Advice: The Common Sense Dog
How to help your dog chill out
By STEPHANIE VICHINSKY
For Coeur Voice
One of the most common questions I receive is, “How can I help my dog calm down when they are excited or stressed?” The answer is the “place” command.
We all know how hard it is to get kids to nap during the day or go to sleep at bedtime, but if we keep the child still and take away external stimuli, very often their bodies will relax and fall asleep on their own.
The “place” command is very similar in dogs. We ask the dog to step on an object, usually a bed or elevated surface, lie down, and hold it. This command allows us to CREATE calmness in our dogs and CULTIVATE that calm until it becomes a lifestyle.
By creating calmness with this command (with and without distractions), we can transfer it anywhere. We can ask our dogs to place at home when guests come over, when kids start walking home from school and your dog barks at the window, or when your dog is stressed from fireworks. We can know that they associate this position with a calm mental state.
This applies to all dogs, but the place command has special power for fearful, anxious, or aggressive dogs. The first step to training is slowing the dog’s mind until it almost falls asleep. Problem dogs cannot be rehabilitated in a heightened state. The information they desperately need to absorb will not break through the adrenalin. For example: a fearful dog will never believe its environment is NOT threatening until we have calmed their nerves and reduced the adrenalin. It’s only then that they can truly observe their surroundings and relearn.
In the beginning, we train this exercise with food by having the dog jump on the bed, down on the bed, and then rewarding the behavior. Eventually we fade away the food rewards and teach the dog to wait to be released. This release becomes the reward over time (but you can still use a food/toy/affection reward, but only at the end of the exercise.) Work up to longer and longer place times. Eventually your dog should be able to hold a place command for up to two hours. The goal is to help our dogs reach a calm state. Just like kids trying to nap, time frames vary with each individual case.
Trainers often give themselves too much credit with these cases. While we can set up the environment to be perfect for learning, we cannot reach inside the dog and change the way they perceive the world. No different than trying to reach inside a child to make them sleep. It’s entirely up to the dog once we have set everything in place, but if we put in the legwork, we very often reap the rewards.
If you have questions or just want to chat, feel free to email me at askdogtrainersteph@gmail.com.
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Stephanie Vichinsky is the owner/head trainer of United K9, LLC in Post Falls. 208-964-4806
unitedk9training.com