Correcting whining

[DaveB]

My recently rescued pup is about a year old, reasonably well-behaved (we're a bit behind on training, in part because he was out of commission and too full of energy for 6 weeks following OCD surgery), and doing well for the most part... but he has one very annoying issue that I have no idea how to correct.

If he's looking out a window, or even out on the back deck looking out through the fence, he will start anxiously whining if he sees another dog. He's very social and just wants to be friends, and honestly this is a less obnoxious problem than my shepherd, who has taken to barking repeatedly at passing dogs whenever the outside fence is between them. The problem is that I know that I can correct the shepherd's barking by simply spending time out there with him on a leash. But with the rottie, I can correct him either with a leash or verbally, and he knows to stop whining, but he'll start up again the instant he notices the dog again. He also sometimes does this when my girlfriend's cat has put herself out of his reach and he really wants to shove his face into her fur.

I'm no expert in dog psychology but to me it seems like the whining is anxiety/nervous energy and not a deliberate behavior (it's a much different whine than his deliberate "I want out of this crate" whine). Almost like it's involuntary - he sees the other dog and knows he can't go sniff him, and he knows he's not allowed to just freak out and run around or spin in circles because that's bad manners, so he just starts this little high pitched whine. The instant I shush him or yank the leash, he stops, but then the cycle starts right back up again. There's never any permanent impression that this is bad behavior the way any other corrections I give do. He has been great at learning other things - just the usual occasional testing or sneakiness - and I definitely don't get the impression that he's challenging me or trying to disobey. He's just being single minded and anxious.

Short of just closing the blinds all the time (unacceptable) or forcing him to lay down and stop looking out the window (I want him to be able to do this, as it makes him happy and calms him down), how do I get him to stop doing this?

[spidey]

Get him to focus his attention on something else (a stuffed Kong, a chew toy, a Buster cube with his meal inside, anything that occupies his mind and is self-rewarding). You can't just say "don't be anxious", as you already know, you need to focus that energy somewhere else, on something that doesn't provoke anxiety.

[DaveB]

Seems like doing that would lead to a challenge making sure that I'm not rewarding the whining behavior.

I agree that distracting him (and keeping him distracted) is the most likely way to keep him from refocusing and whining again but is there any way to address the actual anxiety that causes it? I don't want to have to limit his exposure to neighbor dogs, plus me distracting him with a treat doesn't help if I'm not right there when he does it (ie, he'd still end up getting whiney if I'm in the bathroom or, ultimately, when he graduates to not being crated when I'm gone).

What's funny (and frustrating) is that I mentioned how he's not the one that barks when he sees dogs from the porch, and then as soon as I posted this last night I took them both out to the back deck and it was him who initiated the barking at this loud howling little beagle that walked by. It was 10:30pm so I'm sure the neighbors loved that little chorus. (I was there to calm my dogs but that beagle howled up a storm for a good five minutes.) So I guess I'll ammend that to that he will occasionally bark. Mostly he just gets antsy and whines while Cooper barks his head off though.

[greatdane]

while in the house my dog will do the same thing , heavy loud whining with most dogs, others one loud bark, I promptly tell her ,thank you , now sit[ or down or come ], then i release her and it ususally takes care of it. the whining is rather annoyingly intense.
I agree that there must be anxiety behind it but don't have the answer as to how to "fix" it , mine is also a rescue and I actually suspect it is more a frustration whine ,I am very interested in what the pro's have to say about it.

[Weltterr]

You don't need to fix the cause of the anxiety. When you redirect the dog, teaching her to replace the unwanted behavior with a wanted behavior, this will take care of the anxiety. When she is focusing on the new behavior, she will forget about the anxiety. Just don't give up on the training, as so many seem to do - this takes time. This doesn't happen in just a few days. Corrections are not what is needed - it is the redirection of replacing one behavior with a behavior that gets positive reinforcement.