Reactive Dog Home Page
Scroll down and use the buttons below to access each of the training modules.
At the bottom of the list is the button for the FB Group, if you have joined the main Bark Commanders Facebook Discussion group it will automatically approve you for all other groups, if you did not join the main group use this password when prompted when joining: BCA2023
Think of the modules as your text books for the Program, a master reference where you can get written & video instructions for each other the exercises.
The Classroom blog will be where you can find my suggested path working through the modules. I will be taking us through the exercises, taking bits from each class and helping you meld them together. But if you prefer you can work any module at your own pace. You can post homework videos and ask questions on any of the Facebook groups at any time during the year. You can set your own syllabus if there is a class you prefer to work without waiting, but I suggest not doing so if your dog is young, new to you, or in need of a more solid foundation. This is why you might see some of the exercises repeated, because there are some that overlap in all courses and I want to make sure folks get those if they are working on their own.
People all have their own best ways of taking information in, so you will see that each exercise is explained in writing, shown in video demonstration, with verbal explanations and then if you learn by doing you can upload videos of you and your dog doing the exercises for me to provide you feedback.
See the page on filming, editing and uploading tips for help on making that process easier for you!
If you are not in the Academy FB discussion group monitor the Classroom Blog and Zoom Room so you don’t miss updates and meeting opportunities!
REACTIVE DOG MODULE ONE
CLASSICAL CONDITIONING
Our first step in rehabilitating a reactive dog is to work on changing their internal conditioned response to the trigger by using CLASSICAL CONDITIONING to lay down a new association in the dog’s brain TRIGGER = REWARD. Watch the video to see examples of using classical conditioning. Many people do not understand in the beginning stages the difference between Operant Conditioning and Classical Conditioning, but the short of it is, in Classical Conditioning there is no required behavior from the dog to receive the reward, only the presence of the trigger controls the rewards. In Operant conditioning you would reward depending on how the dog responds to the trigger. It’s VERY important you understand this difference as many people fail to help reactive dogs as they approach their threshold because the dog is too triggered to respond to cues.
UNDERSTANDING THRESHOLD
What does “threshold” mean. Your dog’s threshold means the distance in which you no longer are able to control their response to the trigger. So once the triggers gets inside your dog’s perceived personal space bubble they will react to drive the trigger away, or if your dog’s reactivity is based on frustration and over arousal and excitement the distance of which they just can’t keep it together.
I see people underestimating the distance where to train as the biggest hurdle to good reactivity behavior modification.
People really want to push push push to get their dogs as close to the trigger as they can as quickly as they can. The idea that the best work will happen if they are *just outside their dog’s threshold for reactivity. But really, where you want to be when working is *just inside the bubble of recognition well beyond the distance where they are already heightened!!! When in doubt, go further out!!! Good reactivity training should feel easy, like you are not even sure if your dog notices the trigger, but you know they did see it. Then we sneak closer and closer as we go.
CHOOSING FOOD TREATS
Let's talk tips about food! Attached is a video showing you the bulk of the treats I use for training and for CC with a dog. This is going to change a little as we start to push for more, but when starting CC your distances should be far enough away it is easy for your dog, so you want to use mostly low to medium value treats. (see the examples in the video)
However you also want to have with you in a separate pocket a stash of high value treats like maybe string cheese, chicken, hot dogs, etc - really smelly tasty treats your dog rarely gets! You want to have these incase a trigger surprises you and your lower value rewards are no longer enough.
Many people make the mistake of always using high value rewards for everything and then you have nothing to build to if the environment gets more challenging. So in general use the lowest value reward that does the job so you always have room to move up. Some dogs might start reactivity training already at such a heightened state that it seems like they need the highest value food for all your work and that is ok, we will address ways to help your dog decompress to reach a less overall reactive mindset in the coming modules. Once you find your dog is beginning to be more responsive don’t be afraid to try lower value rewards to see if they are happy to take less. MOST of the time the issue is not the dog’s food drive, but the fact people start out over threshold and ask too much for the food they offer.
What if your dog has no food drive??? They do, all dogs have food drive, they need to eat food to survive, it is hard wired into them! But some dogs have less natural enthusiasm for food and are more quickly and easily satiated. Many dogs have never had to work for their food and so they haven't developed the natural relationship with seeking and working to eat. But you can develop that! So step one DITCH THE BOWL. This isn’t about control, this is about making seeking food fun! USE the food they have to eat to survive to build behaviors, engagement and help them decompress. Hand feed or put the food in games and puzzles with all of your dog's food for a week and watch their relationship with food and you change.
BEHAVIOR MODIFICATION VS TRAINING
One of the biggest debates and arguments when it comes to dog trainers vs dog behaviorists is using punishment when training reactive and/or aggressive dogs. Below is a lecture that goes more deeply into the subject and explains why I do not use punishment or tools that rely on causing a dog pain or discomfort to correct a behavior. If you have multiple people in your dog’s life and you disagree on using punishment this is a good video to watch together so everyone in the dog’s life is on the same page.
WHAT EQUIPMENT I USE AND WHY
Below are two videos explaining the equipment and tools I use while working with reactive dogs and why i have chosen them. While I do not require you use or don’t use any particular tools, I will share why I choose the ones I do. I do not recommend using e-collars, prong collars or choke chains and since I do not use them and do not recommend them I cannot offer you and specific guidance as to their use in this course. If you have chosen to use these tools that is your decision and many people have still taken the course and have found helpful techniques and information even though we may disagree on what tools to use. But I also know many people have resorted to using tools maybe they would like to get away from using. I will also share articles on fallouts from using aversive techniques especially in regards to aggression so you can also do your own research in the weeks to come. Not to make anyone feel bad, but because some of you might already be in this space where some of the issues you are facing might be fallout and relate to how you have been addressing their reactions in the past, hampering your training now. So regardless of what you decide to use I just want everyone to be educated so you can make the choices that best suit you and your dog.
Above all else training techniques should not rely on a physical control tool, the tool should be your safety net and not the manner in which you teach your dog.
My first choice for dogs is using a well fitting body harness, a harness that allows for either front clip or back clip makes for a very versatile piece of equipment that is the safest option for your dog’s body.
If you are worried about aggression, pairing a harness with a muzzle is a very safe option. I will use head collars in very specific cases, but it's not a tool to be used lightly and should not be used to correct leash pulling or be the tool you teach leash walking with, rather a last line of defense with a dog much stronger than you if they do aggress so you can get prevent a contact bite. When using a head collar you must understand how to use one safely, most importantly they should only be used when walking a dog on a short leash next to you and never on a long line or full length of the leash, you never want them to be able to build speed and momentum or they can damage their necks. A nice option if you feel like you need that help if your dog does go over threshold is to have a two lead system, so you walk the dog with a leash attached to their harness, and have a second leash attached to the head collar you only use when an unexpected trigger pushes your dog over threshold.
HOMEWORK MODULE ONE
Scout out locations that allow you to work your dog sub-threshold. I cannot stress enough how important it is to find successful locations to work in! Even if you have to get in the car and drive to a park, often the locations you normally walk in are already so filled with known triggers for your dog and you may need to find better places. It is FAR more effective to drive to a better place a couple times a week and avoid trigger hot zones for the first week of training than to try and make it work walking everyday in an area that is too much for your dog.
Have EVERYTHING you need ready before you get your dog out! Have your treats ready to grab in large quantities quickly! Have your leash untangled and ready to go. Take a moment to look around and see what’s in the area.
If your dog’s reactivity is based on frustration and excitement it can help to play with your dog in the house or yard first to help off load some of their excess energy.
When a trigger enters the area and your dog sees, hears or smells it, start offering reinforcements. If it is a visual or auditory triggers continue to offer the reinforcement until the trigger leaves the area and your dog no longer sees or hears it. If it’s a smell keep offering as you move your dog beyond the target odor area.
Remember stage one we are using CLASSICAL CONDITIONING so your dog does not need to offer you any specific behaviors, they don’t have to sit, or lay down, or look at you or do anything other than NOT react. If they react you are too close and you need to move further away and then offer reinforcements. DO NOT SKIP THIS STEP! It is so common for people to want to skip this step and begin to ask the dog to look away from the trigger and focus on them and their food, this will lead to you not changing the dog’s emotional state but rather just being distracted by the food and not registering the trigger is what makes the food happen. Also many people push for too much and the dog gives up on the reward and starts reacting. This is the number one reason people who say “food doesn’t work, my dog is too focused on the other dogs to care about food”, it’s because they ask for too much when the triggers are too close.
How long you need to stay at stage one depends on each individual dog, some it only takes a week or two, some it takes months. It all depends on how engrained the reactive behavior has become and the motivations behind it.
REACTIVE DOG CLASS MODULE 2
Once you have gotten a good feel for using Classical Conditioning and you know what your dog’s indicators are that they are building up towards a reaction we begin the subtle shift towards Operant Conditioning by using the opportunity that arises once our dog starts expecting a reinforcement when they see a trigger. You will see and feel this shift, it will start to feel like your dog is paying less attention to the triggers are the far end of their threshold and they will start to automatically look to you when a trigger appears. If this is still not happening you are likely doing too much practice much too close to your dog’s threshold and you need to back up and work further away. Once you do start to feel the shift we move to making a game out of looking back and forth between us and the trigger as demonstrated in the video below.
The finesse of reactive dog rehabilitation is having a clear plan of how to move your dog from reactive to having a new conditioned response to a trigger. Where I often see people get stuck is they don't know what to do beyond either feed the dog or correct the dog. While using CC to help change a dog's initial emotional responses, we also need to have a plan of how to train them what to do instead. We want to slowly shift that focus off the trigger onto us. Many people want to skip the CC step and move straight to this step, but if you rush the CC you can still be fighting that primal instinctive fear or excitement response so CC is what gets us our foot in the door. If you do the CC well it sets you up for this next step. And again these are all just steps so don't get stuck on the idea of thinking but I don't want to always feed treats, these are steps and food is an extremely valuable tool, don't be afraid to use it!
Success with this step really requires you set yourself in a position of success, you need to be close to your dog's face, so don't try it at the end of a 6ft leash. Watch all of my reactive dog training videos and you will see I am almost always less than an arms lengths away from their mouth. I want to be up there in their field of vision.
LOOK AT IT
You might have to watch this video a couple times as I say, show and write a lot of tips in a short video. What we are wanting to create is a dog that on cue, looks at a trigger and looks back at us. Why have them look at the trigger and not just focus on us and ignore the trigger? Because if the trigger is very scary the dog is not going to want to ignore it and being able to peek and look back can give that dog the confidence to stay in the game. Also if your dog is reactive because they love triggers rather than fear them, getting to look is a reward. And the end goal is your dog can see triggers and look at them naturally.
Once your dog will readily look at trigger without an instant reaction you are going to subtly start focusing on rewarding when they look back to you from the trigger. Remember they do not need to actually lock onto the trigger, if they are just swinging their head in the direction of the trigger that is great, reward that. At first try not to make them look back, watch their ears, if you see the ear closest to you fold back towards you or flick back, start praising, this means they are listening for you. If they wonʼt look back, try making a little sound, donʼt say their name, just a kissy noise (donʼt use a command, sound or noise you have previously used that gets mixed results as we donʼt want to bring previous inconsistent behaviors into this game). You can also bring the reward near their nose and then draw it to your face. If they still donʼt respond, you are too close to the trigger, so move further away and try again.
TARGET/TOUCH TRAINING
Touch a target with their nose on verbal command
Present target in your hand with the treat between fingers behind the target, look at the target yourself, not your dog. When your dog moves itʼs nose towards the target to investigate say “yes” or click when their nose makes contact with the target, then give treat by flipping your hand around so they can reach the treat thatʼs behind the target. Keep practicing until as soon as you present the target your dog is bonking it with their nose, then you can start saying your verbal cue (touch, bonk, hit it, etc) as you present the target.
Using Hand as target. Present your hand, you dog will likely assume it has a treat and investigate, the moment their nose touches your hand say “yes” and reward. Reward with the target hand. If they donʼt touch your hand, just wait a few moments as long as you are in a low distraction area and no triggers are present, look at your hand and wait. If your dog is looking at you and likes food, they will get impatient and likely push their nose at you. If they walk away or give up, try again, move them around a little, have them do a behavior they know and reward and then present your hand.
If your dog already has a hand touch, you can start mixing this into your “look at that” game. Wait until you have done a few just marking looking without reactions, and if the dog is calm and not escalating, try to ask for a touch and reward that. Donʼt do more than 2-3 touches per trigger.
Why you might want both? Sometimes I want my hands to be free, so if I teach my dog to touch a target, like the corner of my pocket, or with a smaller dog maybe my shoelaces, then I can keep one hand on the leash while one hand rewards the touch. When using a hand target you have to either hold treats or the leash in a hand while asking for the touch and this can slow down your treat delivery and allow space for reactions. But sometimes I want a hand target, like maybe I want to use my hand position to move my dog’s head in a certain direction to swing them to my other side from a target or something like that.
MODULE 2 HOMEWORK
LOOK AT IT:
Work on subtly shifting your timing to waiting to reward your dog for looking back to you after seeing the trigger (or hearing) you can do the same exercise for sounds, I usually use “what’s that” as my cue and your timing is with the dog’s head (or ears) swinging in the direction of the noise and back. If your dog backslides and becomes reactive it means they might not be ready for this step yet and you need to back up to Classical Conditioning again, or it means this particular trigger is maybe still too hot for them. You will find during your work some triggers are easier to work than others so you can slide back and forth as needed between asking for the Look at it behavior VS Classical conditioning when you just reinforce for being in the presence of the trigger.
TARGET:
Work on teaching either a hand or target touch, if you already have one, work on the other as well. If your dog already has one you can try mixing a few touches in with your Look at it exercise with easier triggers.
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
REACTIVE DOG CLASS MODULE 4
SOUND SENSITIVITY
Here is an example of how I work on helping a dog that is not comfortable with certain sounds. It's not always possible to recreate the exact sounds they react to, but the more different sounds you work to comfort level the more coping skills you are giving your dog for when they do hear odd sounds. Also you are learning through the process what stress signals they throw at the earlier levels and what they respond best to when you are trying to help them.
HOW OXYTOCIN AFFECTS DOGS AND PEOPLE
CLICKER TRAINING FOR REACTIVE DOGS
This clicker exercise is especially for those of you with fearful dogs, are pups that are spooking at seeing weird things, scared of noises, and dogs that lack a lot of confidence when they go out in the world. One of the best things you can do for a pup like this is to teach them they can be in control of learning, that they can push behaviors to earn. Getting a dog to interact directly with scary things is so much better than luring or coaxing them to. If you have never used a clicker please note your dog might at first be worried about the click sound, so start with a soft click (they make a range of clickers, the ones I use are cheap and loud, they make much softer ones) you can even start with the sound of a pen click, and you can put the clicker in your pocket or have someone stand further away to click it the first couple times. If your dog is afraid of the clicker you can do the training using a marker word like "yes" too, but for many dogs the strength of a sound that only means cookie can become a super powerful tool for your reactivity work.
While I am sharing this mostly for those of you with the scared timid pups, there is no down side to anyone doing this training :) So feel free. I'll also add a file with written instructions, but here you can see Nick's very first clicker shaping sessions.
Many of my reactive students who didn’t see the value in using a clicker ended up taking one of my clicker classes for trick training and they were all surprised how effect it was for working on reactivity. Why would a clicker have a different response than your “yes”? Because people suck at hiding emotion from their voices and a clicker in neutral and only carries the association with reward. Our voices can mean many things including negative emotions, so your “yes” might sound very different when you are stressed vs at home training fun things, but a clicker sounds the same no matter how stressed you are personally feeling so I thing it can be a great tool for your toolbox!
BASIC OBEDIENCE SKILLS
Let's take a look at your dog's basic understanding of obedience commands. Loose leash walking and a good stay are two of the most important exercises for a reactive dog to know! Leash frustration is a huge trigger so having your dog know how to walk on a loose leash can alleviate a lot of reactivity due to frustration and can help keep a dog calmer overall. A stay can help a reactive dog learn how to stay grounded in situations that make them nervous.
HOMEWORK MODULE 4
Look at it
Some triggers may still be in the classical conditioning stages - like barking dogs, scary people, running triggers, etc. But your softer triggers you hopefully are approaching the stage where your dog is able to look back at you easily, and able to perform simple behaviors. If not, don’t lose hope or get frustrated, I have worked with many dogs that have taken several months at the conditioning stage and still achieved rehabilitation.
Place
Hopefully you are practicing your place. It’s very helpful work for helping your dog calm and settle in a spot when you are out and about. Once you are able to work on place outside, take you mat to a place where you can sit down on a bench. Sit down and work on the place, after clicking for a few sends, start to see how long you can hold your dog on the spot, using treats to increase your time but randomly doling them out as your pup is on the spot.
Tap & Turn
Don’t overdo this game, keep it fresh and fun, but occasionally throw it in to your training. This is kept up as an emergency u-turn when you need to make distance quickly so keep it fun in training! 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.
Sound sensitivity and clicker training exercises
If your dog has issues with sounds or they lack overall confidence these are great games to work on their ability to control outcomes.
Basic Obedience
Loose leash walking and bombproof stays are essential skills for reactive dogs!
REACTIVE DOG CLASS MODULE 5
This module our focus is going to be about supporting you and your dog away from reactivity training. You need ways to decompress from the stress of reactivity, you BOTH need ways.
NOSEWORK AND INDOOR DECOMPRESSION GAMES
It's also SO important that we have ways to help our dogs cope with their stress and have ways to off load their nervous energy. Here is a little video I put together with various food seeking enrichment games you can play with your dogs. Our dog's olfactory system is a gateway between helping access that deeper primal brain and give it some focus and calming energy.
Every reactive dog should have regular access to playing food seeking games and using their noses to hunt. This is just a starter of options, you can get very creative with how you offer your dog food seeking enrichment games. Let me see a video of your dogs playing food seeking games!
Remember our discussion in the last modules about oxytocin and cortisol, self care and meditation are the tools to help YOU work on your own stress responses! Your own stress levels are crucial when working with reactivity and these are some ways you can do that.
Remember our discussion in the last modules about oxytocin and cortisol, self care and meditation are the tools to help YOU work on your own stress responses! Your own stress levels are crucial when working with reactivity and these are some ways you can do that.
APPROACHING TRIGGERS
If your dog is able to be near soft triggers and stay focused we are going to work on approaching. See the video examples. This exercise is basically loose leash walking towards a trigger, rewarding as the dog stays non-reactive, and turning around and walking back away from trigger, rewarding the dog for turning with you. Your timing of the turn away should be nice and early to keep the dog sub-threshold. As you work just edge yourself closer to the triggers, so long as your dog does not build.
To work on this exercise it really helps to have a location with predictable dogs and traffic flow, so a place where dogs are arriving on leash and going to a place- like dog parks (if the parking area is busy enough most dogs are on leash) pet stores, grooming shops, pet stores, etc.
PRACTICAL TIPS FOR HANDLING REACTIVE DOGS
Here’s a quick little video on some tips and tricks to keep in mind to make your reactivity training moving along successfully.
ADVANCING YOUR STAY AND PLACE WORK
The majority of the reactive dog training I personally do is actually obedience training. The more tools you give your dog of things they can be doing instead of reacting, the less they will react. You need a way to communicate with them and give them guidance when they need it, and obedience is the best way to get that! So if you find training fun, and you make it motivating for your dog you can really make your reactivity training so much more successful if you spend that time between seeing triggers working on what they can be doing instead of looking for triggers.
REACTIVE DOG CLASS MODULE 6
CAR AND MOTION REACTIVITY
Here is a video of me doing a session on Seneca's car reactivity with the owner. On the day one section play VERY close attention to the owner's energy. You can HEAR the worry in her voice and you can see her energy as she fusses and fidgets. We talked about that a lot and I showed her the video and let her listen to her voice. The next day look at the difference in her behavior. I fixed his car reactivity very quickly doing a few of these CC sessions, it took me a bit longer to fix the owners reactivity to him being near cars ;)
Notice my energy, it's calm, it's grounded, it's focused. Remember to always take those breaths, feel your feet, be aware of your energy so it's grounding your dog, and not feeding their worries or arousal.
AROUSAL
This module we are going to be discussing Arousal, frustration and the “up” side of reactivity. Many dogs are not afraid or angry, and actually do fine with dogs off leash, and their reactivity is from being over excited and frustrated by the leash. So all week long we are going to talk about this type of reactivity. Itʼs very important to recognize and begin addressing this as early as possible. This can lead to actual aggression as their feelings move from excitement to constant frustration and decide the other dogs are their source of constant frustration which then changes their emotions about the dogs from positive to negative.
If after watching the lecture on Arousal, if you think this is the root of your dog's reactivity here is a video showing many of the games I play with Nick to address his tendencies to easily become over aroused.
PLANTING KNOWN DISTRACTION TRIGGERS
Once you have built a solid foundation for your reactivity training it's so good to find some help in the form of other people with dogs so you can practice around other dogs in a safe manner.
Some of my former students in this online community have been able to successfully set up meet ups with other people with dogs that want to train and have access to safe dogs to train near. They have reached out on their IG and FB accounts asking if anyone local wants to practice. It's been so sweet seeing these little pop up training sessions blossom. You just have to all first agree upon the ground rule of what distances you want to work at, how you handle other people and dogs wanting to join in, what you each need help working on.
You could look into joining a dog training class, sports like rally obedience, dog agility, nosework are good classes to look into, many even have special classes available for reactive pups. These places you get exposure to dogs and dog people who understand how to keep their dogs from setting yours off and can help you find a safe space to train. Be sure you always let the instructors know you have a reactive dog and let them know what you need so they can be honest with you if that would be an appropriate fit for your dog. Some situations are better than others depending on your dog's issues, so for example if your dog is also people reactive, Nosework can be a good choice as it's all done one dog at a time in a very controlled setting vs agility where dogs maybe off leash with instructors which might be too much for your dog at this point.
A lot of areas are starting to have pack walks and meet ups, you might feel like this is still too much for your dog, but you could always join a walk without your dog and meet some nice people and see if anyone would be willing to do a meet up at a park for some dog training or a simple walk. Often people are hesitant to want to ask for help but SO many people are so willing to help if you ask. When I am out working with clients I ask total strangers for help all the time and so rarely get turned down. Always always always put safety first, it is not the goal to have your dog playing with these other dogs, just able to stay under threshold and give you the opportunity to train near them. When in doubt use muzzles!
ADVANCED OBEDIENCE FOR REACTIVE DOGS
These exercises are to show you how over time after you get your CC in place how you can use training to help be able to better manage your dog in potentially reactive situations, how to head the escalations off by using trained skills to focus your dog and also for situations where you might to step between them and a trigger, etc.
But you have to have really solid basics first, so some of you might be further along than other on your obedience training so I am sharing some exercises you can start playing with. Always first train in a trigger free environment. Keeping your dog's mind engaged with you and busy the long term fix as you move beyond CC. But I cannot stress this enough, you have to have the CC in place first, notice in all of these videos my dog is focused on me, I am not having to demand it or beg for it, so don't rush into this. But i want you to see how far you can take it!
DEALING WITH REACTIVITY TO VISITORS IN YOUR HOME
This is a handout for people who want to know how to makes friends with a reactive or scared dog. If you have guests coming you can give it to them, you can also have it for yourself so when people want to make friends with your dog you can better coach them on what to do. Place training is an essential skill for helping a dog that is reactive to strangers coming in your home. I have fixed MANY reactive dogs this way, giving them a safe place and job to do where they know they won’t have to deal with people is the crucial start. Crate training and tethering does NOT work as it creates barrier frustration and can increase a dog’s feelings of being trapped, the self control element of the place training is the crucial difference. Below is a link to a PDF for ways you can help your visitors feel at ease so your dogs can feel at ease.
So that’s the end of this course, but please know the journey with a reactive dog is never a linear one. These are the exercises and techniques that I have found the most useful for the highest number of people. There are so many great resources for living with a reactive dog. I will add a page with links to all my favorite resources. Please check them out for more great tips and ideas!
I truly believe a dog trainer can’t really call themselves a dog trainer until they have LIVED with their OWN reactive dog for that dog’s entire natural life. I THOUGHT I was a dog trainer before I had my first full experience with it, and it wasn’t until many years into my career as a trainer that I experienced it. I THOUGHT I was just a great trainer and only people who didn’t know what they were doing could end up with a reactive dog, that it was all just matter of doing it right. NOPE, I was dead wrong. Reactive dogs are born with the fuse that just needs to be lit and if you are lucky you get them through without something lighting their fuse, or you see them being lit and once you know how they work (like my life with Nick right now) you quickly cut the fuse before it explodes. Dogs with normal functioning brains cannot be made reactive, they can be made aggressive, but that’s a whole different discussion.
Here’s the thing though, there is something SO special about reactive dogs!!! They are SO passionate and sensitive. The way they process the world is so different and once you learn how to modify their triggers and get things manageable to get to reap the benefits of all that complex thinking and feeling they possess. The dog pictured above was the most reactive dog I’ve ever known and he was mine. I would 100% go back and relive every terrible embarrassing moment to have those minutes with him again. I wouldn’t change a moment of our time together, only wish for more of it. Even if I had to agree that I had to have all those problem behaviors back, I would do it. I would live my life working around his triggers to share more time with his amazing heart. Someday you will feel this about your reactive dog too, if you don’t already. It’s one of the things that brings me so much peace with Nick, I know even if he slips the other way and we end up with more things to fix, I know it’s worth it.