When I was younger, I had a pet pitbull who was extremely friendly towards other people. She was the kindest and most gentle dog when it came to meeting strangers. However, when she was exposed to other dogs, she became dangerously aggressively. It came to the point that she wanted to physically attack and maul the other dogs. This became difficult when growing up since her lack of exposure to other dogs made it near impossible to walk her in public. This was due to her previous owner's lack of experience in training.
It took my family approximately ten years after her death to finally have a new dog. This time, we decided to adopt a dog that was smaller in stature and easier to handle. Because it was almost a decade of having no pets in the house, our family grew to be over-attached to Loki and became quite obsessed with him. It came to the point that he was spoiled, coddled, and constantly picked up. As a result, Loki grew up with separation anxiety and severe jealousy issues.
For my Genius Hour project, I'd like to find out if it's possible to change a dog's social behaviour issue towards other dogs. In order to achieve this, I plan on taking Loki to the park every single day and hopefully expose him to more dogs - increase his interactions with new dogs. By doing so, I hope that he will grow more tolerant to newer dogs in his life and allow them to be near him.
I want to be able to change his lifestyle for the better. I want to be able to take him to dog parks and visit people's houses with other pets. My goal is to make him more tolerant and relaxed towards other dogs.
During the month, I was able to document a few of his interactions with new dogs at the park/trails.
In his first introduction of the project (that I was unable to record), Loki met a new puppy named Aengus. He showed a lot of aggression towards this puppy because he was quite playful. Due to his playfulness, he tried to rough-house with Loki - which he did not enjoy. By the end of their introduction, Loki tried to bite Aengus and they had to be separated before it got violent.
In this first video, it features Loki and Chi-Chi's first introduction. We can see that Loki has grown calmer towards new dogs. It's possibly because Chi-Chi is smaller in size and does not try to climb on Loki (like Aengus).
After this introduction, I tried to expand Loki's interactions and tried to introduce him to different types of dogs. In this video, I introduce him to a smaller but much older dog. In this video, it's quite evident that Loki isn't as excited as he was in the first video. In fact, he loses interest quite quickly. I would like to warn you that I had really bad allergies in this video so there is a lot of sniffling.
After this video, I brought Loki to a brand new park that we have never visited before. It was a huge field and we surprisingly met another dog. This time, he was much slightly older but much bigger. During this interaction, it's evident that Loki is quite okay with meeting this new dog. He does, however, lose interest fast. He is usually quite submissive to bigger dogs and becomes a little timid. This may have played a role during the interaction.
For Loki's final interaction, I decided to bring him back to Aengus. This time, I managed to document it. I find the results to be quite incredible. Comparing to their first introduction, Loki showed absolutely no aggression towards Aengus. In fact, he was quite pleased to see him and actually walked around the yard with him.
I found the results to be quite satisfying. Of course, I wasn't expecting Loki to become a social butterfly within one month of interactions. He has changed to become a more tolerant dog towards newer dogs. I hope to continue his interactions with newer dogs in hopes he will continue his progress to become this social butterfly.
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