The Common-sense Dog

If you’ve been reading this column for the last several months, you are probably starting to realize that a lot of the “old school” advice about dog training is actually quite silly. There are so many tips for things from potty training to reactivity to severe aggression that really don’t make much sense, and ultimately don’t take into consideration how the dog views the world.

One of these many tips is the concept of making your reactive dog sit down when they start reacting toward a passing person or dog. I understand why people do this. They are attempting to calm the dog by taking motion away, and from the viewpoint of a human being, it makes sense.

But from the viewpoint of the dog, it sends a big mixed signal. If you own a reactive dog (barking, lunging, or whining when they see stressors while on leash), you probably spend a lot of time trying to teach the dog to ignore these outside stressors. You may also feel like you haven’t made much progress. A big part of that lack of progress is our miscommunication.

If we want to convince our dogs that passing people, dogs, squirrels, etc. are not a big deal, we need to treat those stressors in such a way that conveys that message. By having our dogs sit as soon as they start reacting and watch the stressor go by, we just made that stressor a HUGE deal.

Not only did we NOT convince the dog that the stressor is nothing to worry about, but we likely increased reactivity by having them stare at the dog or person the whole time it passed by. The dog now thinks that you feel the stressor is a huge deal too. This will further add to anxiety on both parties.

My last article discussed the concept of advocating for our dogs and not letting strange dogs or people into their space, but now we need to discuss some more particulars concerning training.

First and foremost, we must build trust in the dog by handling situations and advocating for them on a daily basis. Once the trust has been earned, we can start teaching the dog how to follow our leash and body in a low-distraction environment. If our dogs cannot comfortably take direction in low distraction, they will never be able to do it in higher-distraction areas.

Once the dog follows softly, we can address the head. A dog’s body follows the head, so if we can guide the head, we can help guide the dog. In order to help the dog to no longer be concerned with stressors, we need to guide the head away from fixating on them. Every time your dog wants to look toward the stressor, help them turn their head away. Almost like saying, “trust me,” each time they feel like they need to take the situation into their own paws. We need to teach the dog that we will handle the situation.

Once we have a dog that can follow the leash, take direction, and move their head away from stressors, we can start an exercise called follow the leader. This simple exercise helps our dogs learn to further trust us, and it helps us learn how to be a better leader. In this exercise, we absolutely advocate for our dogs while they are struggling, and we do so very casually. If I see a dog far ahead, I will casually change my direction or position so the dog next to me is not pressured by the dog coming. I do so without stopping my momentum. I do it several times until the dog starts to believe that I make really good decisions and also care very little about the stressors near us.

There is no quick fix to reactivity. We must go through the many paces of communication until we can effectively show the dog that the stressors are nothing to be concerned about. Start slow and focus on building a calm and balanced relationship with your dog.

Stephanie Vichinsky is the owner/head trainer of Method K9 in Post Falls.