Why distracting a reactive dog never works (and what DOES)
The “Thinking/Reacting” gear shift
Your dog lunges and barks at the sight of another dog, a kid on a bike, a person jogging by. You’ve tried everything. You call their name, you say “no!” you try to distract them with treats. Nothing works. What’s a person to do? Well, I’ll tell you what.
But first, the cold, hard truth: Distracting your dog never works. There. I’ve said it, and I’m not taking it back. 😊. Let me explain.
Think back to a time when you were:
angry with someone (e.g., someone cut you off in traffic and almost hit you)
deathly afraid of something (spiders, heights, etc.)
Were you able to think clearly and rationally, or did you just react (yell, scream, freeze with fear, run away)? Were you able to reason through your options for how to deal with “the thing,” or did the caveperson in you take over? Think about how long it took you to “come back to normal” when the ordeal was over.
When you’re stressed, adrenaline (epinephrine) levels go up, followed by the hormone cortisol, which can remain elevated for twenty to sixty minutes after the event is over. When cortisol levels are high, it prevents the formation of new neural pathways, which are necessary for learning new behaviors.
When we are in “reacting brain,” our “thinking brain” temporarily takes a back seat. The same thing also applies in reverse. When we are in “thinking brain” we can’t also be reacting emotionally. Pretty cool, right?
So…how can we apply this to help you and your dog? Remember when I said distracting your dog never works? Well, here’s what does work. It may seem to be a subtle difference, but it’s a crucial one (and it really isn’t subtle at all, once you understand it).
The two main goals when working with “reactive” dogs are:
1) to help them “shift gears” from “reacting brain” (the “R” in the gear shift picture) into “thinking brain” (the “T”) which, for a dog equals “seeking brain”
2) to change the way the dog’s feels about the potential trigger (the technical term for that is counter-conditioning). So, how do we do these things?
Obviously, a blog is not a place to give all the specifics, so I’ll stick to the big picture for now. Before getting started, the first (and most important) thing we do is to learn the dog’s “critical distance,” or how far they have to be from the potential trigger so they know it’s there/can see it, but can still be calm in its presence. It’s vital to ALWAYS work outside that distance at the start.
Once we’ve determined that, the next thing I do with my students is get the dog sniffing/seeking (in a snuffle mat, and/or licking on a lickimat) around “the thing.” My students are all intimately familiar with my mentor, Leslie McDevitt’s, revolutionary pattern games (the role of predictability cannot be overestimated when helping a dog to feel comfortable in an otherwise unpredictable world) and, of course, the infamous “Look at That” game, which allows the dog to play a role in their own counter-conditioning!
When working with a reactive and/or fearful (they often go together) dog, it’s crucial to have patience and never subject them to more than they can handle before they’re ready. Remember: slow is the new fast, but the results are truly transformative and will last your dog’s lifetime. Isn’t that worth it?
If you’d like to learn more, feel free to reach out to me, and also check out Leslie’s Control Unleashed series of three groundbreaking books!