The Value of Dog Training

(video coming soon)

1. Dogs (like people and other mammals) can’t learn if they’re under stress. Essentially, the brain has 2 modes: seeking mode, where our dog is actively looking for opportunity, and reactive mode, where our dog is in a more defensive, guarded mental state. “Opportunity” here can mean a wide variety of things: food, play, smells, mates, companions, etc. When they are actively seeking opportunity, they are open to learning new things, will accept reward (whether that’s food, play, petting, praise), and the learning centers of their brains are active. When they are in reactive mode, they stop looking for the good stuff, and are pessimistic, on-guard, and expecting the bad. Dogs in that state often won’t accept food or play reward, and they don’t actually learn anything new; only their existing pessimistic feelings get reinforced.

• Example: I recently adopted a little 18 month old English cocker, Audrey. When we first got her, she was very timid and fearful in new locations, with new people, and with large, loud, or reactive dogs. I enrolled her in training class, and at first, she was overwhelmed and she would shut down. She wouldn’t take treats, she would cower, and she couldn’t really learn. I had to help her to shift her out of reactive mode and into seeking mode before she could learn.

2. Reframing training as tool-providing “games” can help both the human and the dog have more fun and can separate the training from the problem areas. This may sound strange—why would you want to separate the training from the problem? But that gets back into the first point. You have to give the dog the tools while they are in seeking/learning mode. You have to start teaching when they are happy, not stressed, and can assimilate new information. By doing fun, short games frequently, you can strengthen the seeking/learning centers in the brain by upregulating those neural pathways—like strengthening a muscle by working with it. Then, as you slowly start to introduce more challenging stimuli, your dog has the tools to be able to cope!

• Example: What I started doing with Audrey was two-fold. In between classes, I started working her in my house, where she was comfortable. I didn’t just drill the class lessons; I started teaching her fun games that got her to be playful with me, and worry less about what else was going on. For her, this started out with being nose targets—she had to boop my hand with her nose. Then, chasing tossed treats and returning to me. Then spinning left and right. Then giving left and right paws (that was the hardest for her!). Once she was comfortable in the house, I took it out into my yard. By the time I went back to class, I would start her with a snuffle mat looking for treats (engaging the seeking system), then nose targets, then treat chasing, then spinning. By the time all that was done she was settled into class and ready to learn! Sometimes if she was barked or lunged at, I would have to take her back to baseline and reset her, but I was able to find that seeking mindset faster and faster each time.

3. We can actually train dogs to care less about stressors! There are games that focus on a skill called disengagement. Disengagement helps the dog to be able to learn to ignore the nonsense, and either relax or focus on the more fun and rewarding task at hand. There are a wide variety of these games, and playing them regularly with your dog will help with almost all aspects of living with a dog because they won’t be as likely to pull on leash, they’ll learn to ignore noise outside, and can be more easily taught other things when their sensory systems aren’t trying to focus on everything at once.

• Example: Audrey tends to notice and, at first, stress about sounds occurring outside my house. My neighbors coming home, dogs being walked, whatever. She would get vigilant, sitting on the back of the couch and barking instead of being able to relax. I started working her on disengagement games. On example is a game called “Distraction, Mark, Treat,” or DMT. This means that I taught her that the word “nice” meant she would get rewarded for turning around and coming back to align at my side, generally facing behind me. We started this in my kitchen, which is a calm, happy place for her, initially when she was already in working mode. Then I expanded it to when she was distracted with a toy, my other dog, etc. We’re still expanding it to work on walks and with higher level distractions, but even without the focus yet being on outside noises and sights, she’s already markedly less likely to fixate because she has learned that disengaging from distractions is likely to earn a reward!

4. What you practice is what you will get more of. This one sounds obvious, but it applies across far more of dog behavior than you might think. Yes, if you practice sit, stay, come, heel, your dog is likely to get better at that, which is great and valuable! But sometimes we can accidentally practice things we don’t want, and inadvertently get more and more of that. This can be a specific behavior, like jumping up, or just an energy, like being hyper and busy.

• Examples: Audrey is a high-energy, high-drive dog. When we first got her, she was recovering from surgery and her physical fitness wasn’t the best; she would be pretty tired after ¾ of a mile walk, but would still have some of her anxious, vigilant behaviors at home. We initially started exercising more, and she rapidly improved in fitness to where now she can do 5 miles without even thinking about it. But while her fitness improved, her relaxation did not. So we started working on relaxation games for her: lying on a mat, or a specific section of the couch, and getting long-lasting chews or lickable treats like Pupsicles while she’s on that spot or in her crate. We coupled rewarding and slowly building up the stretches where she was relaxed with still working on disengagement and other tools to help combat the vigilance. This is still a work in progress, but she can now chill on the couch or her bed for a few hours while we do housework and she’s fine, though her physical endurance is significantly better.

(video coming soon)

5. Dogs need to learn what you want them to do, not just what you don’t want them to do. Again, this may sound obvious, but it can actually be quite hard in real life. This goes hand-and-hand with getting what you practice, but it really helps the human to set out goals of what they want their dog to do, and then work on training that.

• Example: My Clumber spaniel Mitra loves to counter-surf. He’s done this since he was tall enough to reach, and it has become a huge problem as it has been reinforced accidentally over the years. Yelling at him, sticky tape, and other commonly recommended tactics haven’t really helped. Finally, I reframed it: it’s not just that I want him to not counter-surf, it’s that I want him to have all 4 paws on the floor at all times if he’s in the kitchen. To help, I put mats in the kitchen for both of my dogs, and they get rewarded for staying on their mat. Much of the time, this means we periodically toss a treat to them while they are sitting or laying on their mat, but it can also be that they get a long-lasting chew while there. If he’s sitting or lying on his mat, he’s not counter-surfing, and we’re building the value of being on the mat so that hopefully, eventually, it will overrule the value of counter-surfing.