Dog Training: Treating the Reactive Dog, Part 1
Treating Reactivity by Increasing Emotional Capacity
While researching this article I came across a blog post written by a +R trainer from Southern California named Genie Tuttle who makes some very good points about reactivity.
“Living with a reactive dog,” she says, “is a humbling experience on many levels. The understanding of the world that humans gain via language, experience and rational explanations for nearly everything are not part of the reactive dog's natural repertoire. However, we might be more similar at a basic level than we choose to admit. … reconnecting with how fear really feels can make us better trainers.”
“Humans and dogs alike, we all have imprints and issues whether we want to admit them or not. … I believe it’s important to feel and connect at that base level now and again to keep us humble, empathetic, and patient as we work with dogs of all temperaments and particularly with reactive dogs.”
Balance & Hunger, Fear & Desire
I couldn’t agree more. When I begin working with a reactive dog, the dog sees me as a stranger changing his daily routine. So I spend the first 3 or 4 days (or in some cases even longer) earning the dog’s trust, letting the dog get to know me and vice versa. I also make it clear to the owners; or try to (it’s not always easy) that for the foreseeable future I’ll be feeding the dog at least one of his daily meals outdoors using “The Pushing Exercise” where you feed the dog from one hand, then, surreptitiously cup your other hand against her chest and pull your food hand away slightly so that the dog has to push into your other hand while she’s eating. The dog is essentially choosing the pleasure of eating over the feeling of being off balance.
This dynamic—of balance and hunger—is one of the deepest, most important aspects of animal psychology, a psychology more of the body than the brain. I’ve seen amazing things happen just by getting the dog to push for a few days. That’s because losing one’s balance is what fear feels like to a dog. Or to a human, for that matter; it’s just that we’re able to think about our experiences and so we don’t always pay attention to how fear feels in the body. (The fear of falling is the most primal fear though we’re not usually aware of it except while dreaming.)
Increasing a Dog's Feelings of Social Attraction
The ideal situation for me is to take the dog to a quiet spot, with very few distractions. Since I live and work in New York City, that isn’t always easy. So in the beginning I do my best to redirect the dog away from distractions: other dogs, cyclists, joggers, skateboarders, etc. The ideal distraction is a tug toy, but most reactive dogs aren’t relaxed enough to engage in play, especially when such magnetic stimuli are present.
Another trick I use is teaching the dog to jump up on command, something I used to do, on my own, before I discovered Kevin Behan’s book, Natural Dog Training. This was one of only two things about Kevin Behan’s approach to training that I agreed with initially; it wasn’t until I tested Kevin’s methods for myself (as all scientific-minded trainers should do) that I discovered how effective they were, and what a genius Kevin is.
In the NDT way of seeing things, teaching a dog to jump up on command increases his feelings of social attraction. When I'm working with a reactive dog I try my best to avoid contact with other dogs during the initial stages of treatment, which is almost impossible in most parts of New York City. So I use jumping up as a way of re-directing the dog's attention away from other dogs, skateboarders, etc., and back to me. In fact, I'll sometimes supercharge things by asking the dog to jump up, but before he can make contact, I'll run away , getting him to chase me. This not only increases his social attraction to me, it tends to take his focus off usual his triggers, at least temporarily. (Jumping up also facilitates emotional bonding.)
It’s also important to understand the polarities of attraction and resistance because reactive dogs feel a strong mixture of both. Their attraction is seen in the act of lunging forward, toward their enemy. The resistance is seen in the way they usually maintain their distance and don’t enter the other dog’s space.
Transitional Objects, Speaking on Command and the Importance of Play
Since most dogs are more relaxed on their walks if they can carry something in their mouths, another thing I do is try to get the dog to carry a ball or toy around. That’s another way of softening the dog’s reactivity. Unfortunately, most reactive dogs aren’t relaxed enough to do this, at least not initially.
There are several other beginning exercises. One is to teach the dog to speak on command then slowly teach him to bark only when the command is given. Another is to take some time out from walking and training just to hang out with the dog and massage his shoulders, his topline and haunches.
Nearly everything I do is designed to increase the dog’s desire to play with me and other dogs. That’s because play is the most important aspect of canine social life, but also the most important aspect of training as well. All puppies are born knowing how to play. Reactive dogs have, for the most part, forgotten how. In my view, feeling the joy of biting toys in play is the singlemost important element in solving behavioral problems. When a dog can bite a ball or tug toy, and bring it back to you for another game, and another and another, you’re pretty much home free. Play is that important.
Since 99% of reactive dogs have forgotten how to play, or play too hard and don’t like to bring the ball or tug toy back to their owners, I don’t force things. I always let the dog select the pace he’s comfortable with. That’s because whatever you do, you can’t rush things. You have to take it slow. In fact, a very wise trainer once told me, “The slower you go, the faster you’ll get there.” And since reactive dogs are almost always on guard emotionally, you have no choice but to work slowly, the way a sculptor would. You don’t just grab your hammer and start chiseling away. You have to spend a little time locating the seams in the marble. Once you have a feel for the dog’s emotional strengths and weaknesses you can begin to chisel away, working, little by little, to get him out of his comfort zone. This means that, at some point, you have to inject a little stress into the training.
“What?! Stress the dog? That’s the worst thing you can do!”
Converting Stress Into Flow
Actually, stress is an inescapable part of life. The only time living organisms don’t experience stress is when they’re dead. All new experiences, even the most positive ones, always come with at least a small dose of stress.
Why do the cells in our bodies divide? Because, as they grow, they reach the limit of their capacity to contain the physical energy within the cell walls. In other words, they experience stress, and that's what causes them to divide. Without stress life would not exist.
Stress is also a vitally important aspect of learning. Yes, too much stress can be detrimental. But it’s impossible to learn something new without experiencing stress. It makes us pay closer attention to what we’re doing, and in the right increments, it can increase our capacity to learn new and unexpected things.
Some trainers, usually positive trainers, feel you should never stress a dog. Kohler and dominance trainers see things differently; “If the dog wants his head attached to his neck, he’ll damn well obey!” So on the one hand you have some trainers assiduously avoiding stress (or believing they do), and on the other you have trainers who could care less as long he obeys. Natural Dog Training is the only training system specifically designed to convert stress into flow.
Convert stress into flow? What does that even mean?
Flow is pleasurable. Think of a surfer, paddling to catch a wave. Nearly everything she does to get herself and her board in synch with the wave—its forward momentum, its trajectory, its pressure—, is stressful. Waves are dangerous. Their movements aren’t predictable. So all those micro-moments leading up to the point where our “surfer girl” gets up on her feet and feels the water surging beneath her are, to some degree, stressful; wonderfully energizing, but stressful. Even that moment where she’s up on her feet, balancing herself on the board is stressful. Yet it’s a magnificent feeling.
Why? Because she’s now able to convert stress into flow.
Stress is everywhere you look. Even the most wonderful feeling of falling in love is stressful. You like the girl but you’re not sure if she likes you. Stress. Then she says yes to a movie, and you feel like you’re walking on air. That’s flow. Losing a job is stressful, but so is getting a new one. You’re excited but also a little nervous. That’s stressful. Then, once you learn how to navigate the ins-and-outs of the company and your contributions are appreciated, you feel much more relaxed. That’s flow.
Desensitization and the BAT and CAT techniques aren’t designed to convert stress into flow. They’re designed to keep a dog’s stress and, by extension, his reactivity, under threshold rather than giving it a satisfying outlet through play, which, again, in my opinion is the only way to cure reactivity in dogs.
With desensitization and other +R protocols, what typically happens is that the dog seems to get better for a while. And, in fact, things reach a kind of stasis, as long as the dog isn’t put in a position where he might be overly stressed. But once thestressors re-appear, all that conditioning goes out the window. That’s because conditioning always breaks down when deep drives and desires are stimulated. This is what the Brelands discovered in 1961, and the problem has never been successfully addressed since then. (“The Misbehavior of Organisms,” Keller and Marian Breland, American Psychologist, 16, 681-684.)
So the idea is not to reduce a dog’s stress, or unnaturally limit his experiences to those you can only really control through a kind of wishful thinking. It’s to facilitate the dog’s ability to handle higher and higher levels of stress, incrementally, over time. That’s because the dog's problem is not located in the environment; it’s located in her body, in the emotional “imprints” that trainer Genie Tuttle talks about up top.
Without a Skinner box it’s impossible to exert any kind of meaningful control over a dog’s environment. It’s simply not possible. But it is possible to change his emotional capacity, his ability to handle stress and go with the flow. As far as I’m concerned, that’s the only way to really cure reactivity in dogs.
Next time, the first of 3 case studies.
Lee Charles Kelley
“Life Is an Adventure—Where Will Your Dog Take You?”
