog do when he is behaving aggressively? Be specific. If you observed behaviors that seemed aggressive during your observations, go back to your notes and use that information to you help here.

How we will use this information: The behaviors that pose the greatest risk to the person or animal toward whom the dog behaves aggressively are the behaviors we want to reduce by replacing them with preferred behaviors that are safe and friendly.

This is where you’ll list behaviors like freezing, barking, growling, and lunging. Don’t omit other behaviors you might observe, such as biting the leash, spinning in a circle, nipping the handler’s clothes, turning, and trying to move away. We may use these behaviors during the CAT procedure.

Where does he behave aggressively now? List all or as many places as you can think of (inside the home, in the living room, on the couch, at agility class, at the park, on neighborhood sidewalks, in the backyard, and so on).

How we will use this information: These are the places where we will start doing the CAT procedure.

Ideally, you will start your dog’s behavior modification in one of the places you identified. If you take the dog to work in a dog trainer’s studio or an empty field because it will be easier to set up, it may work fine for the training session itself, but it may not help the dog understand that the same thing applies in the places and situations where he is currently having problems. It’s OK to start working someplace other than where the aggression is happening, but afterward you will still have to move your training to the places where the aggression already occurs. It can be useful to practice setting up the work and working at a distance so the dog’s reactions are minimal when you move to a different place.

What else is going on when he behaves aggressively? It could be anything: dinnertime, your arrival at home after work, someone ringing the doorbell, children playing, the dog chewing a rawhide that he doesn’t want anyone else to get, and so on.

How we will use this information: This will be the activity we will set up when we conduct the CAT procedure.

Your answers to this question are very important in figuring out what makes him start to behave aggressively. When the scents of your delicious cooking start to waft through the home and the dogs gather around the kitchen, it may be more useful to crate them and give them treats for staying out of the kitchen rather than to launch a whole CAT training session. The goal of all of this work is to make it easy for your dog to do the right thing. But if the behavior occurs because the dog finds value in chasing someone or something away, CAT is the way to go.

If the dog behaves aggressively when one of the owners arrives home, toward whom is the aggression directed? Is it toward the person who is coming home? Is it toward a person or animal who was already at home? If it’s another pet, I very strongly suggest not leaving them loose together when you are not home.

Make specific notes about your dog’s aggressive behavior and body language.

What is the situation in which your dog’s behavior causes you the most discomfort, concern, or inconvenience?

How we will use this information: This will give us the ideal place to start work.

The idea behind this question is to give you the greatest relief as soon as possible. We want to fix the most significant problem so you can have more peace in that situation.

Toward whom is your dog aggressive (adults, teenagers, children, dogs, a specific individual, an object, other)?

How we will use this information: To select helpers to work with us on the procedure.

The person (specific individual) or type of person (man, woman, man with beard, woman with hat) or animal or type of animal (cat, dog, hyena) toward whom your dog most often behaves aggressively must be involved in the procedure. Finding the right helper team can be one of the most difficult challenges in setting up any aggression treatment.

Sometimes the situations are so challenging that the treatment risk is greater than the potential benefit. If you’re working with children, you can try starting out with dolls, but that will only get you so far. But let me be very clear: You must not use children to train your aggressive dog due to the very real potential risk to the child, whether emotional or physical. I do not recommend it, I discourage it, and I shudder to think about what could happen. Management using baby gates and doors, only allowing the dog out when the kids are not around, and tethering are possible, but conducting an aggression treatment with kids is truly tricky, and there is no guarantee that the dog will never behave aggressively toward them. Kids are impulsive. They get confused. They get scared. They misunderstand. They fall down suddenly and erupt into tears. A child’s cries are just the thing to make others uncomfortable, no matter how much we love children. Imagine how an anxious or bossy dog may respond.

If a child is at risk of being bitten by your dog, you really must consider whether the dog belongs in your family. Do you have children? Do children, including grandchildren, other relatives, and neighbors’ children, ever come to your home? Do you plan to have children someday but already know that your dog behaves aggressively around children? Discussions with your family, pediatrician, and veterinarian may be in order.

Adults and some mature teenagers can be helpers during the training. You should explain the process to your helper, and he or she should agree to it and be completely cooperative. Ideally, he or she should read this book before you start.

If your dog is aggressive toward other dogs, you’ll have to find an owner with a confident and friendly dog who will help you with the procedure. It’s hard to find any person to work with your aggressive dog, but it’s very, very hard to find someone who will expose his or her friendly dog to your aggressive dog. Explain that you will take every precaution for the dog’s safety and that if there’s any doubt or if his or her dog is overwhelmed, they can take a break or quit. Don’t push the helper dog to the point that he is overwhelmed, or that dog may end up with problems similar to your dog’s.

If your dog is aggressive toward both humans and dogs, the human handling the helper dog can be the first human you work your dog with. Two for the price of one!

Can you think of anything else related to when he is aggressive? For example, only when he’s wearing a leash? When a certain person is around even though the aggression is not directed at that person? Other?

How we will use this information: To create more meaningful training setups.

As I’ve explained, the situations in which your dog is actually aggressive are the situations in which you need to work. If your dog behaves aggressively only while on a leash, you will have to train him on a leash. If he behaves aggressively only off leash, you must set up a situation in which he can be trained off leash. Often, a dog’s aggression occurs primarily in the presence of one of the owners. For example, the dog may behave very well around the husband but may charge at other people when in the presence of the wife, or vice versa.

I previously mentioned that I once worked with a Bull Terrier who was aggressive toward only one person, the wife’s sister. The aggression occurred only when the husband was not at home. If the husband was anywhere at home—in the in the same room as the sister-in-law, the backyard, the bedroom, the garage—the dog was friendly toward her. But if the husband got in his car and drove away, the aggression began in earnest. This was very challenging to figure out, and I did it by testing different situations and recording everything carefully on video to review with Dr. Rosales. Once the wife told me that the dog had behaved aggressively toward her when she had borrowed her sister’s perfume. That part was easy—I asked the sister-in-law and the dog’s owner not to use that perfume anymore around the dog. I told you—behavior is interesting!

What do you or your family members currently do when the dog behaves aggressively? Does each family member respond to the aggression differently? Describe each person’s reaction as thoroughly as possible.

What we will do with this information: Determine if the family members need to change their behavior as part of their lives with the dog going forward. Trust me, you will need to make changes.

Often, families respond impulsively to aggression from their dogs. The dog lunges, and the owner may yell or swat or forcibly pull the dog away by the collar. If you have responded in this knee-jerk way, you are not alone. It has happened to me, too. But now that we know these types of reactions are not helping the situation with the dog, we will use this information to teach you some alternative responses that will help reduce the likelihood that your dog will behave aggressively. Stay tuned.

Sometimes, owners comfort their dog after he behaves aggressively. The owners understand that their dog is upset, and they love their dog, so they want to calm him. The motivation is good, but the outcome can be a problem; in some cases, it can result in the unwanted effect of strengthening the aggression. I remember an owner leaning over her large dog, who had just lunged at me, and saying, “Oh, baby, it’s OK!” Well, it wasn’t OK! It wasn’t the right time to be rewarding the dog’s behavior. Yes, the dog was upset, and we definitely don’t want to keep the dog in a place of emotional turmoil. But we needed to reset the situation. In this case, the ideal would have been for me to wait for the dog to do something else besides aggressing and then, when that happened, for me to walk away, and then the owner could interact with her dog.

If you’re in a situation where your dog is aggressive toward someone who either doesn’t know what to do or can’t be expected to cooperate (e.g., someone walking in the neighborhood), walk the dog away or, if possible, get him to respond to a cue. Then reward him. Don’t reward him immediately after an act of aggression for two primary reasons. One, as I’ve said, is the risk of rewarding and thus reinforcing inappropriate and potentially dangerous behavior and seeing it happen more often in the future. The other is the risk of the dog not being done with his aggressive episode yet and redirecting his aggression onto you. Take a deep breath, walk the dog away until he’s far enough from the situation that he can calm down, cue an easy behavior, and then reward with a treat. Help him switch gears.

Are there any situations or times during which the dog is not aggressive? What are they?

How we will use this information: To indicate that the dog has the ability to behave in nonaggressive ways and to identify in what situations he behaves nonaggressively.

The dog’s nonaggressive behaviors are going to help us build toward our goal. Maybe we know that the dog is wiggly around his owner but growly around the owner’s boyfriend. We know that one of his happy behaviors is wiggling, so we want to reward more and more wiggly behavior in the presence of the boyfriend, a little tiny bit at a time.

No dog is aggressive 100 percent of the time. Sometimes they are asleep, for example. You probably wouldn’t have this dog if he wasn’t friendly with you at least some of the time. Aggression is situation-specific. The answers to this question will help us trust that our dog is able to behave in friendly ways. And it will help us know what to look for as we start to shape appropriate behavior to replace aggression in your dog.

What does your dog do when he is not behaving aggressively?

How we will use this information: To identify what behaviors to reward as we conduct the CAT procedure.

Your dog does something you like, and we want to make it easy for him to do more of that behavior in more situations. This question will help us focus on the goal.

What previous training, if any, has your dog had? To be clear, I’m talking about intentional training, such as classes, private consultations with trainers, or sessions with a trainer in which you focused on teaching new behaviors or discontinuing problematic behaviors.

How we will use this information: Each training experience has had some effect on your dog, some more than others. Your dog learns different things from different kinds of training. This section will help us understand what kinds of training you, as the handler, and your dog will have to strengthen or undo to be successful going forward.

How many trainers, if any, have you worked with for aggression? Each trainer you’ve worked with may have done different things to teach your dog that different behaviors will result in different outcomes. It is particularly important to understand is that sometimes aggression-rehabilitation techniques teach a dog to shut down and simply not respond. This happens with shock collars as well as with some desensitization techniques and even with some positive reinforcement. The problem is that some dogs shut down only until their threatening person or animal gets close enough that they can attack. Remember, in the CAT procedure, we want to reinforce movement because the more the dog moves, the more we have to work with and reward. If we reinforce being still, it’s much harder to tell what the dog is going to do next.

When did you work with the trainer and for how long? This question simply identifies how much practice this dog has experienced with this technique.

If your dog was a four month old puppy that was introduced to a shock collar after an instance of reactivity, and he is now four years old and behaving aggressively, this is a dog that got a really potent lesson from that shock at a very sensitive time in his life. At four months old, most puppies have a relatively small number of life experiences to draw from. Now being shocked is part of the foundation of all future learning. It’s easy for a four-month-old puppy to learn that strangers are dangerous, and because they don’t have much in their behavioral repertoires to draw from, they fall back on that information they got as a puppy. For this dog, we’re going to have to repair his foundation. The longer he’s balanced his behavioral weight on this foundation and the more behaviors he has learned while relying on that information, the more work will need to be done to rehabilitate his behavior.

What did this trainer do with your dog or recommend that you do with your dog? Did you act on these recommendations, and for how long? How did your dog respond? Was the goal of the training to teach the dog that there were many things he could do to get a worthwhile outcome in the face of a threat? Or was the goal just for the dog not to respond aggressively? When a dog learns not to do something in a certain kind of situation, another behavior has to take its place. If your dog was taught not to do anything, the dog actually did learn to do something. It was just something that was much harder to see and work with.

What is your evaluation of the training outcome? Did the trainer or your previous attempts at resolving aggression work to improve the aggression? Did the aggression get worse? Did it stay about the same? What changes would you like to see that didn’t happen? What changes happened that worked well for you and your dog?

This dog is showing signs of stress from being hugged. The exaggerated wrinkles above the eyes, the closed mouth, and the staring eyes all point to the dog’s feeling uncomfortable.

Has your dog been under a veterinarian’s care or treatment for aggression?

How we will use this information: We need to know if the dog is already under medical care for health concerns related to aggression or for aggressive behavior alone, what the vet has recommended, and how you have followed up. It’s important for us to know if the treatment helped.

Has the dog been on medication for aggression? Some medications will moderate the dog’s responses to a threat, and that is, in a sense, what they are intended to do. The goal is to reduce the inappropriate responses and reduce the emotionality of the responses. You can start the CAT procedure with a dog who is taking medication, and, as the treatment proceeds, you and your vet can determine if he can be weaned off of the medication. Do not start your dog on medication and then abruptly stop it without the advice and guidance of your veterinarian. Sometimes withdrawal symptoms can be bad.

What medication(s) is/was your dog on (if any)? Let me stress that I am not a veterinarian. I cannot prescribe medications nor can I make your vet unprescribe them. But I can tell you some things you can research further for yourself. Some medications are quite suitable for working with dogs with stress and aggression. Others are not. Acepromazine is one of the medications your dog should not be taking for aggression, but some veterinarians still prescribe it. This medication will reduce the dog’s behavioral responses, but his emotional responses will not change. It is sometimes referred to as a “chemical straitjacket.” Performing a behavior-modification procedure on a dog who is taking acepromazine is likely to be counterproductive, so if your dog is taking this medication, tell your vet that you would like to switch to one of the antidepressant or antianxiety medications or withdraw him from the medication completely. If your veterinarian is not experienced in the use of these medications or refuses to work with you, get a second opinion from a different vet. Likewise, if your vet is not on board with discontinuing acepromazine, get a second opinion.

Check the list of vets on FearFreePets.com to find one in your area. These vets have training in the use of the most appropriate drugs for behavior problems. As I said earlier in the book, do consider giving your dog medication to help him through this problem, but make sure you have good information to help you decide.

When and for how long was your dog on medication? Was the medication something intended to help him through a rough patch? If he no longer takes the medication, why?

Is your dog still taking medication? If yes, why? Is it helping? If not, discuss alternatives with your vet or get a second opinion.

What is your evaluation of the outcome of past or current medications? If the medication is not having the desired effect, talk to your veterinarian about weaning him from the medication. If the medication is working, how is it working? Does the dog react better in the situations in which he was previously aggressive? Define better. What do you consider a success? If the medication is helping, and your veterinarian agrees, there is no reason to remove the dog from the medication to start the CAT treatment. In most cases, medical treatment is enhanced by appropriate nonaversive behavioral treatment.

Did the veterinarian prescribe nonmedical treatment for aggression?

How we will use this information: Your veterinarian is an expert on veterinary medicine, but only some veterinarians also have expertise in animal behavior. The answers to this group of questions will help you determine whether you will follow your veterinarian’s nonmedical behavioral advice.

How much training in basic behaviors has your dog had?

Does your veterinarian have training in animal behavior? Many veterinarians are exposed to some behavioral information in their training, often associated with the use of pharmaceuticals to ameliorate emotional problems. Ask your vet what kind of behavioral training he or she has had. Is he or she a certified member of the American College of Certified Veterinary Behaviorists? If not, how much ongoing training does he or she receive in behavior, and where does he or she receive it? If your vet’s response is that he or she gets enough behavior information just by working with animals every day, keep in mind that the work that most vets do is likely focused on medical concerns rather than behavioral concerns. Often, vets and vet techs know how to get through a procedure but not how to help the dog tolerate the procedure. If you can find a Fear Free-certified veterinarian, this vet may provide very good support for the work you’re about to do with your dog.

Did you follow the vet’s recommendations? If you not, why? Was it too difficult or time-consuming? Did it seem too harsh? Were the results too slow? Was it complicated? Did you suspect it would be counterproductive?

What did the intervention involve? Did the technique help your dog learn a wide array of alternatives to aggression, or did it try to shut down behavioral responses? Was it a system of management, such as containing dogs away from guests with doors and baby gates or crates? As we have discussed, the goal should be to build alternative responses to aggression that are as easy as possible for the dog to perform. If it’s hard for the dog to do the right thing, he’s not going to do it. Likewise, if it’s hard for you to do the things you’re instructed to do, you’re less likely to do them.

Did the veterinarian’s recommendation work? Did your dog behave aggressively less often, or did his aggression become milder? If you did follow the recommendation, and it produced results that improved your life and the life of your dog, maybe you should just stick with that program. If you followed the recommendation but felt that the results were not good enough, discuss the shortcomings of the treatment with your vet. Tell your vet where you felt the method fell short and ask if there are ways to make it more effective. Ask if there are adjustments you can make to improve the outcome. Also, before discontinuing the treatment, make sure that you have been following the protocol as closely as possible.

As with trainers, if your vet recommends aversive tools (shock collars, prong collars, pinning your dog down, or shouting into his face, for example), don’t do it. Find another vet.

What kind(s) of handling gear (leash, flat collar, slip or choke collar/chain, electronic collar, prong collar, body harness, head halter, other) do you use with your dog?

How we will use this information: To identify safe and effective gear to use during the CAT procedure and gear that is appropriate for you to use after CAT.

There are some kinds of gear that are inappropriate for use with the CAT training procedure, including (but not limited to) slip chains and leads, prong collars, shock collars, bark collars, and flexible (retractable) leads. In fact, these tools are not appropriate in most situations. Any gear that works by causing pain or discomfort could very well teach the dog that every time he sees something he considers threatening (a dog, a person, a skateboard), he is in danger. If your dog believes he is in danger, he is more likely to behave aggressively in self-defense.

The goal of CAT is to help your dog be less afraid or defensive in the world he lives in. The goal of harsh training tools is to increase his discomfort to force him to stop behaving aggressively. However, this is not how to end aggression. These tools just drive aggressive behaviors underground to make your dog’s behavior sneakier and less predictable. If you use any of these tools, you must discontinue their use once you start the CAT procedure, including between and after CAT training sessions. You can’t switch back and forth between CAT and aversive training techniques and find success.

There are other types of collars that don’t normally cause physical pain or discomfort but are annoying or troubling to the dog in other ways; these include citronella collars and collars that blow a burst of air into the dog’s face. We don’t want to convince your dog that the things that threaten him are also annoying. We want to teach him that they aren’t a problem.

Head halters can be useful tools for some dogs, but, unfortunately, I have seen dogs with aggression lunge into them during aggressive episodes, and I am very concerned about an injury happening to a dog’s neck. Another trainer told me about seeing a large dog lunge aggressively into a head halter and injure his neck severely, causing a loss of balance for several months. For this reason, I discourage the use of a head halter during CAT training. In addition, unless your dog is trained to make a positive association with the head halter prior to CAT, you could have a dog who is so focused on the weird thing on his head that he can’t learn anything you’re trying to teach him about aggression. He’s also likely to associate this new equipment with the procedure, and he may avoid training sessions by hiding or transferring his aggression to the person applying the head halter. If your dog is already accustomed to wearing a head collar and doesn’t seem to notice when he’s wearing it, you can continue to use it, but attach your training leash to the collar or body harness so that there is less risk of injury if he lunges forward.

Muzzles are excellent safety tools that may protect your dog from the quarantine and possible euthanasia that can result from a bite, and they can protect your helpers by preventing bites. Just like with the head halter, you should train your dog to wear a muzzle before you start CAT training. There is an excellent video called “Teaching Your Dog to Wear a Muzzle” by trainer Chirag Patel on YouTube about how to do it. If you are concerned about your dog biting you, work with a positive-reinforcement trainer to teach him to wear the muzzle safely. You should wear protective gloves during this process just in case.

Has anyone recommended euthanasia for your dog because of his aggression, or have you considered it on your own?

How we will use this information: To determine if this recommendation is valid.

If someone has suggested that your dog be euthanized, we need to determine whether his or her point is valid. Is your dog a danger to anyone? Does someone in your family have an extreme fear of dogs that he or she needs professional help with? (I’ve worked with family members who were afraid of the family dog and didn’t want to come home because the dog was there.) Is the person or animal toward whom your dog behaves aggressively doing something that makes the dog behave aggressively? Or is this person overreacting? Sometimes a family member who does not live with the aggressive dog is irritated or scared, or the person’s feelings are hurt by the dog’s behavior, which may cause the person to mention euthanasia. In this case, you need to educate the family member. Let him or her know that you are working with the dog and tell the person about the training, as well as the safety precautions you are taking, to make living with the dog safer. Be humble and show your concern rather than being defensive. Can you visit this person at his or her home instead of having him or her come to your home during the course of the dog’s training? Can you crate the dog in a separate room during visits? The latter point will require the person to never walk into your home unannounced so that you have time to crate the dog.

If the person is recommending euthanasia because your dog injured someone, how bad was the injury? Did the person need medical care? Was the dog quarantined or labeled an aggressive dog by the municipality you live in? Is there a chance of legal problems with this person? How can you prevent this from happening again? Will a lock on the gate solve the problem? Answer all of these questions after careful thought. Be honest with yourself.

If the person provided a reason for his or her euthanasia recommendation, what was it? Was the recommendation reasonable? Is it something you need to seriously consider?

If you will use a body harness, accustom your dog to the harness before CAT training begins.

If you’re reading this book because you still have the dog and still want to work with him, why did you keep him? Is he your best friend? Or is it because you’ll never let your mean neighbor win an argument? Honestly. What is the likelihood that you can follow through this process of CAT training safely?

Has anyone recommended rehoming your dog because of his aggression, or have you considered it on your own?

How we will use this information: To determine whether your dog can safely remain in your home and whether you realistically think there may be a home out there where the dog will not hurt anyone.

Make sure your dog is accustomed to the training gear you will use before you start training.

Who recommended rehoming? Was it a family member, friend, veterinarian, or trainer? Or was it your idea? Sometimes a person will recommend rehoming because he or she can see that your dog is not a complete danger in every situation, but he or she doesn’t think the dog’s a good fit in your family. Maybe your dog has knocked down your elderly live-in mother and there’s a risk of him injuring her. Maybe your dog is not nice to the friends your children bring home, and their parents are concerned about it.

Management is an option but, as dog trainers say, “Management always fails.” A child or worker will leave a gate open. A close friend will walk right into your house without giving you time to crate your dog. You’ll be carrying groceries and unable to put him in his safe space in time. These things can happen; because we’re human, sometimes we’ll make mistakes. Consider this when deciding if your dog can stay in your home.

If the person provided a reason for the recommendation, what was it? Was the recommendation reasonable? Is it something you need to seriously consider? This is the time for serious reflection.

If you didn’t rehome him, why not? Are you ready and able to move forward with life with a reactive or aggressive dog? It is very difficult to find a new home for a dog with aggression problems. If you still have your dog because you simply can’t find someone else to take him, you may need to revisit the euthanasia question. But if you are truly committed to your dog, and you truly are committed to doing everything necessary to keep everyone safe, and you understand the responsibility you’re undertaking, CAT, combined with management, might be a solution for you.

What does your dog do that you value (appearance, breed, tricks, canine sports, companion, sad story at the shelter, and so on)?

How we will use this information: To stress the bond between you and your dog.

Why do you love your dog? Now is the time to ask yourself this question. Do you love your dog? What made you get him in the first place? Was that reason a good reason to adopt this dog? When you look at him, what do you feel when he looks at you? Is that feeling an indication of how well you will be able to conduct the CAT procedure successfully?

Why else do you value him? What has happened since you got your dog that has made you keep him this long? Some people report a genuine love for their canine companions. Others hint at guilt over not being able to keep their dogs.

Using a chain choke collar or any other aversive training tool risks worsening a dog’s aggressive tendencies.

Do you feel that your dog’s aggression limits your life? How?

How we will use this information: To help determine if your dog’s presence in your life is worth the sacrifices you make for him. Sometimes the impact on a family’s life is so profound that keeping a dog with aggression can severely affect the quality of life for both the animal and the people in the family.

These ideas feel harsh, I know, but the fact is that we all make sacrifices for our dogs. Beyond food, shelter, and veterinary expenses, we have to clean up their messes when they are puppies and again when they are old and occasionally in between. If they develop aggression, we may have social messes to clean up as well. One owner of a large aggressive dog told me that she had decided that it was worth it to her not to date for the anticipated life span of her dog, another ten years, because her dog would not let men into her home. Is that you? Are you willing to do whatever it takes? Or are you like the young parents of a one-year-old child whose dog had begun to growl at the child when she began to walk? They worked on training and a variety of techniques for managing their child and their dog, but ultimately they decided they couldn’t safely sustain these efforts. Those parents truly loved their dog, but they could not live with the risk to their child’s safety. They were able to find an adult home where the large mixed-breed dog would not have to live with a clumsy, impulsive toddler who put him far outside his comfort zone.

List all the things you would do with your dog if he didn’t have aggression.

How we will use this information: To start building socially acceptable behaviors that will let you do those things with him. Maybe you just want your dad to be able to come over and visit without crating your dog the entire time. If your dad will participate in the training, it’s possible that this could happen. Maybe you want to be able to walk with your dog in the park. Along with being proactive to prevent others from making it too hard for him, the CAT procedure may help you do this, too.

The fact of the matter is that there are things I do not recommend doing with an aggressive dog. Many families enjoy going to dog parks, for example, but their dogs don’t. One family I talked with had a dog who had been attacked by two large dogs in a dog park and thereafter began to behave aggressively toward dogs. When I recommended that they stop taking their dog to dog parks, they were surprised. The woman asked, “Really?” in a bewildered voice, followed by a long silence. Yes, really. Dog parks are full of all kinds of dogs, some with various behavior problems. Sometimes a perfectly nice dog will be a brat when he’s around his posse and will pick on another dog. If your dog has aggression issues, off-leash dog parks, where dogs are running amok and owners are usually either chatting with each other or looking at their phones and not paying attention to their dogs, are not ideal environments. All of these factors can be a recipe for replacing the desirable behaviors you just built with those old aggressive behaviors. Often, even if an owner is paying attention to his or her dog in the dog park, he or she may not understand what is happening between the dogs. I can tell you many stories about people who thought that the dogs were being playful just before they bit.