REACTIVE DOG CLASS MODULE 3
PLACE TRAINING
Teaching a reactive dog a Place command is what I would consider an essential skill. It is so helpful for when you take your dog out into the world and want to work on having them be calm and settled. It is also so helpful when people come into your home or for situations where your dog gets very worked up like some of our dogs in this class that like to look out windows and react. Having a place command can allow you to shift the focus from what not to look at to, how about you come over here and focus on this instead, so it gives you a way to create a time out.
Watch the video on place training to see how to work on having your dog lay down and settle on a spot. Why use place training and not just a down stay? As I talked about in the target touch training, often we have poisoned reinforcement for certain cues but using punishment and rewards. So for a down, a dog may not know if the outcome will be a reward or a correction. By using clicker/shaping training techniques to teach a place and leaving corrections out of it, you teach the dog to drive the behavior and trust it’s always good to play that game.
Get treats and a clicker (you can use “yes” but a clicker honestly works better as most dogs create a stronger association a sound that has no other meaning than “cookie”, you can use “yes” if you don’t have a clicker and refuse to get one, or if your dog is afraid of the clicker, but be sure your tone and cadence of the word is very different than your normal speaking voice)
present your mat/towel/bed (you want to use something very portable that can eventually be used out in the world- I use a hand towel)
the moment the dog looks at the mat, click and toss the reward onto the mat.
when the dog goes to the mat to eat the cookie, follow them and use a second treat to help them into a down, reward the down.
if they stay down, continue to reward every 5-10 seconds and then after three rewards release and toss a treat away from the mat so they have to leave it to get it.
then reset the game, watch and the moment they look back at the mat, click and toss the reward to the mat. If they stall out and stare at you, look at the mat, not them, watch them with your peripheral vision and click the moment their head starts to turn away from you and toss the reward over to the mat.
again follow them to the mat and help them go into a down. repeat rewarding for staying if they do.
Once they are racing to the mat, try waiting to see if they offer going down. if they don’t and get up and leave the mat, again wait until they glance back at it and click and toss the reward to the mat, then go to the mat and help them down.
once they will offer running to the mat and laying down, add your verbal cue. I use “settle” but use whatever you want, ***that does not have any previous association with corrections. So if you taught place, but have used punishment if they broke place, train it like above and use a new verbal cue.
Once your dog is solid at offering it inside and will hold the position for 3-5 rewards, take your mat outside to a known area, that’s low stress and trigger free.
When you go outside expect their performance may drop so be prepared to click just if they look at it. You may have to go back to the initial training steps since they are now faced with distractions, that’s expected and normal, just lower your expectations and keep it fun.
Gradually increase the time you keep them in the stay position on the mat.
Gradually up the level of distraction area.
Only move with successes!
LECTURE ON THE LADDER OF AGGRESSION
This one is key to understand WHY it is so important to understand how punishing a dog for displaying warning signs can drastically increase a dog’s level of aggression. Most reactive dogs are not aggressive, as in when they actually engage with a trigger they do not attack and they try to avoid conflict. But many reactive dogs can be turned into aggressive dogs when they begin to associate the triggers with punishment and do not feel safe to express their conflict until they hit the red line where their fear or anger towards the trigger outweighs their fear of the punishment.
TAP & TURN
Remember your touch is not a mean poke, itʼs like a tap on someoneʼs shoulder, and itʼs an invitation to chase you. Start without triggers present so the game is not yet associated with a trigger. Use sniff distractions, food distractions, you can set out toys. Make catching you loads of fun!!! This week is a training week for the exercise so donʼt use it with triggers until you have done a full practice week.
EXAMPLES OF NORMAL REACTIVITY THAT CAN LEAD TO PROBLEMS
Here is a video for you of a SUPER common puppy reactivity. Now many of you likely have this kind of reactivity if your dogs are still young and actually like the triggers they are barking at. This kind of reactivity at this point has nothing big behind it, if you were to let go of this puppy she would just happily run over to the things she is barking at and investigate. But she can't because she is on a leash. This left unaddressed will lead to massive frustration. That frustration than is linked to the situation, if repeated over and over again the dog learns: when I see dogs and I am on a leash I feel frustrated. This is the MOST common form of reactivity I see. Leash frustration reactivity. It can take very friendly dogs and create very aggressive dangerous dogs if they get the opportunity to act on that built up frustration.
So watch what I have him do, move further away, until she is able to sit and take a reward (finding her threshold) then once she can think again we get her focus from the triggers and onto him and working for rewards. And you can see with just a minor adjustment and moving away for less than a minute he is able to be right back where he was with a focused puppy.
It is important to watch and to note, putting food in her face is NOT enough if she is over threshold, he has to move away in order for her to recognize the food and reconnect with him. And don't feel bad if the distance you have to move is huge. I've had to move the distance of a full football field with some dogs to get outside of threshold once they were aroused.
Here is another example of normal canine communication that presents as reactivity that is simply a dog communicating it’s unsureness. The difference between what makes a reactive dog is that they are very overt in their communications and you see a whole body response vs a normal dog that may display all of these same behaviors without the whole body response (change in breathing, eyes dilated, piloerection aka hackles up, etc). It’s important to understand that reactivity is a biochemical emotionally driven state, it is not a choice an animal makes. Again with a dog either normal or reactive is given the ability to work through a reaction to see everything is ok the situation can be diffused and not lead to long term negative associations.
Sometimes people do get into a hyper aware state themselves and confuse normal canine communication for reactivity, not all barking is reactivity, not all responses are problem behavior, They are after all dogs, so don’t expect a dog to never bark when it sees something it doesn’t understand. So what makes it fall under the category of what we call Canine Reactivity? That the association between a specific trigger and an emotion has formed, so it’s when with repeated exposure the dog determines that trigger causes a specific emotion. So it’s with repeated exposure and us doing nothing to create a new association that allows that reactivity to flourish into a problem. It’s important to understand you cannot create reactivity in a dog unless that dog has the biological predisposition to be reactive as it has all to do with how the dog’s nervous system processes information and feelings. Reactivity is NOT your fault. But you can feed already existing reactivity with your own responses, so for example if the dog is reacting because they are afraid and you add something scary to the situation you feed their negative emotions. That is not the same as reinforcing fear! Why? Because fear is not a response that a living creature wants to feel, feeling bad is something we all innately seek to avoid so your actions don’t make a dog WANT to feel afraid, but giving them more fearful events to associate with the trigger builds the history that the trigger is indeed very scary. So our actions can fuel reactivity or ease reactivity, but you did not cause it and anyone who tells you that you did does not understand brain chemistry and function.
My MOST solid bombproof dog was a completely unsocialized dog that was severely abused and abandoned at a year old, everything was done wrong and he was a breed known for a lot of reactivity and he had behavior problems when he came to us, but the brain function under it all was solid and sound so he just needed information. My MOST reactive dog was bred by reputable breeders, raised in ideal circumstances, socialized and trained from the start, raised by loving caring people, and of a breed known as being friendly and stable, but his brain chemistry was such that he could not process anger or frustration normally. Nick is functionally a reactive dog, in that the way his brain processes excitement and arousal puts him at a high risk for establishing reactive triggers. He is not currently reactive because the triggers he came with have been modified and he has created new positive associations through conditioning. But because of his brain function I will always be on the lookout for new triggers developing and working to always lay down positive associations to things he begins to target. You can see in the video the difference between a normal (Emily) dog’s response to an event vs the reactive dog, you can see how quickly she shifts to normal and how her response is not full body biochemical emotional reaction.
MODULE 3 HOMEWORK
Review and advancing steps for previous exercises:
Touch a target with their nose
Once your dog touches the target easily the next step is to ask for the touch while you are moving and your dog is walking at your side. Then as they get better and better practice randomly asking for them to touch it during walks. This is where using a target that is not your hand can come in useful. You can make a target out of a piece of cloth and safety pin it to your pocket, jacket, leg, etc depending on your dogʼs height. That way they can touch while your hands remain free to hold the leash and treats.
Look at that
If you are at the stage where you are rewarding when they look back at you for seeing the other dog. Sometimes see if they will just offer the game without being prompted, so when a trigger comes into your dogʼs safe field of vision rather than saying “look at the..” and rewarding at first, just watch them, and donʼt say anything and just wait. If they offer to look back at you on their own without any cueing on your part make a big fuss over them and give them a jackpot. Then wait, if they look back at the dog mark with a “yes” and reward again. Some of the dogs are going to start to look at the triggers less and less, as they get comfortable and would rather look at you. Thatʼs great! Just ask for nose touches or other tricks as the trigger moves by. And some triggers are going to be harder to expect this with and you need to know when to back off and reward without expecting eye contact. Read the dog, do they look like they are building or holding...
Practice your Tap & Turn and your Place Training