Is a Tired Dog REALLY a Good Dog?

"A tired dog is a good."

If you've been in the dog world at all - whether in training classes on forums or just talking to friends - you've probably heard this bit of folk wisdom. And for the most part, I get it. Most normal dogs in the United States are under exercised both physically and mentally, and therefore bored out of their minds. For the vast majority of dogs, adding in some extra cardio, puzzle toys, or training time will go along way to reducing nuisance behaviors like barking, chewing, or mischief-making.

But there are times this phrase just gets under my skin, usually when it's applied to reactive dogs. Some advice-givers seem to think that if you just increase your dog's activity a bit, you'll reduce the amount of barking, growling, and lunging that happens...and it just isn't so!

The big problem with this is that your dog is going to be exposed to way more things. If you usually walk your dog for 30 minutes a day and increase it to an hour, you've just doubled the number of triggers your dog is being exposed to. Each trigger your dog encounters - whether he reacts or not - increases the amount of water going into his "stress bathtub." 

Being exhausted because you're stressed out is not the same as being exhausted because you've used your body in a satisfying way. Last week, I came home from work absolutely exhausted. I'd had a headache for a few days. In the morning, I had an argument with a friend. Then, I came into one of those work situations that makes you bang your head and say bad words. I was pretty tired by the time I got home, but ask my husband: I was NOT a good wife that night.

Yup, that's the trail.

Contrast that tired feeling to the one you get from playing sports or hiking. I've been on two backpacking trips. These trips required me to carry 40 or 50 pounds of gear on my back over some very difficult terrain for miles a day. By the end of the day, I would be pretty tired, but it was that good kind of tired where you're happy to eat food that tastes like wet cardboard and sleep on the cold, hard ground. By the end of a backpacking week, I am completely and utterly at peace. I'm in a great mood.

Another problem is trigger stacking. Let's say your dog does great on his walks, comes home and sleeps quietly, and is overall pretty good. What happens if something unexpected happens? Does he stay "good" or does he suddenly surprise you with an over-the-top reaction? If it's the latter, you've just fallen prey to trigger stacking.

Trigger stacking is not exclusive to reactive dogs. The ability to cope with events, regardless of underlying temperament, is a limited resource. We usually think of trigger stacking in the context of "the straw that broke the camel's back," but there comes a point where a good thing becomes too much of a good thing. I love a good Thanksgiving Dinner... once a year. But after a week of leftovers, I'm really quite happy not to see another piece of pumpkin pie for a year. I've had too much, and if you offer me more turkey a week later, my response may not be good. 

Now, I'm not saying that reactive dogs shouldn't get exercised. The endorphins that are released in the pursuit of physically using one's body can go a long way towards improving one's mood. But you do need to be thoughtful about how, where, and when you do it.

If you think your reactive dog would benefit from increased exercise, here are some general guidelines:

• Start slow. A couch potato cannot just get up and run a marathon. Doing so will result in pain or injury. This is NOT a good tired. Condition your dog so that the exercise is as pain-free and enjoyable as possible.
• Choose areas that are low-stress. When I was working through Maisy's reactivity, even though I had a perfectly good neighborhood to walk in, it was just full of triggers. I ended up driving her several miles away for our daily walks so that we could enjoy exercise time in a quiet, relatively unused park instead.
• Choose off-peak times. City-dwellers know how hard it is to find quiet locations, so you may have to settle for quiet times. Late nights and early mornings are familiar to many a reactive dog owner.
• Think outside of the daily walk box. Physical exercise can be anything that satisfies the need to move.
• Pick physical activities you both enjoy. Napoleon loves to run. I broke my ankle the last time I went running. We probably won't do that one again. Lola loves long sniffy walks, but strenuous hikes just aren't her thing. Taking her backpacking would be torture. Both Lola and I will be grumpy if you try to get us to do a sport we hate. 
• Watch arousal levels! If playing with a flirt pole gets your reactive dog so amped up that he can't think, you're probably creating a dangerous situation - especially if he can't settle afterwards. Sort of the exact opposite of the good dog you're trying to get.

Any time you introduce new activities, whether physical or mental, watch your dog closely. If he's "good," that's great! Keep it up! But don't feel pressured to be out there training for a marathon in the name of better behavior.

Slow and Steady Wins the Race

Working with a reactive dog is slow, painstaking work. It's hard to tell if you're making any progress at all, especially in the beginning. Gradually, your dog reacts less often, and the intensity is reduced, but because these changes happen in such small increments, you often don't notice until something huge happens.

Something huge happened this week.

Way back in the beginning, when I first learned that Maisy is reactive, one of the first triggers I identified was bikes. Oh, did she have some over-the-top displays around bikes. She barked. She growled. She rushed after them. Mostly, I think she wanted to chase them, but that impulse came out all sideways and backwards. It embarrassed me, and it scared me a little, so we started going to classes. I learned the skills needed to keep her under threshold, and I began to counter-condition her like crazy. Slowly, slowly, she's improved.

I knew that, of course, but it wasn't until this week that I really appreciated how far she's come. My husband and I were walking near a park with her at dusk, and there was a large group of pre-teens hanging out. As we neared a street corner, this whole pack of them- 8 or 10, I think- got on their bikes. As we headed into the intersection, so did the kids on their bikes, looping in huge circles and yelling to one another.

We were surrounded. Bikes, yelling children, fast movement- a year ago, Maisy would have lost it. Now? She looked at the bikes, did the doggy equivalent of shrugging her shoulders, and popped into heel position, where she never took her eyes off me.

It took a lot of self-control for her to resist the temptation to chase and bark at the loud, quickly moving bikes, and yet she was able to not only get through a tough situation, but was able to offer up some gorgeous heeling, too! Needless to say, I was so proud!

I'm Beginning to Think I Shouldn't Call Her Reactive Anymore...

Last night, I took Maisy to a Performance Dog Conditioning class taught by Lin Gelbmann, a vet tech with thirty years of experience in equine and canine rehab. The class is designed to do structural and gait analysis of your dog, and then provide exercises to get and keep your dog in the best shape possible. I signed up because I really wanted to get a structural evaluation on Maisy, mostly because I wanted to know if there was anything there that would preclude starting Maisy in agility classes.

And it was awesome.

The class was held at held at On the Run Canine, a local agility school. When I signed up for the class, I didn’t really think about what that meant, so when I walked in and saw all the motion, heard all the barking and teeters slamming, and realized that it was basically just controlled chaos (in the way that agility is, not because of anything this school was doing), I was pretty sure that this was not going to work. Even worse, the classroom area was not blocked off with visual barriers (let alone sound barriers), and I began to silently panic.

Still, I’d paid good money to be there, so I figured we’d try it. I figured the worst thing that could happen would be that we’d be have to leave, in which case I’d try to schedule a private consultation. I picked a spot on the edge of the class area, as far away from the agility ring and the rest of the dogs as I could, and set up my mat and treats. Then I went out to the car to get Maisy.

We walked in, and I fed her lots of treats. She pulled a little bit on the leash because she was so excited, but it was happy excitement, not stress excitement. When we walked into the class area, she spotted her mat and promptly flopped down on it, and offered her “flat dog” behavior.



We were there for 90 minutes, and during that time, she did not have a single reactive episode. Not one! There was one soft “wuff,” and one very low and brief growl (quieter and shorter than another dog, even). She even had a fairly soft mouth throughout the evening. After we’d been there about 20 minutes, she did have a short period where she took the treats harder, which usually indicates an escalation of stress, but that abated after five or ten minutes, and she returned to taking the treats softly again.

Even cooler than that is the fact that there was a point where something clearly upset her, and she began to lunge for it. She got about a foot off her mat, and suddenly stopped herself, turned around and slammed her body down on the mat. It really seemed like she realized, “I’m not supposed to be doing that! Mom likes it when I lie on my mat instead.” Needless to say, I jackpotted that.

I was pretty proud of my handling skills, too. Throughout the class, I was constantly monitoring her body language, and when she was more nervous, I increased the amount of treats I gave her. Then, as she calmed down, I reduced the amount of treats she got. It was difficult to shift the criteria that rapidly, but I think I got it right. It helps that I understand her triggers well- last night, fast moving people, loud dogs, and the sound of the teeter were all stressful for her. Understanding that, I was able to use the treats when those things were going on, and then could back off when it was quieter.

By the end of the class, Maisy was pretty relaxed, and was far less jumpy about noise and motion. We even got up and did some light obedience work! I put her in heel position, did pivots, and had her heel on both sides. And she worked beautifully! She was heads-up attentive, completely focused on me, doing ten foot stretches with turns with no treats. She looked like a real obedience dog!!

I was absolutely elated. You know how you feel at trials when you get a really great score, or a new title? It felt like that. I was so proud of her, and just thrilled to see all the hard work I’ve put into her is paying off.

Look out world: Maisy has arrived!

Pat Miller Seminar: Functional Analysis

Last weekend, I had the good fortune to attend a single-day seminar with Pat Miller in Wisconsin. (No, I don’t spend all my time going to seminars, but yes, I’ve been lucky in the canine education department lately.) I had seen Pat previously, and the seminar was basically a scaled-down version of what I had seen a year ago. Even so, there were some very thought provoking moments, and of course, I want to share them with you!

Pat spent some time talking about operant conditioning, which I always enjoy thinking about. Of course, since I do spend a fair amount of time reading about operant conditioning, it was mostly review. (I’ll assume this is the case for most of my readers, but if anyone’s interested, I’d be glad to write an Operant Conditioning 101 post.)

What I found really helpful was Pat’s discussion of “Functional Analysis.” This is where we look at a behavior systematically using the mnemonic of “ABC” to remind us to look at the antecedent of the behavior, the behavior itself, and the consequence following the behavior, which either reinforces or punishes the behavior. The consequence is defined not by what we think should happen, but rather what actually happens.

In other words, if we do something as punishment, but the behavior doesn’t reduce in frequency or intensity? It wasn’t a punishment. If the behavior continues, it was simply aversive, and the dog has learned nothing. If, on the other hand, the behavior increases, our action was actually a reinforcer.

Although we can often correctly predict how the consequence will be perceived by our dog, we will sometimes be wrong. For example, Maisy thinks that getting squirted in the face with water is superawesomefun. If I were to use a squirt bottle as a punisher and didn’t pay attention to her response, I would be in for a pretty big surprise when the behavior I thought I was punishing actually increased. Since the dog’s subsequent behavior determines which of the principles we utilized, Suzanne Clothier is probably right: some of us trainers think too much.



Pat’s discussion on functional analysis yielded something else that was pretty cool: we actually have two opportunities to change behavior. You can manipulate the consequence so that behavior either increases or decreases, but you also have an opportunity to change behavior before it even happens. If we change or prevent the antecedent, we might be able to change the behavior. Doing it this way does seem a little iffier to me, but it’s definitely possible!

How? Well, management is one way. Although management has a high risk of failure at some point, it doesn’t always fail. And management is a good, useful, and sometimes necessary thing, not to mention often easier. I’ve written before about things I do to help manage Maisy’s reactivity.

For behaviors rooted in emotions, like reactivity, we can also prevent the behavior by changing the dog’s feelings about an antecedent. For example, if a dog always barks and lunges at a bicycle, we can change the dog’s feelings about the trigger through classical conditioning. (Again, I assume my readers are familiar with classical conditioning, but if you want a post on it? Just let me know!)

This discussion of functional analysis took topics that I already understood, and helped me think about them in a more sophisticated way. Has it changed the way I train? No, not really, but it has helped me understand why I do what I do a bit better, and I’m quite grateful for that. So, thank you, Pat, for the great discussion!

Suzanne Clothier Seminar: Performance Dogs, Their Personalities, and Reactivity

Although the “this is how to work with a reactive dog” information was interesting, Suzanne’s take on the causes of reactivity took things to a whole new level for me. She said that one of the major reasons dogs become reactive is because we as handlers fail to give our dogs the tools and information they need to be successful in the environments we’ve created for them. This is especially the case for performance dogs, both because the environments are more demanding, and because the dogs themselves are generally different, personality-wise, than the typical pet dog. Today, I’m going to talk largely about the way the performance dog’s personality affects reactivity.

Performance dogs are usually chosen because they are smart, confident and highly responsive to humans. These factors make the dog very good at their jobs, but they also come along with certain drawbacks. For one thing, Suzanne pointed out that responsive dogs typically have more trouble modulating their emotions and actions. Plus, as a result of being smart and confident, they tend to assume that they know what you want, and then react based on faulty assumptions. And of course, there is the ever-present problem of mistaking overly aroused, out of control dogs for ones with “drive.”

The problem is often compounded because it’s so much more fun to teach skills, especially fast-moving, highly-active ones. As a result, we often shape our dogs into frantic beings who don’t know how to relax. What we really ought to be doing with them is laying a groundwork of self-control, such as through off-switch games, also called jazz up and settle down.

We can also get more impulse control from our dogs if we teach them to wait for explicit directions, especially when it comes to exciting things like greeting people and other dogs. We can help them out by teaching them that just because they want to go say hi, it doesn’t mean they get to. If saying hi is dependent on receiving permission from the handler, the dog doesn’t make the assumption that he’s allowed to say hi to everyone.

Further, by keeping these greetings short, we can ensure the dog is successful in his social encounters. Some dogs become reactive because, while they desire interaction, they don’t have the social skills to maintain an ongoing interaction with strangers. We can help them build these skills by following the three second rule: we cue our dog to go say hi, count to three, and then call the dog away. Suzanne said that most dogs won’t disengage, even when they’re uncomfortable, because to do so would be rude. We can relieve that discomfort by calling them away, assessing their feelings, and allowing them the option to return-or not- dependent on their comfort level.

These responsive dogs are often quite human-centered, as well, which means that when they’re faced with a novel situation, they will look to us, their humans, for information on how they ought to react. When we fail to give them the information they’re seeking, they sometimes decide that they’d best do something, because it’s clear we’re not going to. We can help them by acknowledging them every time they check in with us, even if it’s as simple as a smile and nod. “Yes, I noticed that bicycle. Interesting, isn’t it?” This way, the dog knows if they ought to worry or not, instead of making an assumption.

Unfortunately, we handlers sometimes do something even worse than fail to give information: we end up giving the wrong information. I think it’s fairly common knowledge that tension runs down the leash. Suzanne stressed that it’s important to allow slack in the leash whenever possible. We don’t want to let the dog pull us, of course, but especially during greetings, we should move closer and allow slack in the leash. This can go a long way towards reducing the tension in a social encounter.

But tension isn’t just communicated via the leash. Performance dogs are often quite sensitive to human moods, so we need to make sure that we keep our bodies as relaxed as possible, too. When faced with a trigger, instead of stiffening and holding our breath, we can be deliberately relaxed by keeping our bodies relaxed and moving loosely. A soft face, tilted head, and even breathing will go a long way towards telling our dogs there is nothing to worry about.

I got to experience the profound difference this can make the very same day I learned about it. I took Maisy for a walk, and while we were out, saw one of her triggers: someone riding a bicycle. Reflexively, I stopped dead in my tracks so that we could let it pass us without getting any closer. Of course, Maisy lunged and barked. I immediately realized that her response was the direct result of my behavior. I had, in essence, “frozen,” which in dog body language means that I was worried about something. Since I obviously wasn’t going to do anything about that scary bike, Maisy took it upon herself to protect us.

I decided to take Suzanne’s advice, so the next time we saw a bike, I kept walking, moving in a large arc away from the bike instead of freezing, and made a conscious effort to remain loose and unconcerned. It was hard, but you know what? Maisy looked at the bike, looked at me, and decided that there was nothing for her to worry about. Amazing!

Since then, I’ve been working hard at controlling my body language so that I’m sending Maisy the right signals. I’ve also been doing my best to pay attention to her requests for information, and to respond to them appropriately. It’s paying off, too. In the last two weeks, she’s done really well in a variety of challenging situations, including everything from walks by bike paths to small, crowded pet stores. I am so proud of her.

So, what do you think? How does your body language affect your dog? Do you know? Or, are you like I was, and inadvertently sending the wrong signals? I’d love to hear what your experiences have been.

Suzanne Clothier Seminar: Answering the Questions for Maisy

In my last entry, I detailed what the questions are, but I really didn't personalize them. (Seriously, folks, I'm already pretty long-winded for a blog anyway, can you imagine how much worse it would be if I didn't break these things down?) Anyway, today I want to post a bit about how answering these questions have changed my perspective on Maisy.

Question 1: Hello?
Due to our long association with one another, this one is easy. If I say Maisy's name, or any one of her nicknames (and there are many; I have no idea how she understands they all refer to her), she wags her tail. Immediately. Every time. She'll often do this when someone else says her name, too. It is safe to say that Maisy is quite willing to interact with me.

Question 2: Who are you?
and
Question 3: How is this for you?
I've combined these two questions because I think they're pretty bound up in one another, and I think my post would be far more disjointed if I didn't combine them.

For a long time, when I described Maisy, I described her as "fearful" and "reactive." Those are the two adjectives that came out of my mouth most often, though I often followed it up with "extremely soft." The problem with these descriptors are two-fold. First, they're primarily negative, and second, I'm not sure they're really all that accurate.

I've been watching Maisy's responses lately, and she's surprised me. A lot. For example, I've always thought she's fearful because she's a bit jumpy and startles easily. An unusual noise or unexpected event will make her jump backwards and perhaps tuck her tail and slink a little bit. But her resiliency is amazing; she'll often come back to that scary thing quite quickly. I've written before about Maisy's response to a wobble board. It initially startled her, but she came right back to it, and continued to interact with it. Is this what a fearful dog would do?

And in the past week, I've seen countless examples of her jumping in surprise, and then immediately calming down or returning to work. I'm beginning to think that a better descriptor for her is sensitive. The way I react to something will predict the way she reacts. Lately, I've been paying attention to Maisy's triggers, and making a huge effort not to stiffen up (this was the direct result of Suzanne's seminar, and I'll write about it in more detail soon). When I remain loose, Maisy might look at the trigger, and even take a few steps towards it, but when she sees I'm fine, she relaxes. When the trigger also startles me and I gasp or start breathing differently, or if I tighten the leash or tense my body, then she's far more likely to lunge, growl or bark. Interesting.

She is very sensitive to her environment, and to me.

I've also talked about Maisy as "not liking children," but I'm not sure that's true, either. Yesterday, she actually asked to go say hi to a strange child. We were out in the front yard, and I had Maisy off leash to work on heeling (the reward was throwing her ball), when I saw a mother pushing her toddler in a stroller. I called Maisy to me, put her back on leash, and as they came close, the mother asked if her toddler could say hi. I started to say no, reflexively, but then I looked at Maisy: She was loose, wriggling, and had a "helicopter tail." She wanted to say hi.

The important question of asking "How is this for you?" is about asking it every time the situation comes up. Will she always want to greet a child? No, but sometimes she will.

Some other descriptions of Maisy: she's funny, and loves to play. She's incredibly snuggly, and it's a rare morning that I don't wake up with a dog in my arms. She follows me everywhere, but is quite content to stay with other people she knows. In fact, although she can be a bit shy with people she doesn't know, once she meets someone, she's incredibly friendly. She's very visual, and I sometimes wonder if her sight isn't a stronger sense than smell. She's biddable, smart (too smart, sometimes!), and very willing.

And she's mine.

Question 4: May I...?
Generally, yes, I may. Although Maisy is pretty clear that she hates being groomed. Nails, brushing, baths, all of it. I try to make those times worth her while with lots of treats, but even so, she'd rather not, thank you.

Question 5: Can you...?
Most of the time, yes, she can. Intellectually, she's very smart. She learns quickly, which is both a blessing and a curse. If she's not understanding something I'm trying to teach her, it's pretty much always my fault. We used to really struggle with left pivots, until I began to hold my shoulder slightly differently. Then she nailed them every time.

Emotionally, she's getting better. She still does have some of that reactivity, but it's improving all the time. I'll have to do a separate post on this soon, but I'd say we're down from having a reactive outburst every time we're in public to about 20% of the time.

Physically... well, some days are better than others. She does have some back issues, and she sees a chiropractor and canine massage therapist who does massage, acupressure and reiki every month. These things help a lot, but even so, there are days where she's reluctant to jump. I'm learning to assess her before I ask her to jump, because if I ask, she'll do it, even if it hurts.

Question 6: Can we...?
Yes. We can. Maisy will always try for me. I am, however, aware that my reactions will affect her, and so when she fails to do something properly, I try to always look at myself first. I think our biggest obstacle to trials is my nerves, not the environment, and so I'm starting to work through those issues as best I can so that my half of "we" actually can do it.


I've learned a lot by stepping back and asking the questions on a regular basis, especially "How is this for you?" I've made assumptions that weren't true, like with the child yesterday. Have any of you guys tried asking your dog any of the questions? If so, what did you learn? Was it surprising, or just as you expected?

It's working!

About six weeks ago, I posted about my rather unorthodox training plan to reduce Maisy’s reactivity. In that entry, I said that Maisy had learned that a bark-n-lunge would be rewarded if she turned back to me immediately. As a result, my trainers and I theorized that I had created a rather undesirable little behavior chain.

Since the easiest way to get rid of undesirable behaviors is through extinction, we created a two-pronged plan. First, I ignored the bark-n-lunge. I didn’t call her back to me, I didn’t reward her for returning to me voluntarily, and I didn’t even look at her when she did the whole I’m pretending to be reactive routine. Second, I very heavily reinforced appropriate behaviors, both proactively as a counter-conditioning measure and as a reward when she chose them instead of a bark-n-lunge.

Now, as a reminder, I know this isn’t the typical method of dealing with a reactive dog, and it isn’t the course of action I would normally recommend, or even follow. I did this under the guidance of two highly qualified and experienced trainers. If you’re dealing with a dog who barks, growls and/or lunges at people, dogs or things, I highly recommend that you seek help from a good positive reinforcement trainer.

Okay, with the disclaimer out of the way, I am so pleased to report that the preliminary results are in…

At first, Maisy seemed quite confused. A behavior which had reliably paid off for her in the past was no longer producing the results she was hoping for. As the first week wore on, she became increasingly frustrated, and on the fourth and fifth days she demonstrated an extinction burst.

On both days, we were at a local pet store that has a large training ring that you can rent by the hour, working on jumps and heeling past distractions. On both days, Maisy saw a trigger and had a huge reaction- no, it was an overreaction. Something that would normally get several barks was treated to an extended round of barking and growling. It was actually quite embarrassing, as I knew I had to ignore it, but the trigger- in both cases a person carrying a large bag of dog food- looked at Maisy with some reservation. More than that, since I had to completely and utterly ignore Maisy’s behavior, I continued my heeling pattern (sans dog), which probably made me look quite crazy! At the time, I was fairly certain that I was seeing an extinction burst, but I wasn’t sure if it was going to get worse or not.

Thankfully, it has not. As the weeks have gone on, she has continued to try the behavior out occasionally. However, both the frequency and intensity of her reactions have dramatically gone down. For example, she’s been to two trials during that period. In both cases, despite being stressed, she held herself together and only had one minor outburst at each trial. They each consisted of a brief bark, a small lunge, and then a self-interruption. And, even more exciting, this week she got through our entire reactive dog class without a single bark, lunge, growl, huff or wuff. She was truly amazing!!

I don't think Maisy will every be a completely normal dog. I know that she will have days where she regresses and falls back on her old behavior patterns, especially when stressed. I also know that there will be days that I have to manage her more than others. And, of course, I know that my first priority will always be to help her feel safe and secure, a task which will require eternal vigilance on my part.

We still have a lot of work left to do. As the reactive behavior has reduced, she has shown more behaviors that look like poor impulse control. She is doing a lot of “friendly lunging”-she’s pulling and straining towards things while on leash, but with huge, sweeping tail wags, and more importantly, quietly. She now looks ill-mannered rather than aggressive. The interesting thing is that what she’s doing now is very similar to how she behaved as a puppy.

At this point, we have been working Control Unleashed exercises for about a year, and realistically, I expect that we have at least another six to twelve months of hard work ahead of us. For example, I’m hoping to increase the duration of calm periods so that I'm not constantly shoveling treats in her mouth. I also need to help her learn to demonstrate calm behavior with increasing amounts of stress. Of course, each time the environment gets busier, I need to decrease my duration criteria, so I think we’re entering a period in which the level of reinforcement ebbs and flows based on the environmental distractions going on. This will take a level of training sophistication that I intellectually understand, but will need to practice to get it right... which, of course, will lead to the inevitable setback.

Even so, I am so thrilled with the progress Maisy has made, and can’t wait to continue to learn and grow with her. I am determined to put in the time and effort to help Maisy feel and act better. She is a truly amazing dog, and she deserves it.

A Little More Orthodox

Last week, I wrote an entry detailing my new approach to working with Maisy’s reactivity. Unsurprisingly, people have reacted with confusion, mostly because this is a rather unorthodox plan, and not at all what is normally recommended. Heck, if someone came to me and asked me how they should work with their reactive dog, I wouldn’t be pulling up that entry! Instead, I’d pull up this one, because today, I’d like to talk about the more usual methods.

Be aware that this entry is just an overview. If you have a reactive dog and you’re just starting out, you really want to find a good positive reinforcement trainer. There is so much at play with reactivity that it’s just easier and safer to have a second set of eyes looking at what’s going on.

Still, there are four main things that basically every good trainer will help you do:
1. Determine the dog’s triggers and thresholds
2. Counter-condition the emotional response
3. Help your dog develop impulse control
4. Teach alternate behaviors

I’ve written about thresholds before, but it needs to be repeated: it is absolutely critical that you do your best to stay under threshold when you’re working with a reactive dog. A dog that is in the throes of a full-out, overly-emotional response is not going to be in a place where he can really work through his issues.

So, the first step in working with a reactive dog is to figure out what causes the dog’s reactive response, and the proximity to the trigger in which the dog reacts. For example, one of the first triggers I identified for Maisy was bicycles going by, but only if they were closer than about 25 feet. Over time, I’ve decreased that threshold to about 6-8 feet, which is far more manageable.

In order to reduce the threshold, you need to start doing counter-conditioning. This addresses the emotional component to your dog’s reactivity. Counter-conditioning is pretty easy, but it takes patience. It does not happen overnight- I’ve spent over a year doing this with Maisy. Here’s how you do it: take your dog close enough to the trigger so that he notices it, but not so close that he loses it. Then feed a constant stream of treats until the trigger leaves. What this does is teach your dog that Big Black Dogs (another of Maisy’s triggers) aren’t scary. Instead, they are a reliable predictor that good things (treats) are going to happen! Therefore, Big Black Dogs become a Really Good Thing, not something to lunge and growl at.

Another component to reactivity is a lack of impulse control. I think this is the part that I’ve actually spent the most time working on with Maisy. Helping her learn that she can control her behavior has really helped boost her confidence and help her relax, which reduces the fear that drives her reactivity.

There are a lot of things you can do to develop impulse control, and again, a good trainer can help you figure out which ones will be best for you and your dog. One of my favorite impulse control games is doggie zen, which teaches the dog that the get what they want, they need to exercise self-control and look to you instead. Another impulse control activity that I really like is the Relaxation Protocol. As the name implies, it is more about relaxation than controlling impulses, but it does help.

Finally, you need to add in some alternate behaviors, something the dog can do instead of lunging and barking. Alternate behaviors (also called incompatible behaviors or default behaviors) should be heavily rewarded when offered. Maisy has a few things she does instead of behaving reactively. The two she does most are lying down (especially with her chin on the ground), and looking at the trigger and then immediately looking at me. Alternate behaviors are helpful because they teach the dog a better behavior, and it helps remind the handler to reinforce good behavior.

There’s a great program out there that combines all of these things: Control Unleashed. It is amazing! It has games for impulse control, for dealing with triggers, and for teaching alternate behaviors. It also helps build your relationship with your dog and creates focus in a distractible dog. All dogs can benefit from Control Unleashed, but anyone who owns a reactive dog absolutely must read this book and incorporate the techniques, and if possible, join a class based on the book.

So, given all of this, how did I arrive at my unorthodox training plan? Well, I’ve worked all of the steps above, and I’ve worked them hard, with regular classes, training plans, and many hours on my own. And it’s worked. My counter-conditioning has been very effective. Her “reactive behavior” isn’t really reactivity any more. Reactivity is primarily fueled by emotions and a lack of impulse control, but that’s not what’s going on with her anymore. Her body language is much more loose and relaxed. It’s not about impulse control either; when I give her a job to do (i.e., a chance to earn reinforcements), she very rarely displays reactive behavior.

It’s also important to note that I’m still following all of my advice. I’m still counter conditioning triggers, I’m still working on impulse control exercises, and I’m still rewarding alternate behaviors (in fact, I’m increasing the amount of treats she gets for alternate behaviors). The only thing that has changed is my response to her behaviors that look like reactivity (i.e., lunging and barking). Like I discussed in my last entry, she figured out that she can make me give her a treat by performing the behavior formerly known as reactivity. So, I’m not doing it anymore on the theory that she’ll quit doing the behavior if it doesn’t pay.

Instead, I’m completely ignoring the outburst. If I feel like she is truly over threshold, I will increase distance between her and the trigger, and then counter-condition by rewarding an appropriate behavior, but I’m not making a big deal about it like I used to. If she’s obviously relaxed- for example, if she has “helicopter tail” (my term for a big, loose tail wag that makes complete circles and engages her entire body), or if the bark is a “play bark” (identifiable by pitch), I am completely ignoring her for 15-30 seconds, and then asking her for something (usually asking her to get into heel position and do pivots, although I’m trying to randomize that as well so it doesn’t create another component to her behavior chain).

It’s definitely working, and I’m really excited to see some of the changes in her. It’s still exhausting at times- we were both worn out after class last night- but I’m seeing a huge difference in her. I can’t wait to share her progress with you.

On Thresholds: Figuring out what to do when Maisy reacts

Since learning that Maisy is a reactive dog, I’ve learned a lot about how to work with her, both to keep her from reacting, and to help her calm down once she does. One thing that still confused me, though, was about thresholds. Specifically, about what I should do when she goes over-threshold.

First, a quick lesson: a “threshold” is the point at which your dog can no longer remain calm in the face of a trigger. These triggers are not static; they can change dependent on the situation, such as location, time of day, or even the dog’s mood. They can also “stack” on one another, where two mild triggers together become a single, scarier one. For example, Maisy tends to find men carrying bags of dog food on their shoulders scary. She also finds a particular PetSmart more stressful than others. She can handle being there just fine, and she can handle seeing men carry bags of dog food when we are at other pet stores. But if she sees that happen at the “scary” PetSmart, she is almost guaranteed to react.

It is important to learn to identify a reactive dog’s thresholds to different things because once your dog reacts, she can no longer think rationally. During a full-blown reactive response, the part of the brain that processes learning is shut off. This means that once your dog has gone over threshold, your sole purpose is damage control: you need to prevent anyone from getting hurt, and help your dog calm down.

The reason I’ve struggled with how to best manage Maisy when she’s become reactive is that there are conflicting opinions on what to do. Some people say that once your dog has gone over threshold, you should immediately remove them from the situation and help them calm down because they are no longer capable of learning. Others say you shouldn’t do this because if you do, your dog is learning they can get out of something by demonstrating reactive behavior. I can see both points.

Further complicating the matter is that Maisy seems to have two motivations behind her reactive behavior: truly emotional and over-threshold responses, and learned behaviors in which she appears to be over-threshold, but isn’t. I can tell she isn’t actually emotionally upset because her body language is fairly relaxed, and because she will self-interrupt herself, and return to me for a treat. This is a very clear example of a behavior chain but it’s not really reactivity any more. It just looks like it.

This means that when Maisy demonstrates reactive behavior, I need to quickly assess her body language and decide if she’s truly upset or not. I’ll talk more about Maisy’s reactivity as a learned behavior and the way I respond to those instances in the future. But what should I do when she really is upset?

I already know that I don’t want to force her to stay in a scary situation (also called “flooding,” something which can have dangerous side effects), but I do want her to learn to calm herself down in the face of a trigger. As a result, in the past I have settled on having her move away from the trigger a considerable distance to a location where she could still see it, on the theory that this reduced the intensity of the trigger while still allowing her to learn to calm herself in the presence of a visible trigger.

Over the weekend, though, I had two very similar experiences where she became emotionally reactive and either went over threshold or was very close to doing so. In both instances, the best way to move away was to go out of sight. I was astonished by how much more effective this was. In both cases, the intensity lessened much quicker while we were out of sight. Even better, when we returned to the situation, she was much calmer than she has been in the past when we’ve re-approached a trigger which had remained in sight. I found this interesting because we both did pretty much exactly the same things we usually do in order to calm down.

I guess I shouldn’t be surprised that it was easier and faster for her to calm down out of sight of the trigger; she’s always been very visual. However, I am surprised by how much calmer she was upon returning to the situation. As a result, I’ve decided that when I know she is truly emotionally upset, I will honor that, and allow her to leave. If I can’t tell if it’s emotional or learned behavior, I’ll err on the side of caution by allowing her to leave anyway. In order to prevent this from potentially reinforcing the reactive behavior, once she’s calm, I will have her return so that she also learns that she can remain calm and control her emotions, even when there's something scary nearby. I think this strikes a nice balance, and I’m excited to continue working with her with this new, best of both worlds approach. As always, I’ll keep you updated on how it goes.

Maisy's reactivity

A four month old Maisy and the elliptical. Although you can't tell from the picture, she was barking and lunging at this scary new thing.

In my last entry, I told you a bit about reactivity in dogs. I think the easiest way to sum it up is in an equation:

anxiety + poor impulse control = reactive behavior

Today, I’m going to tell you how that applies to Maisy. Let’s start with the first component: anxiety. This is probably the largest contributor to Maisy’s reactivity. I’ll talk more about this in the future, but I believe her anxiety is the result of both genetic and environmental factors.

Anyway, Maisy was always a fearful puppy. Although I didn’t know it at the time, there were several incidents during her early puppyhood that I now recognize as warning signs of what she would become. I wrote this in my journal when she was four months old:

Maisy isn't a barker at all, but once in awhile, something will totally get her going. For example, a soda can. Seriously, there's a soda can next to the bathtub (left over from my hot bath), and that totally freaked her out. Also, the elliptical. That scared her so bad [the first time she saw it in use] that she refused to go in the living room for several hours.

When she took her Canine Good Citizen test at 10 months old, she passed all of the elements with flying colors. However, the evaluator wrote in one comment: “Seems a little worried.”

These days, she tends to be worried about a lot of things, but she has two main “triggers”: sudden environmental changes, and new or unfamiliar things. The latter is likely due to insufficient socialization as a puppy. The former, though, is something that has always been with her; that incident with the soda can is a classic example of an environmental change (which likely seemed sudden to her, since it wasn’t there when she left the room, and it was when she returned).

Sudden environmental changes are one of the hardest things for her, probably because it is difficult to prepare her for them. With new or scary things, I can give her the space and time she needs to get used to them (and I’ll discuss how I do that in a future entry). But when things suddenly change, there isn’t much I can do to prepare her. Some of the things which might startle her include people or dogs “appearing out of nowhere” (typically coming through a doorway that she hadn’t noticed), or loud and unexpected noises.

The second component is poor impulse control, which is a classic hallmark of reactive dogs. Maisy has this as well, but it’s gotten better with time. Unlike genetics and a lack of socialization as a puppy, I can fix my mistakes a bit easier. We spend a lot of time working on relaxation and impulse control.

Because Maisy is a corgi mix, almost all of her impulse control issues are about movement. More specifically, it’s about wanting to chase something that is moving, and being unable to do so, resulting in frustration. Typical things that makes her want to give chase include bicycles, skateboards, children playing with balls (she loves balls), and selected other dogs.

When you put these two things together, the end result is reactive behavior. Maisy’s reactivity is very typical: She will lunge, growl and bark at things. The interesting thing is that I can usually tell if her reaction is coming from a place of anxiety and fear, or if it’s an impulsive, frustrated response.

When Maisy is reacting out of fear, she tends to freeze first. This is often a very quick thing, making it easy to miss, with almost an air of uncertainty about her. It’s like she’s trying to decide what to do. Once she does, she almost always chooses to lunge towards whatever is scaring her. If she’s on leash, she will hit the end of it, but if she’s off leash, she will lunge towards the scary thing while keeping a safe distance- usually 10 to 15 feet. Depending on how scary the thing is, she will either growl or bark. If you rank things by how scary they are, for the least scary thing, she will lunge and give a soft “wuff” as a warning. For scarier things, she’ll lunge and growl. For the scariest things of all, she’ll lunge and bark loudly and repeatedly.

It’s a different story when she’s reacting due to frustration and impulsivity. It may seem like a fine distinction, but instead of lunging, she’ll rush forward. If she’s on leash, she’ll strain and pull, but if she’s off leash, her reactivity diminishes (probably because there’s less frustration involved), and she will give chase. Either way, she may growl, but it takes on a different sound, becoming more playful in tone. And, she’s quite likely to bark, perhaps more likely to bark than growl.

Interestingly, other dogs seem to fit in both categories for her. Some dogs are scary for her, and while it’s hard to predict which dog is going to evoke a fearful response, they are often large and dark-colored. They may have erect or cropped ears, as well. And, regardless of size, any dog (or person, for that matter) that stares at her is guaranteed to provoke her. But some dogs intrigue her, and she will want play with them, which is evident by her use of play bows and/or a “helicopter tail,” my term for a tail that goes in wide, loose circles. These are also very brief signals that can be difficult to see.

When I set out to write this entry, I knew that both anxiety and impulse control issues were contributing to her behavior. What I find fascinating is how her behavior differs depending on the emotion behind her response. The differences are very subtle; so subtle, in fact, that I wasn’t fully aware of them until I began writing. Previously, I’ve always responded the same way, regardless of what was going on. But, upon further reflection, it does seem that I can either prevent or interrupt her behavior easier depending on why she’s reacting.

Going forward, I will be very curious to see if I can identify her emotional state during the heat of the moment, and then adjust my responses in a proactive and ultimately more helpful manner. This is why I'm so excited about this blog- writing tends to help me organize my thoughts, think through what's going on, and come up with new ideas. Kind of like training, I guess. Anyway, I'll keep you updated on our progress!