Advice dog suddenly diving at vans going past.

willhegofirst

willhegofirst

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Our oldest Spin who is six has suddenly started going for vans when she is being walked, she is always on a lead, near the road. She is ok with cars just vans and bigger, today she went right up at van.
So any ideas on why she has started this, and what is the best way to stop her.
 
Is she interested in food or a ball at all? No idea why it started suddenly (she may have taken fright and is now trying to protect herself from the noise/vehicle she perceives as a threat) but the best thing would be to divert her attention onto something else.
What kind of collar and lead combo does she have, as this will be important in terms of control or if food or ball is not a good enough distraction and you need to give her a correction to get her attention before the lorry gets to you.

Also be aware of you tensing up when you see a lorry and EXPECTING her to lunge, because if you do that, of course she will.
 
As with all Spins she is very into food!! So will try to distract her, she is walked on a slip lead, though generally she doesn't pull on the lead. She is not the bravest dog so may well be acting defensively.
Thanks for you reply.
 
No worries. For the next few days you could try decanting what food she would normally have out of a bowl into the pockets of a bodywarmer or a light jacket you can throw on over your normal clobber and feed her by hand so she will be more likely to focus on you.
Depending on how much time you have you could park yourself near a busy road and the more she remains neutral the more food she gets. Learns eventually that vans will not eat her and a van going past means food!
 
I have one who used to do this, she's a little collie and not very toy/food motivated at all :o, what eventually worked (after trying everything else we could think of) was stopping her every so often on the road and making her 'look at me', then reward, then stopping her when any car came, 'look at me' and reward, then just with vans/lorries. Now the words 'don't you dare' are enough to make her sit quicker than a normal sit command, and look straight to me :p.
 
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