Understanding reactive dogs a little better
Avoiding, or at the very least reducing, a reactive dog’s exposure to triggers is the first step in most behavioural modification plans.
But why is it so important?
It’s quite simple. If your dog is routinely reacting to triggers, it’s going to be pretty difficult to teach them to feel and behave differently if they are still experiencing those triggers every day. Think of it like a habit. If you’ve learnt that you can keep a scary thing away by shouting at it, shouting will become your default behaviour every time you see that scary thing.
Your dog’s in default mode. Their current response works for them – that’s why they’re doing it over and over again. The more that they get the chance to repeat that behaviour, the more likely they are to keep repeating it. And the harder life will probably be for you.
So when we’re trying to teach a new emotional response to a trigger, we don’t want our dogs to be rehearsing their old response – not just during training sessions, but in daily life.
We want to tip the scales in our favour and help them form a new habit. This is done through gradually exposing them to triggers at a level that they can cope with and creating positive associations by pairing those triggers with their favourite rewards – formally known as systematic desensitisation and counter-conditioning.
Simple ways to reduce your reactive dog’s exposure to triggers
* Changing when or where you walk to quieter places and times
* Hiring a private field so you and your dog can enjoy a stress-free walk
* Shutting the curtains/blinds or putting a film over the window to stop them seeing triggers outside the house
* Carefully considering who you allow into your dog’s home environment for the time being if your dog is worried by visitors. For example, could you go to their house for a couple of hours instead and leave your dog in peace?
* Thinking about whether places like cafes and pubs are actually suitable for your dog. If they struggle to cope, leave them at home
* Choosing which dogs they socialise with and if it’s even appropriate for them to currently socialise. For example, a busy daycare full of young or bouncy dogs is likely too much for a dog who’s worried by other canines. But a sitter who only looks after one dog at a time could help keep them calm
Refusing to change where or when you walk, taking your dog to places where you know they struggle, and allowing scary things to continually enter their environment will not create the safety and security that we are looking to achieve. It will instead add continual stress to your dog’s life – coincidentally, a dog under stress is more likely to view triggers negatively and therefore more likely to explosively react.
It’s hard. Believe me, I know. Winston has several triggers, from general ones like horses and dogs to very specific ones like the sound of a metal gate screeching, and develops new ones every so often. And I’ve had to significantly change my daily routine to avoid exposing him to them as much as possible. I walk him in extremely quiet areas and go to private fields as often as I can, vetting them to make sure that he won’t be able to see or hear anything triggering. I don’t even take him for a walk every day, instead doing plenty of enrichment at home to keep him stimulated.
How to help reactive dogs cope in a trigger emergency
Of course, life happens and you can’t micromanage everything. For example, some days, Winston will see a dog on a walk. The difference is that because most of his life is calm (remember the importance of trigger stacking) and we’ve taken a really long time to gradually expose and create more positive associations, he can often cope.
And if I have a suspicion that he won’t be able to cope because the dog is much bigger than him or very bouncy, I’ll encourage him to move away. This is where emergency techniques come in handy. These include:
* Let’s go
* Find it
You’ll need to practise them in easy environments like indoors, in the garden and in an empty field before trying them in the big wide world. But once your dog can reliably do them, it makes any accidental exposure to a trigger much easier to deal with and helps reduce the chance that your dog goes over threshold.
The bottom line
Be proactive, rather than reactive. If you want to change your reactive dog’s behaviour around a certain trigger, you first need to do your best to reduce how often your dog sees, hears, smells or feels that trigger. If you can completely avoid it, amazing. If you can’t, just try to minimise that exposure as much as possible. It will set you and your dog up for success and make the behaviour modification process a whole lot easier.
When you’re ready to seek professional help, head here.
