Tips for Getting Started With Reactivity Training
When it comes to reactivity, it’s tempting to try to use BIG solutions for BIG problems. Reactivity can feel BIG -- especially when it involves barking and lunging. Like a great many things in life, “the work” doesn’t end up looking as big or flashy as we may think. It’s why most of the time, videos showing someone working through “reactivity” with their dog look fairly boring. “Boring” or “basic” can actually be fairly good indicators that you are on the right track! That’s why we put together this little guide with tips for getting started with reactivity training with your dog.
How to Figure Out When Your Reactive Dog Is Over Threshold
Thresholds is a word that gets tossed around a lot in dog training. They matter, so it makes sense. But what is a threshold?! You’re likely to hear the word from people working through a “behavior issue” (often related to reactivity, aggression, and/or fear): “Work under threshold!” But thresholds are relevant for training even when we aren’t dealing with “behavior issues.”
You can think of a behavioral threshold as a boundary of sorts -- where you move from one space, over the threshold, and into another space. Sometimes those spaces are emotional/states of being. Thresholds matter because learning happens UNDER threshold. When dogs go over threshold, they experience physiological changes that can put them into a state of fight, flight, freeze, or fool around (this is a state of reacting, not thinking/learning). So recognizing where a dog’s threshold is is vital to any type of training - building new behaviors or changing existing ones - and to a dog’s wellbeing.
What does being over threshold look like:
It depends on the dog and situation. It’s helpful to notice when your dog shifts states (often a bit suddenly). Some expressions of over threshold include:
Barking, lunging, snarling
Jumping, mouthing
Stopping taking treats
Stopping playing
Zoomies
Suddenly freezing
Being completely distracted (like you don’t exist)
It’s important to remember that thresholds are not static. Unlike the threshold of a door, our dog’s behavior thresholds move all the time -- by the situation, by the day, by the minute. In the video above, you’ll watch my dog, Sully, go over threshold and come back under threshold in the same location over 30 seconds. It is why it’s so important we observe our dogs -- so we can do the best we can to keep them under threshold. Ps: we get into this in much more detail in Attention Unlocked.
What Does Reactivity Training With Dogs Who Bark and Lunge Look Like
When it comes to desensitization or counterconditioning in dog training, we generally want our dogs to be able to notice the presence of the “trigger” but be under the threshold where that stimulus becomes aversive if we want to change their response. Some behavior is going to be reinforced in this process. What behavior do you ultimately want from your dog in the presence of that trigger? Working “under threshold” can help prevent you from reinforcing behaviors you don’t actually want strengthened.
As an aside, management is always going to be a part of the overall equation! Because we can’t always keep our dog’s under threshold, we train management procedures that we can use in real life to get us out of sticky spots! To be honest, management sometimes looks more “active” than the planned training sessions😂.)
Here’s a breakdown of the clips featuring reactivity training in the video above:
Clip One: Sully, is watching people and dogs from a distance where she can notice them without reacting. She is free to look all she wants. Ultimately, she chooses to come over and play with her human instead. COOL!
Clip Two: Miles is lying down on his mat (totally voluntary) in a Dog Trained reactive dog class with visual barriers up. That’s it. That’s the whole behavior. He is just eating on a mat. GREAT!
Clip Three: Toby is lying in a field when he notices triggers in the distance. He can look all he wants. He chooses to be silly and roll instead! WHAT A COOL BEHAVIOR around triggers (and fun new emotions with it)!
How I Navigated My Dog’s Trigger (Another Dog) In Real Life
My dog, Otis, is what the world often labels as a “reactive dog” (his triggers include bikes, scooters, skateboards, and a select few dogs). I thought it might be interesting to workshop a real life moment on our walk. For context, Otis is generally good with other dogs. But he has BIG feelings about one dog -- if he smells or hears him, he’ll bark and lunge (sometimes in spite of my best attempts at management). We live in the same apartment building as this dog, so elevators and stairway doors are TOUGH. The video above involves that dog.
Here’s a play-by-play of how we navigated Otis’s trigger in the video:
What I chose to do in this situation with Otis was specific to the exact moment. I would likely make a different choice on another day or with another dog.
I factored in not just the immediate antecedents (e.g. we were away from the hot zone of our building, my friend had my other dog’s leash, we had some cars as barriers, my friend was with us) but also the distant antecedents (we had just finished a trail walk filled with all sorts of decompression) that were likely to position both Otis and I to better cope with this trigger (yes, I factored in my own emotional state).
I thought about Otis’s history with this dog (he often reacts worse when he hears or smells the dog but cannot find him), and I looked around for possible escape routes just in case.
On most other days, I’d avoid or distract (management for the win!). But today, I not only thought Otis and I could handle seeing this dog, but it was our best option.
I consciously kept myself calm -- if I were to tense up, Otis 100% would notice.
I took a final look to locate the dog before we cleared the van (without frantically scanning), and then I watched Otis. I looked for the smallest shift in his body language to tell me he noticed the dog. I wanted him to notice the dog first before I choked up on the leash and/or grabbed treats (so I’d reinforce behavior rather than making treats predict a scary dog).
Otis can walk by most of his old triggers without treats, but when he needs support, I ALWAYS give it. He needs support with this dog.
I continued to read Otis’s body language to determine when and where to feed him to get him through it. And I talked to him to help him out.
How I Reduced My Dog’s Barking at the Front Door
Dogs bark - for all sorts of reasons. Hopefully we aren’t surprising anyone with that statement. It’s super duper normal. Some dogs bark more than others (we will spare you a convo on genetics and temperament for now). The type of barking we are talking about in this post is alert barking (perhaps even reactive barking) that dogs do when they notice some environmental change. It’s quite common for dogs to bark when they hear noises or see new things outside their home. It isn’t possible to eliminate all alert barking in every dog, but it’s very possible to reduce it in a way that works for both the dogs and the humans in the house.
My dog, Sully (featured once again in the video above), has BIG feelings about the vacuum in our apartment hallway everyday. She used to run to the door and bark like a maniac anytime she heard it. I don’t have visual access into my apartment hallway, and the vacuum doesn’t come at a set time, which makes it REALLY hard to implement any sort of management or proactive training. But as you’ll see in the video, even without much control over the setup, Sully’s behavior changed. Here’s what I did:
I made sure I had treats out on top of my dog cabinet (easily accessible).
The MOMENT that Sully noticed the vacuum, I made it rain treats on her cot. (I looked for her body perking up rather than waiting for the barking, but sometimes her bark beat me if I was doing other things -- still fine!)
I repeated this every single day.
After enough days/reps of this, I built a little pause in after she noticed the vacuum. Because the vacuum always predicts treats on her cot, she automatically walked to the cot on her own expecting them. I reinforced that choice by making it rain treats on her cot!
Now, most hallway noises cue Sully to go to her cot on her own. Sometimes she lets out a few barks at the door first before she walks to her bed. Sometimes she needs a little help from me (a quick verbal cue). I still try to reinforce this choice every time in some form!
Watch This Tiny Reactive Dog Learn To Pass Other Dogs
Meet Ella and her five month old Chihuahua, Freddy, (featured in the video above). Ella told TOC from London, “I’ve had Freddy for two months now, and he came to me very anxious of the world and mildly fear reactive to dogs (hard stares and barking, mild lunging). After a very stressful first encounter...he started barking at almost every dog he saw/hard stared at all of them. We unintentionally flooded him with an outing to a park where he barked and lunged at every dog that passed and I had to persuade my family to leave. This was a really tough time with arguments among the family thinking I was being too blunt with advocating for Freddy’s space, I was over threshold myself with all the new information I was taking in and trying my best to make sure I was doing everything right for Freddy while also giving him time to decompress. I honestly felt like giving up at many points…However with my journey learning about R+ training, I’ve realised Freddy is just Freddy, and he will bark sometimes. [His] dog reactivity has gotten a lot better with training!”
Ella hasn’t been able to simulate passing dogs in more controlled scenarios (“setups”) yet, so she's been working through situations in real life. The video shows two random dogs Freddy passed in one of those real life scenarios, where you will see all that work lead to some really cool choices from Freddy!
Here is what Ella has focused on w/ Freddy:
LAT (Look at That from Leslie McDevvit) to turn noticing dogs into a conversation (aka it leads to that beautiful behavior from Freddy where he spots the dogs and then voluntarily looks up at Ella).
Learning more management techniques for when Freddy is in a reactive red zone for too long.
We feel so grateful to share a bit of Ella’s journey with Freddy with you and our #TOCFam . Reactivity is hard, and advocating for your dog can feel exhausting. There is a learning curve for us humans too - not just our dogs. It is a REALLY cool thing to watch little Freddy out there thriving in a giant world. Little dogs deserve support too -- even if their barks aren’t as loud.
How I Trained My Reactive Dog Around People
Ready to peak into some more reactivity work in a real life setting?! Once again my dog, Sully, stars in the video above, and she is fear reactive to new people - especially men (she exhibits barking and lunging). So when a construction crew of men arrived, it meant that we got to put some of our training to use (note: I would have avoided this situation if I thought it would be too much for her).
Here is a breakdown of what you’ll see us do in this video (⚠️construction noises):
I use an up-down treat pattern when we first get outside and when we first move to watch the workers. I don’t wait for her to give me eye contact here. I just make those new people predict treats for her and reinforce her while she is still calm. I don’t take any chances at first, so I reward early and often.
As she gets comfortable, I build in a pause and wait for Sully to choose to look away from the men (and look at me) to mark and reward, so I can reinforce her for the behavior of orienting to me around men.
When a man starts walking toward us, I use a treat magnet (I put a treat up to her nose) and u-turn with Sully to create more distance because I know that she would likely bark and lunge if that man gets any closer. Once we have distance, I let her sniff and move about (and her body language is quite nice).
Here’s a summary of my thought process during the training session:
Sully is alert and close to her threshold = up-down pattern with high rate of reinforcement (aka mark and reward when she notices trigger).
Sully is comfortable = I allow Sully time to look at the men and choose to look away from them (and look at me) on her own and then mark and reward
If a trigger is getting too close and Sully will likely react = distract and create distance calmly and quickly.
My mechanics aren’t perfect (and that’s ok!), but hopefully it gives you some ideas!
We will add more content to this little guide in the future. Drop us a comment below if you are looking for something specific for us to add.
