Lunch on the Patio

I hope you'll forgive me for posting so many brags lately. It's just that Maisy has become a far more normal dog than I ever expected, and I don't want to take it for granted. A few weeks ago, we did something I never thought would be possible: we ate lunch on a restaurant patio.

Maisy was a little super star. I tethered her to my chair, put a blanket down for her, and she just... laid there. Okay, and she begged a little for food, but I mean... this is Maisy we're talking about, the world's most spoiled dog. Heck, restaurants are for eating, right?

But she also chilled, just hanging out like she'd done this every day of her life. The restaurant patio was actually just on the sidewalk, with no barrier between the tables and the world at large. She watched people walk by, bicyclists speed past, and cars and trucks on the road. She saw other people eating. She flirted with our server. And she was a very good girl.

I have invested a lot in this silly little dog; lots of time and money, plenty of tears and frustration, and... it's all paying off. I am so proud of us both.

So proud!

On Sundays, Maisy and I go to a shaping class. It's taught by my trainer friend, and the other students are friends as well. It's a fairly unstructured class- we each work on our own thing, and sometimes, when we're tired, we simply hang out. Oh, excuse me, we do "mat work."

This past Sunday was one of those relaxed classes, and we spent most of it lying on the ground, laughing and talking, while simultaneously rewarding our dogs for relaxed behavior. In the past, when I've done mat work with Maisy she's been what I termed operantly relaxed- that is, she's been coiled up, ready to spring, and in the words of my friend Elizabeth, "twitching like a crack addict in withdrawal." (No offense meant to any crack addicts, in withdrawal or otherwise. Considering how much I love Maisy, this should be construed as the highest compliment.)

However, this week was different. Although she was initially "on" and ready to play the game, when Maisy realized that I wasn't going to ask her to do anything, she rolled over onto one hip, curled into a ball, and put her chin down. Her muscles were smooth and loose. Her eyes were droopy, and her ears were at half-mast. In other words: she was actually relaxed.

My trainer called it a breakthrough. For my part, I was afraid to breathe. Or move. Or do anything that might wreck the spell... which means that I don't have a picture. But take my word: it was amazing!

Re-check with the Veterinary Behaviorist

Maisy had her eight week re-check with Dr. Duxbury, her board-certified veterinary behaviorist, on Monday. This appointment lasted longer than I expected- almost two hours- and we reviewed the behavior logs and the charting that I had done. We also discussed my general observations, as well as my goals and hopes for Maisy. I guess I still don’t know if Maisy’s response has been “typical,” but Dr. Duxbury did say that for most people, the level of improvement we’ve seen in Maisy is “enough.”

I don’t want to undermine Maisy’s progress- it’s been phenomenal, and I’m thrilled. In fact, Maisy was incredible in the exam room yesterday. At our first appointment, Maisy alternately paced and sought out interaction. She settled only when I asked her to, and it was very clearly an operant behavior, not a truly relaxed one.

This time around, Maisy was much calmer. She spent most of the time on her mat, and she had a very soft, heavy-lidded look to her eyes. Incidentally, I’ve heard people talk about this look on email lists before, but never really understood what they meant. Now I do, and I must have pointed it out to Dr. Duxbury half a dozen times because I was so amazed. Although she did get up from time to time, her body movements were soft and fluid instead of quick and frantic. She wasn’t pacing so much as she was bored. She was truly a different dog. Dr. Duxbury even said that she wished she’d taken video at Maisy’s initial consult!

With that said, I want more progress. Maybe that makes me greedy, I don’t know, but like Dr. Duxbury said, we won’t know how much more is possible without trying. She certainly didn’t seem to think I was being unreasonable, and I completely trust that she would say something if I was.

We discussed my goals for Maisy. Dr. Duxbury wasn’t surprised that Maisy had a hard time when we were at my parent’s house, but she was a bit concerned by how long it took Maisy to recover. (I actually feel like a three to four day recovery period is a big improvement for her, but I don’t have any data to back that up.) We agreed that a short-acting, as needed medication is probably in Maisy’s best interest. We discussed both trazodone, which is a serotonin modulator, and alprazolam (Xanax), which is a benzodiazepine. Since we don’t have any big events planned for several months, we decided to wait until we’ve decided what to do with her routine meds.

Because I want to see the number of anxiety-provoked reactions around the house reduced from the current average of two per day to something like three or four per week, we agreed to increase Maisy’s paroxetine. Currently, she’s on 8mg (1mg/kilo of body weight), and we decided to increase it to 10mg (1.25mg/kilo). I will continue to keep intermittent behavior logs, and we’ll consult again in four to six weeks. At that time, we’ll discuss increasing to a max of 12mg (1.5mg/kilo) and/or adding a second medication (probably clonidine, a centrally acting alpha-agonist).

Speaking of behavior logs, I totally got a gold star. I’m glad they were useful, because they are an awful lot of work. Honestly, I’m not looking forward to doing more of them, but I can’t deny their importance. Dr. Duxbury’s student analyzed them for patterns (she thought maybe Maisy was having a series of lower-intensity behaviors that culminated in a high-intensity one, but that theory didn’t pan out). We also discussed the fact that some of the stimuli that Maisy is reacting to is reasonable- for example, someone at the door- while some of it isn’t. My new task is to start coding my logs in an effort to pinpoint which type of stimulus is causing most of her reactions.

I will also start doing some desensitization and counter-conditioning around the house. I decided to focus primarily on interactions with the cats, mostly in an effort to help reduce the stress in their lives, too. Dr. Duxbury also recommended giving a treat when Maisy startles but doesn’t go over the top. Obviously, being consistent with this will yield the best results, so I’m going to have to pay close attention to what’s going on. I will also need to have treats close by, which may result in my being mugged for a few days. This could be interesting!

Like I said, it was a great appointment, and I was absolutely thrilled with the professionalism, respect and attention we received. Seriously, if anyone in the area needs a vet behaviorist, I can’t recommend Dr. Duxbury enough.

Training Tuesday: Relaxation Update

The main thing Maisy and I are working on right now is relaxing on her mat, and after reviewing my recent posts on the topic, I have to say I’m amazed by how this endeavor has evolved. We started out by doing the relaxation protocol, which went fairly well; we got all the way up to day 5 of the protocol. Still, Maisy was working, not relaxing, so I decided to try something I called day zero, which was basically just duration work on the mat with no tasks or distractions. Unfortunately, Maisy was still working, and I ended my last post wondering how I could change the picture so that Maisy would understand that she should just relax.

I ended up changing two things: the location of the mat, and the reward for being calm. Together, this has made a pretty huge difference in how our relaxation sessions are going, so I’m pretty excited to tell you about our progress.

The first change I made was to move the mat from the floor to the couch next to me. This was an easy decision, mostly because I had no idea what else to use as a mat. We’d already used different types of objects as a mat before, which meant that she’d already been introduced to the idea that lying on any mat-type object is a cue to work. But Maisy was already choosing to relax next to me on the couch in the evenings, and since we’ve never done any training on the couch, it seemed like a natural choice. After all, the entire association with lying on the couch is one of relaxation.

The second change was the way I’m rewarding her calm behavior. Before, I was using food treats to reinforce lying on the mat. Since Maisy is a clicker trained dog, she associates treats with working. If she was receiving treats for lying on the mat, that must mean that she should be working, and frankly, this is not a dog who will relax when there’s an opportunity to earn treats!

Now, I’m rewarding calm behavior with petting and massage. I don’t know that this would work for all dogs- and in fact, a year or two ago, it may not have worked for Maisy. She used to be fairly sensitive to touch, and would wiggle and squirm when I tried to stroke her. Since then, though, she’s learned to enjoy being touched, and more importantly, I’ve learned how she likes to be touched. Even better, it’s something we only do when chilling at home, not as a reward for trained behaviors.

With all that said, our typical relaxation session goes something like this: I wait until later in the evening, when Maisy is already showing signs of being tired. For a dog that doesn’t sleep a lot, this means waiting until she’s no longer begging me to throw her ball. Then I place her mat next to me on the couch, pat it with my hand, and ask her to come over. Sometimes I need to ask her to lie down, sometimes I don’t. If she tries to leave, I just call her back. Then, I time how long it takes her to relax, which I define as lying her head down. Depending on how restless she is, I ask her to remain like that for anywhere between one and five minutes. I will occasionally coo at her and rub her ears the way she likes before releasing her. If she chooses to stay on the mat after being released, that’s fine- I just wait until she goes, and then put the mat away.

We had two especially good sessions recently. On Sunday, it took Maisy several minutes to settle down, but once she did, it was true relaxation. She sprawled onto her back with her eyes closed. She looked truly peaceful, and she remained like that for almost ten minutes! Then, yesterday, as soon as I set the mat on the couch, she immediately jumped on it and lay down. She only remained in a relaxed position for about a minute, but even so, I was excited that she understood that the mat is a cue for relaxing.

I don’t plan to change anything for the next two weeks. Before I do, I want her to settle down on the mat within a minute, and to remain relaxed for a total of five minutes. I really think that it’s important to take things slowly right now. I want her to have a solid understanding of the mat as a place of relaxation before I add duration or change the location of the mat.

I’m really happy with the way it’s going, though, and although it’s taken awhile to figure out what will work for her, I think she’ll continue to be more and more relaxed. I already mentioned this, but in class last week, Maisy was calm and quiet in her crate for the entire time- something that had never happened before. Between our hard work and the chemical edge we’re getting from her medication, I’m finally feeling hopeful about her future again.

Medication Update: 4 weeks

Maisy has now been on paroxetine for four weeks, three of which have been at the full dose of 8mg. When Maisy’s veterinary behaviorist prescribed it, she said it would take 4-6 weeks before we saw any results. Since I saw some improvement at two weeks, I was very excited to see what she’d be like at four weeks. So, for the last three days, I’ve been keeping behavior logs in order to get some objective data.

The data has been… interesting. I was expecting to see a decrease in the number of outbursts Maisy is having, but this has not happened. Prior to her appointment, Maisy would bark or growl at subtle or undetectable stimuli an average of 3.375 times a day. At two weeks, this had decreased to an average of 2 times a day. During this week’s behavior logs, Maisy’s average was 2.667 times a day.

Although this is a reduction from the baseline, I was still disappointed when I saw this. Of course, the numbers are the numbers, but I really felt like Maisy is doing better than she was, especially since it seems like Maisy isn’t as vigilant as she used to be. She might be vocalizing when something startles her, but she seems to settle down faster.

So, I went back to the original behavior logs. Although I hadn’t been scoring the intensity of her reactions, I had kept a fair amount of detail. During the basline period, Maisy’s outbursts included extended vigilance (defined as either trotting around the house scanning the room intently for at least ten seconds) 45% of the time. Two weeks ago, she demonstrated such vigilance 25% of the time. This time, she scored the same: 25%. Good.

Next, I did the restlessness test. This is where I settle down with Maisy and watch a TV program while she lies next to me. During the baseline, she lifted her head or got up 11 times in 45 minutes. Two weeks ago, the number was the same, but the amount of time she looked around had reduced greatly. This time was actually worse- 19 times. It really seemed like she was having a hard time settling down. I think this was because of when I did the observation. The first two times, I came home and immediately watched the show. Yesterday, we went for a three mile walk with friends first. I think the amount of activity immediately preceding the test affected the results. I’ll do it again in a couple of weeks and see what happens.

As for her reactivity, she’s doing well. Like I said, yesterday we went on a walk with friends. I was a bit concerned in the beginning when she rushed towards two dogs. However, she was quiet during those incidents, and frankly, I couldn’t tell if she was trying to scare them off, or if she wanted to go say hi. After that, she settled down nicely and passed other dogs, including large, dark, prick-eared dogs, without a problem.

We also had a milestone in her reactive dog class on Tuesday: It was the first time she went through an entire class without any incident. She’s come close before, with only one or two soft vocalizations during the hour, but this week, there were none. Now, granted, she was in a covered crate the entire time, but that’s never stopped her before. Even better, she was actually relaxed- she appeared to be resting instead of working for treats.

Finally, I should note that Maisy is not experiencing any side effects due to the medication. During the first three weeks, she had some harder stools than normal, but that has subsided over the past week.

Overall, I do think the medication is helping her. She’s tolerating well, and she seems more relaxed. The decrease in vigilance is pretty amazing. The medication will continue to build up in Maisy’s system, and full effectiveness should be seen between 6 and 8 weeks. Hopefully, Maisy continues to improve.

Training Tuesday: The Lazy Trainer Edition

She'd rather relax on the couch.

Do you ever just have lazy training weeks?

I hope I’m not alone in this, but every couple of months, I just don’t feel like training. Don’t get me wrong- I love training- but sometimes it starts to feel like more of a chore than something I enjoy. I hope it’s good for Maisy, too. I know dogs need downtime, and I’ve read about big-name trainers who give their dogs blocks of time off, so I don’t feel too guilty about it.

Anyway, that’s pretty much the summary of the last two weeks: a break. I even skipped class last week! We’ve done a bit of training here and there, but not much. For example, I’ve only done two relaxation sessions with Maisy.

Previously, I talked about moving to Day Zero of the Relaxation Protocol, which is really just mat work. You guys made some great suggestions in the comments, so I took them! We all agreed that I needed to change the picture from training mode to relaxing mode, so I’ve been waiting until Maisy begins to relax on her own in the evenings. Then I set her mat on the floor next to the couch and direct her to it. This allows me to keep the picture mostly the same- I’m not making eye contact with her, she’s already mostly relaxed, the only change is the addition of the mat.

The first time, it took her three to four minutes just to settle on the mat. She kept getting off it to sit by me on the couch, where she would promptly lie down. The second time, she settled on to the mat quicker, but she was still very “operantly relaxed.” I really think the mat has become a cue to “work” versus relaxing. Still, all four feet were touching the ground (usually, she’ll have several legs sticking straight out, stiff as a board), so she was at least more relaxed than usual.

I have two ideas to address this, and I’m not sure which to pursue. I’m hoping you guys can help me! First, if the mat is a cue to work, maybe I should change the mat. The problem with this is that she seems to have generalized her fake relaxation to any mat-type object, and I’m not sure how else to change the picture. My second idea is to move the mat. She almost never relaxes on the floor next to the couch. Instead, she chooses to lie on the couch next to me. Perhaps putting the mat there would help me get better results. Or maybe I could do both somehow?

We have done a bit of obedience stuff, though. In my last goals update, I said that we hadn’t really worked much on heeling or fronts, and that I probably wouldn’t. But, I felt kind of sad about that. I don’t know if Maisy will ever trial again, but there’s no reason not to train just in case! So, I’ve been working on calling Maisy into heel position from multiple angles, focusing on her being straight. She’s no longer over-compensating and ending up crooked when I do pivots, so that’s cool. We’re also working on straight fronts. I’m pretty impressed by how well she’s doing, even though we haven’t worked on it much.

Anyway, that’s what we’ve been up to. We’re going to class tonight, and hopefully I’ll figure out how to tackle this relaxation stuff so we can start working on it again. Let me know what you think…

Small Changes Yield Big Results

She might have her chin down, but she's sure not relaxed!

I’ve known for a long time that Maisy is very sensitive to my moods. At her appointment with the veterinary behaviorist on Monday, Dr. Duxbury saw that, too. She said in her report that during the appointment, “Maisy was exquisitely responsive to [me] but most of her 'relaxed behaviors' (e.g. resting her head on floor, laying on one hip) appeared to be highly reinforced operant responses vs. truly relaxed.”

She went on to acknowledge that this is a tricky area in which to work; while you need to start somewhere, it’s easy to fall into the trap of operantly relaxed, where it’s clear that Maisy is “on” and working, and not actually relaxing. With that in mind, Dr. Duxbury made some suggestions on how I can tweak my current handling in order to promote real relaxation as the medication begins to work.

Relax
Unsurprisingly, Dr. Duxbury said that because Maisy takes so many cues from me, I need to be make sure I’m relaxed. She advised me to make a conscious effort to breathe and relax my neck and shoulders. This is much easier said than done!

Slow down
Dr. Duxbury told me that I need to slow down both my physical and verbal interactions with Maisy. She highly recommended that I don’t use a marker with Maisy because it “keeps the response very operant,” and “interrupts and… ends the behavior.” I quit using a clicker for behavior modification long ago, but I think I will reduce my use of a verbal marker, too. I will still praise Maisy occasionally, but Dr. Duxbury cautioned me thatI need to slow down and speak softly so that I’m not so exciting that it encourages Maisy to get up.

Likewise, I need to be mindful of how I deliver food rewards. She said I need to be much slower in my hand movements, because I have a tendency to be “so quick with [my] food rewards that [I] encourage quickness in her response.” A lot of my quickness has developed because I want to get the treat to Maisy while she’s still performing the behavior. Dr. Duxbury acknowledged that I’m right to be concerned about this timing, but recommended using negative punishment- that is, the removal of the food treat if Maisy tries to leave her relaxed position- to help ensure I’m rewarding the position I want.

I tried this out in my reactive dog class on Tuesday, and it worked fabulously. I put Maisy in her crate, and when she moved into a more relaxed position, such as lying her chin on the floor, I very softly said “gooooooood giiiiiiirl.” I then offered her a treat, using slow, fluid motions. Predictably, she would lift her head or even jump up. When she did, I (slowly) moved my hand away. When she put her chin down, I again moved (slowly, fluidly) to give her the treat. Initially, I allowed very small movements to get the treat, but by the end of class, Maisy was able to lie much quieter as she took the treat. Incidentally, she also rolled over flat on her side, and was possibly the most relaxed I’ve ever seen her at class- even her legs (which usually stick straight out without touching the ground) were becoming soft and loose.

Rest
Dr. Duxbury said that while it has previously been necessary for me to manage Maisy by providing her with a lot of stimulation (such as through training or playing ball), I need to be careful that this doesn’t prevent her from resting. I will need to reduce the amount of management I do, especially the number of treats I give, and I will need to start allowing her to entertain herself.

To that end, while I should continue the relaxation protocol, I need to do it both in her crate and outside of her crate/on a mat. She said these should be considered two completely separate exercises. Further, she recommended routinely encouraging Maisy to rest quietly on her mat for 20-30 minutes a day instead of trying to keep her engaged in an activity. As the medication begins to take effect, I will hopefully see Maisy shift over into actual resting instead of operant relaxation. When I see this, she advised me not to interrupt her because “rest is also its own reward, and [I] can just allow it to happen.”

Balance
Finally, I need to remain attentive to Maisy’s needs. If there is a lot going on in the environment, I may need to switch back to management temporarily. As she wrote, “it is appropriate for [me] to move her away [from the situation] and fire treats at her as rapidly as necessary to reward her for mentally staying with [me].”


I really appreciated that Dr. Duxbury took quite a bit of time during our appointment to help me practice these steps. I learn best by doing, so even though all of this is stuff I’ve been told to do before, having her coach me on how and when to give treats was very helpful.

I am very encouraged by the success we had at class this week, and so I think I’m going to start over with the relaxation protocol. Maisy’s response has been very operant, and that is not at all what I want with it. Instead of following the program so rigidly by treating at the completion of each exercise, I will try to treat only for relaxed responses. I’ll continue with the slow, fluid treat delivery, too. I’m very excited to see how this goes!

CU Seminar: Off-Switch Games

Alexa and Reese demonstrated off-switch games. Moments before this picture was taken, Reese was wildly tugging on that toy. Now he offers a default behavior- calm eye contact- to get the game started again. Photo by Robin Sallie.

When people talk about the Control Unleashed program, it’s often in the context of helping a dog calm down, relax, and control his impulses. These are important skills, and ones that are often missing with reactive dogs. What I love about CU is that it can help any dog, with almost any issue. A dog doesn’t need to be reactive in order to benefit from the games. It’s great for fearful dogs, anxious dogs, or even just inattentive and out-of-control dogs.

While any dog will benefit from CU, there is no denying that it was created and written with performance dogs in mind. This means that it’s incredibly important to teach our dogs how to engage in highly arousing activities while maintaining self-control. They need to be able to think on the agility course so they don’t resort to the zoomies. They need to be able to pay attention to their handler during the subtleties of a competition heeling pattern. And they need to be able to walk through a busy, crowded trial site without incident.

They need off-switch games.

These games not only help teach the dog how to think through their excitement, but also help the handler learn how to gauge their dog’s arousal level, and then adjust it in order to find the optimal level needed for a good performance. After all, being too relaxed can be just as bad as being too amped up when it comes to competition. Off-switch games help both the dog and handler learn how to attain this delicate balance.

Alexa demonstrated a very simple off-switch game with her dog Reese. She offered him a toy and then tugged with him for about 15 seconds. Then, she asked him to let go of the toy, and she simply waited until Reese offered a default behavior. (A default behavior is one that dog offers without be cued. Typical default behaviors include sits, downs, and eye contact. Maisy’s main default behavior is a down.) Once he offered the default behavior, she started up the game again.

Easy, right? Well, from experience, I can say yes and no. The concept is simple, but it can be a bit frustrating in the beginning. The play part isn’t a problem for most teams, although if you are tugging, it does require that you be able to get the toy back reliably. You also need to be able to read your dog and ask for the toy before he gets too amped up. For most dogs, playing for 10-15 seconds is doable, but for the super-excitable among us, that may need to be reduced to 5 seconds. Maisy doesn’t tug, so we play with a ball. That’s pretty easy since she’s really reliable about returning and releasing the ball.

Here’s the frustrating part: waiting for the default behavior. This will be easier if your dog already understands that a default behavior will be rewarded. If your dog doesn’t have one, you’ll want to teach that first, separately from the off-switch game. I taught Maisy’s default down by simply praising her every time I saw her lying calmly. After a few days of that, I’d get some treats and stand with her in the kitchen, verbally praising her and giving her a treat for offered (not cued) downs.

Anyway, so you’ll play tug, and then stop and wait. And you may need to wait awhile, especially the first time, because your dog won’t necessarily understand what you want. Even now, when Maisy is super excited, it can take upwards of 30 seconds to get a (very reluctant) default down. It may help to put out the dog’s mat as a subtle environmental cue. Once your dog has offered his default behavior, play!

After your dog understands that the game starts when he does the default behavior, it’s time to make the game more difficult. Now, in addition to the default behavior, you want to look for some signs of relaxation before starting up the game. For Maisy, I look for eye contact (instead of doing the herding dog stare at her ball), rolling on to one hip, putting her chin down and softer breathing (as opposed to heavy panting).

Once you’ve got both a default behavior and some relaxation, it’s time to start increasing the time on how long the dog remains relaxed before you re-start the game. My goal is for Maisy to immediately lie down, and then relax for about 10 seconds before I restart the game. Sometimes I’ll ask for a bit more relaxation, sometimes a bit less. It depends on how amped up she is, and if her arousal level is really high, or kind of low. If it’s too low, it’s a sign she’s going to disengage from the game entirely, in which case I’ll throw her ball immediately in order to help her get excited about playing with me again.

When your dog is reliably at this level, it’s time to increase the difficulty by lengthening the amount of time you spend playing before asking for the default behavior. Again, you’ll need to adjust that time to match your dog’s arousal level, but I think it’s reasonable to work towards the goal of a solid minute or so of intense play before asking the dog to relax again.

Anyway, that’s a little bit about how Alexa introduced off switch games, and how I play them with Maisy. Trust me, Maisy and I are far from perfect at this- there are days where we can play intensely for several minutes, and then she’ll automatically offer that default behavior, and then there are days where just seeing the ball causes her to lose her mind. I strive for more of the former than the latter. Writing this has reminded me that I’d like to see more relaxation after she offers the default behavior, too.

I’d love to hear about how you all play off-switch games. I’m sure there’s more than one way to do this, both in the game itself, as well as in the way it’s played. Do you do something similar- rev the dog up, and then calm him down? How is it different from what I’ve outlined here? Do you do something entirely different in order to install an off-switch? I’d love to know… mostly because I’d love to have another game to play with Maisy!

Skills Reactive Dogs Need for Trials

Maisy reluctantly shows off her impulse control skills.

We all know that success in dog sports requires a lot of work. Your dog needs to learn a lot of skills- and learn them well- in order to break into the ribbons. But for reactive dogs, learning the exercises is the easy part. Of all the time I spend training each week, 25% of it- at most (and probably less)- is spent on performance exercises. The rest is devoted to teaching my dog the skills she will need to cope with the stress and chaos that you find at trials. What are those skills? Well, I’ve come up with four things that I think every reactive performance dog needs to learn.

Impulse Control
It’s been my personal theory that reactive dogs tend to have impulse control issues. Am I right? I have no idea! But it makes sense to me; if a dog gets stressed and overwhelmed, there are basically two choices: to shut down, or to over-react. It seems logical that the dog who has impulse control issues would be the reactive one. Of course, it’s more complicated than that, but a dog who can learn to control his impulses with low-stress things is going to be better prepared to deal with high-stress things than the dog who has no impulse control at all.

My favorite way to teach impulse control is by teaching “wait.” This is not a formal stay- it’s a temporary ceasing of activity- and there are about a million ways you can practice during the day. Wait for your food bowl. Wait to go out the door. Wait while I open the crate or car door. Wait at a street corner. Wait while I throw the ball. Lately I’ve even been able to stop Maisy’s forward motion simply by saying, “Wait!”

There are other great ways to teach impulse control, too. “Leave it” is great for this, and so is “doggie zen”- where the dog has to not only leave an item, but make eye contact with you instead. I tend to take doggie zen to extremes- hold treats in both hands and wind-milling them around crazily, which encourages my dog to ignore both the treats and movement.

Relaxation
There is a ton of down-time at trials, so being able to relax while there is crucial. Maisy and I have done a ton of mat work in class, and I take it with almost everywhere we go. A natural extension of mat work is the Relaxation Protocol by Dr. Karen Overall, which encourages the dog to relax on its mat even while you’re doing crazy things.

There are a number of other options to help a dog relax, too. Maisy gets regular massages. T-Touch is also popular, and the Anxiety Wrap is often used along with T-Touch (although it didn’t help Maisy). I’m a big fan of the Through a Dog’s Ear CDs, and of course, you guys know that I am interested in and use supplements, too.

The Ability to Navigate a Busy Environment
This is a more practical skill, but anyone who has been to a trial will recognize the need for any dog- not only reactive ones- to be able to walk through a crowd. There will inevitably be people and dogs milling about, sometimes right near the ring entrance, and your dog simply has to be able to do this. In fact, while you could get away with managing the relaxation piece (by keeping your dog in the car, for example), unless you have a very small dog that you can carry, your dog simply must learn this skill.

Teaching a competition heel is helpful, of course, but for really tight spaces, I like to use targeting. For taller dogs, I suppose a nose bridge or “sticky target” would be especially useful- where the dog maintains physical contact with you- but I simply point a finger for Maisy to watch. It’s been surprisingly effective and easy, and gives her something else to focus on, which allows us to easily move from place to place while at trials.

A Rock-Solid Interrupt Cue
Part of the trouble with reactive behavior is that when a dog begins to approach (or worse, go over) their stress threshold, their brains begin moving to that “fight or flight” state, and quit processing your verbal cues as well as it should. This means you have to work very hard to create a rock-solid cue that you can use to interrupt your dog’s behavior. (You also have to have the presence of mind to use it, which is another story entirely.)

You can use any cue you want- come, leave it, watch me, whatever- but the cue should be useful in any situation. I think my favorite one is to create a “whiplash turn” to the dog’s name. No matter what you choose, you’re going to classically condition your dog just like Pavlov’s dogs so that they don’t even think about what you’ve asked, they just automatically do it in response to the stimulus.


So, what do you think? Do you agree with this list? If so, tell me how you teach these skills. Would you add anything to this list? Remove something? Tell me about that, too! If you trial with a reactive dog, how much time do you spend on general coping skills vs. actual performance? I’d love to hear about your experiences!

Behold! The Power of the Mat

A huge component to my reactive dog class is mat work. Once dogs learn about the mat, they tend to really like them due to the strong reinforcement history. Our class focuses on relaxed states while on the mat, so it becomes a cue for relaxation, as well.

However, I’ve been rather skeptical about Maisy feeling relaxed on the mat. She tends to lie on her side on the mat… with all four legs sticking straight out, and at least two of them (if not all four) are held rigidly off the ground. Even though she’s in a relaxed position, she’s not actually relaxed. Still, I was pleasantly surprised to learn that despite appearances, she has figured out that the mat is a relaxing place.

On Sunday, we went to visit Elizabeth and Beckett. Beckett, a true greyhound, promptly lay down on his mat and fell asleep. Maisy, however, being a corgi-possibly terrier mix does not voluntarily stay still. Not only that, but we’ve only been to Elizabeth and Beckett’s a few times, so she was a bit unsure about what she should do, and was pacing the living room and occasionally whining.

Elizabeth got one of Beckett’s many mats and brought it to me. I thanked her, but expressed that I highly doubted she would use it. Still, I set it down next to me, pointed at it, and told Maisy to “go mat.” She did, of course, but what really surprised me was her willingness to stay on the mat with only verbal praise. She even curled up in a little ball and snoozed a bit! Pretty relaxed for a high-energy ball of fuzz!

I’m pretty excited about this discovery. I’m going to start taking her mat more places to try to help that relaxation generalize. Although a friend’s house is a fairly low-key place, if we can build up to using the mat at trials, this could be a huge stress-reliever for her!

Have you taught your dog to go to a mat or place? What’s the most useful application that you’ve found for it?

The Year in Review, Part 2: Skills and Attitudes

Earning titles and ribbons is fun, of course, but Maisy and I learned a lot, too. This is the second of three entries reviewing how Maisy and I spent 2009, and in this entry, I’ll talk about the skills we’ve developed, and the way Maisy’s attitude has changed.

Obedience wise, Maisy and I worked on many, many things. I’m really proud of how far her heeling has come. Just over a year ago, loose leash walking was still pretty tricky for us. Now, Maisy has a decent heel position. She can heel on and off leash with a lot of attention (although that depends on the distraction level, of course). She has learned to find heel position with either a hand cue, a verbal cue, or my body position.

In addition to improved heeling in straight lines, she’s really improved her ability to stay in heel position while I move in odd directions. The halt-left pivot 90 degrees was the most terrifying thing to me when I signed up for our first trial, but now she can left pivot 360 degrees even with distractions! She can also do the halt-sidestep right-halt and remain in a pretty good heel position.

I’m thrilled with her ability to heel past the distraction of a food bowl with treats in it! Although she has a momentary lapse now and then, she usually doesn’t even look at it anymore! I’m especially proud that I was able to teach this without using the words “leave it” excessively.

Maisy’s heeling has probably improved more than mine, but this year, I have learned about walking at a brisk pace and improved my foot work. I’m better at walking in a straight line (which is harder than it sounds), too.

Maisy’s fronts, while still not where I want them, have improved a great deal. In fact, they are nearly perfect at home! Not only does she come in centered and straight, she’s getting much closer! One thing I had to improve while working on fronts was about treat delivery. Once I took the bait bag off my hip and became consistent about giving the treat in the center of my body, her fronts improved a lot.

I introduced a lot of new concepts to her as well. Although we have a lot of work to do to finish these behaviors, Maisy and I have started working on jumps, retrieving a dumbbell, using a pivot board, and backing up.

I also successfully desensitized Maisy to a Dremel for her nails (although I wouldn’t say that I’ve fully counter-conditioned her- she doesn’t love it, but it’s better than using a nail clipper), and really improved her eye contact and attention behaviors through doggie zen. I’m also really proud that I finally figured out how to legally use treats in the APDT rally ring!

On the reactivity front,I think that one of the biggest areas in which Maisy developed skills this year is her ability to relax. In January, we started our first Control Unleashed style class, which is a class specifically designed for reactive dogs. A big component to CU style classes is teaching the dog to relax and be calm in the face of triggers. One method to accomplish this is through mat work, which may be combined with massage and TTouch. Maisy really struggled with this. She seemed very uncomfortable, and wiggled all over the place in an effort to get away from me when I first started massaging her.

The instructor also encouraged me to reward calm and relaxed behaviors at home. This is harder than it sounds; when your dog is lying quietly and being good, you tend to take them for granted. This year, I really had to learn to look for and reward calm behaviors. It was a weird experience for both of us. Back in January, I wrote the following in my journal:

THIS IS SO HARD. I tried doing this [rewarding relaxed behavior] today- I gave her verbal praise for lying nicely in the living room and she just looked at me like “what the hell? I’m not DOING anything.” A couple of times she’s gotten up and run away.

These days, Maisy is very comfortable on her mat, and I see her relaxed around the house a lot more often, and while she doesn’t love massages, she does appreciate a few well-placed pets. Not only is she more willing to relax by stretching out in the house, she has become more snuggly with me. She often chooses to curl up next to me, which is incredibly endearing. I also think this is a sign of our improved relationship due to all of the work we’ve done together.



Maisy’s fear has also decreased. Over the last year, she has learned to go through agility tunnels (on her own terms, not on my cue), and sit in a canine-eating hula hoop. She is also generally more willing to interact with objects. Although she has no interest in stepping on an A-Frame or a teeter, she is quite willing to go sniff them for a treat. This is huge for her!

Another neat way her fear has decreased is her willingness to move things. Maisy has a lot of fear of movement, and until recently, she wouldn’t even nose aside a door to retrieve her beloved tennis ball. Now, though, she is not only nosing aside doors but actively pushing her way in to the room where I feed the cats, and escaping from her crate. For three years, we’ve never once latched her crate at home- we knew she wouldn’t try to open it. Recently, however, we’ve found her out and about when we get home. Most people would probably be upset by this, but honestly, I’m just thrilled that she’s become so brave! I also like that it offers her the choice of remaining safely inside her crate or leaving on her terms while we’re gone.

Her reactivity has fluctuated a lot this year, and it’s hard to know where we stand on that front. Still, I think it’s improving. It seems like her reactivity has become less emotional and more of a habit or learned behavior, which truly is a good thing, even if it is still frustrating. I’ve identified a lot of her triggers, and am becoming better at both preventing reactivity and interrupting and managing it, and Maisy’s become better at seeing a trigger and offering an alternative behavior (usually frantic eye contact) in the expectation of a treat. Good dog!

Overall, Maisy has become a very easy dog to live with. I probably wouldn’t even know that she’s reactive if it weren’t for the fact that I want to go to obedience trials. She’s genuinely mellowed out and become less anxious at home. She’s also pretty good in low-pressure environments. Although we still have the occasional issue while on walks or at a pet store, she’s usually good in those environments, too. People tend to look at Maisy with admiration, and once, a lady in a pet store looked at Maisy, and then looked at her dog and said, “Why can’t you be more like that dog?” Since I have thought that endless times, I was so thrilled that Maisy was finally the “other dog.”