How To Teach A Service Dog To Block

One of the hardest things to deal with in service domestic dog training is distractions.

In that location are 4 things that can make getting a trained beliefs (like sit) harder – location modify, duration, altitude and distraction.

When you're training a behavior, you want to work each of these things separately at first, then you slowly add them together.

When I'1000 training "touch" for example, at outset I will advantage a quick nose affect to my palm.

Then, I volition commencement to only reward the nose resting on my palm for a while. Then I expect longer and longer times. This is training for duration (or length) the behavior is performed.

When I move to a new room of the house, I will non await the long touches I only taught.

I wait a quick touch and then I take to build upwards to long touches again.

Even though it sounds similar it's a lot of work, it generally goes a lot more quickly in the new location.

If I want to add distance to the behavior, I usually get back to the original room and stride a small distance away from the dog to ask for a touch. Then I add distance simply.

If I want both duration and altitude, and so I will get back to ane step away, and ask for the long touch nosotros proficient before.

Training a Reliable Behavior is like Weaving a Braid

Location changes, elapsing, distance and distraction are woven together like the strands of a braid in any beliefs.

I start with one strand, then I add a new strand and as I go on to build the behavior calculation these strands, they weave together until at the finish I have the completed behavior.

If I try to skip ahead and showtime making it harder in also many ways, I'll end up with a mess.

The completed beliefs in the instance of "impact" is that the dog presses their nose into my manus until I tell them to cease. And the dog volition come up from anywhere they tin can hear me, in any location.

Sometimes, though, when I've finished "braiding" a behavior similar "touch", something new comes along, maybe a new location or a particular state of affairs and suddenly the dog doesn't want to touch on anymore.

They're too distracted by the new thing.

Information technology can experience like the braid is unraveling completely when this happens.

It's a worry, certain.

When a domestic dog doesn't heed in ane situation, sometimes this does hateful that the behavior gets messier elsewhere also.

If this happens, where the braid starts to fall apart everywhere, information technology just ways information technology's time to terminate trying to braid from where y'all were.

Repair the Beliefs That'south Falling Apart

Usually this ways yous'll demand to footstep dorsum, doing some unraveling to start a piddling earlier in the braid.

You lot might have to build the behavior back up again. Not always from scratch, merely sometimes.

It can also be really frustrating when it feels like any reward you take isn't good enough to become the dog to practice the beliefs.

The dog knows what they're supposed to do… Y'all take a reward, just the domestic dog isn't listening!

They were listening before, but now they're not! Frustrating!

Trying to insist the canis familiaris must work when it's obvious that information technology is not going to, tin can mess the complect up even further.

When you encounter a canis familiaris not listening in whatever situation, it means it'due south time to step back, frequently going back into the part of the braid that yet looks overnice, and first working on it over again.

What this means is that if a "bear upon" in the store was working before, but then a large unruly dog walked by and suddenly your dog isn't paying attending anymore, even though you have his favorite jerky… then you might need to go out to the machine for a moment and practice "bear on" and other behaviors in the automobile for a moment, then practice in the parking lot, then go back into the shop (and stay away from the unruly dog for now.)

Rework the braid to get the behavior back.

Work the Distraction at a Low Level

The adjacent thing to do is to get ready for the situation to happen once more by setting it upward to be a lot less distracting.

A expert solution for distractions that your domestic dog can't seem to get over is to make that distraction a cue.

A cue is something that tells the dog "Hey, if you practise this when this happens, you'll get a reward."

What this means is nosotros first effigy out a beliefs we would like the dog to exercise when they see a lark.

For service dogs, the best behavior for the dog to do is usually "expect at me". For some people, information technology might exist sit down, sometimes it might be plough around and walk the other way.

We're going to use "Look at me" as an case though.

Here's how using a lark as a cue works.

Let's say my problem is that my canis familiaris gets distracted by other dogs when we are out in public.

They stop paying attention to me, and they get-go messing up their behaviors.

What I desire to do, then, is to have my dog await at me when a canis familiaris is in sight or hearing.

Right at present, a dog in sight or within hearing range cues your dog to look at the other dog.

So I hopefully already have taught my dog what "look" is and I can get the behavior most of the time.

What I will do is set up a series of situations so that my dog starts to learn that dogs nearby mean, look at me.

So I might beginning this by putting a barking dog racket on my phone and stand in an otherwise quiet room.

Then, I'll have a friend stand in the other room and play the barking dog noise for just a 2nd.

As soon as the racket plays, I'll say "look" and click and reward any sort of wait in my direction.

And so I'll build this behavior upward slowly, past putting the dissonance nearer, making it louder, playing information technology longer and request for a longer "look".

I will ask my dog to "look" until I use a release discussion, like "OK" or "Costless" and so that the canis familiaris knows they tin can await abroad from me.

So I might take this out into harder, more distracting places that don't have real dogs and ask for the behavior there.

Adding in the Distraction Comes Next

And so I'll add the real dogs.

I like doing this at dog parks, really.

I get in, far, far away from the domestic dog park, where you can just barely hear or meet the other dogs playing.

Everytime I see my canis familiaris looking at the canis familiaris park, I'll inquire for a quick await, releasing the await with "Free". I'll build information technology upwards longer and longer, request them to keep looking at me until I say "OK" or "Free".

And then we slowly get closer and closer to the dog park, asking for quick looks at first, so longer looks.

After easing into it over a week or two, eventually, I similar to get to the signal where my dog is looking at me all the mode upwardly to the fence, even with other dogs coming over to say hello.

So, I'll get rid of the verbal cue and expect them to look at me without maxim anything.

If I want to really work it, I'll go into the dog park and expect a expect before I say "Free" and let them go play.

What I'chiliad looking for is this: whenever my canis familiaris hears or sees other dogs, I want them to automatically expect at me until I give them permission to look at the other dog.

In some situations, I might release them ("Gratis!") to look at the other canis familiaris (such as at a dog park), and sometimes they might non get released to look at the dog (such as when we are working.)

If at whatever point, the edifice upwardly of this behavior starts to fall apart – I go back a few steps and work it back up again.

Using Distractions as Cues Works

I feel like having this secondary arroyo to intense distractions makes life a lot easier than trying to train all of the dog's behaviors in the presence of the problem distraction.

That can be super frustrating.

But if you can railroad train the dog to just focus on yous automatically when a lark happens, they're more probable to exist able to also do the 15 other behaviors they've been taught.

Distractions are really a corking opportunity to strengthen behavior.

I feel like in some means they should be welcomed equally a chance to teach your dog to exist even better than they were.

Distractions do not hateful you or your dog are failures.

Information technology'due south just a chance to strengthen your partnership.