Behavior Adjustment Training (BAT)

[paulag1955]

Does anyone have any experience with this training method? I'm especially interested in hearing about personal successes or failures using it.

Thanks!

Behavior Adjustment Training (BAT) | Official site for BAT: dog-friendly training for reactivity (aggression, fear, frustration) by Grisha Stewart, MA

[cshepherd9]

I have a friend who uses BAT and she loaned me the BAT DVDs. She has used the training for quite a while. My friend has had great success with BAT. When I met her I had just started with a private trainer and we were introduced by the trainer because we both had Shepherds with the same issue so we became training partners. Her dog is now being used as the calm, non-reactive training dog. She is very pleased with the results of the training.

I am still working with Willow but she is SO much better with her reactivity. I actually started our training with Look at That but have since kind of combined the Look at That with the BAT depending on the situation we happen upon and we are doing great. Hope this helps.

[paulag1955]

Yes, thank you, it does. Do you happen to know how reactive her dog was when she started? Shasta really gets all in a frenzy.

[cshepherd9]

Well, when I met her she had been working with Ava for a long time so I never saw Ava in full reactive mode but Ava was actually reactive to people and dogs where Willow is reactive to only dogs so she had to work twice as hard. From our conversations I gather that she got pretty intense.

Also, one thing I didn't say earlier about BAT is that I like that it uses the functional reward and is not totally reliant on food/treats. The reward is distance or moving away from whatever causes the reaction. When I am out on walks with Willow I watch her for the moment she sees something that might have set her off in the past. When she perks up, I stop immediately. I allow her to take a good look and then when she looks back at me we retreat a good 4 or 5 steps so she is walking away from it, praise her, talk to her, whatever; maybe an occassional food treat. At this point we are usually able then to continue on by whatever it is and she is pretty good. If I don't think she can get by whatever it is then we just turn around and walk the other way. If I think she can get by it or I want to test her we keep walking forward and then back, forward and then back. I am sure my neighbors think I am crazy sometimes. Ha.

[paulag1955]

I am a little iffy on the functional reward part. I think Shasta is a frustrated greeter so the reward is to move forward for good behavior but I'm not sure exactly how that works. I could bite the bullet and take the class but it is super expensive and not that conveniently located. I wonder if the DVDs do a good job of covering this particular topic.

[cshepherd9]

I would definitely recommend the DVDs, there were training 2 DVDs and 1 CD that contained all the PPT data and a couple PDFs that she went over in the DVDs so you can print them out. I didn't take a class and I think I got a good understanding of the training.
She does show a training exercise with two dogs walking towards each other and passing by so that might be what you are looking for. One DVD goes through all the training methods and then she shows an actual training exercise using her students and then at the end she shows video of her with her own dog. I thinks she does a good job of showing her training and progress with her own dog who was afraid of children.

[paulag1955]

The DVDs are definitely a lot less expensive than the class! Plus, the class would include dog-aggressive dogs and I'm not sure I want to put Shasta in that environment.

Thanks for all the information, I really appreciate it!

[debbiebrown]

i think the BAT training is a more positive training method than the CAT method. i tried the CAT training under professional guidence and it made my dog worse, to me it was like a rehearsal effect of letting him react..........i could have repeated the CAT steps a million times and it would not have been an effective method for us.........

[kiya]

I have and still use BAT with my 2 older dogs, I think it helped a lot. My husband was even impressed when we had a repair man working in the house and the 2 dogs were quiet as church mice, even when the guy was talking. They were in an adjoining room no door and the guy was in plain sight. My one dog is a scardy dog & my female plays along with his nonsense. Fortunately they are food motavated.
I think its a great focus exercise.
I need to try it on Lakota for deer & squirrels.

[Cassidy's Mom]

Originally Posted by paulag1955

Plus, the class would include dog-aggressive dogs and I'm not sure I want to put Shasta in that environment.

I love the idea of BAT, but I've never tried it before. I do have a friend in the area that trains with Grisha - jealous!

I just wanted to comment on classes for reactive dogs though. We took one with Cassidy. This was 10 years ago, way before the existence of BAT, but reactive classes are VERY controlled. The idea is to keep the dogs under threshold so they don't react, so you needn't worry about that.