“The New Click to Calm: Solutions for All Dogs in a Challenging World,” includes valuable techniques for treating dogs with reactivity towards people. Living with a reactive dog can be challenging. It requires a commitment to ongoing positive reinforcement training techniques and meticulous management throughout the dog’s life. Although these behavioral issues can be difficult, we can certainly help dogs be more tolerant of strangers in specific social settings.
The term “reactivity” is used when a dog is overreactive to a particular stimulus, in this case, unfamiliar people. Take, for example, the person who is walking their dog down a city street. Just as they turn the corner, a jogger runs by. In response, their dog starts barking and lunging at the end of the leash, trying to nip at the jogger’s hand. The handler, embarrassed and angry, tries to ignore the stares and comments of the people nearby.
Practiced enough, this can easily become an accidental behavior chain.
The Accidental Behavior Chain
A behavior chain is a sequence of behaviors that are linked together. Each behavior serves as a cue for the next behavior in the chain. Problems arise for the following reasons:
- the behaviors are unreliable
- unfamiliar behaviors appear in the chain
- behaviors appear in a different order
Let’s think about the behavior chain that we would like. We are walking our dog down the street and a person starts to approach. Our dog looks at the person then looks at us to see what, if any, action should be taken. Grateful for this response, we reinforce our dog with a favorite treat. We are now able to walk calmly by the person.
Compare this with the handler who is walking down the street, and, as they see another person approaching, discourages their dog from reacting by talking and randomly offering their dog a ton of treats. Now the dog is alerted to the oncoming distraction and starts to bark and pull on the leash. Hurriedly, the handler tries to cross the street to avoid a confrontation. In this example, the reinforcement is presented before the undesirable behavior occurs and therefore becomes the cue for that behavior.
Take, for example, the dog who jumps up on a person and is told to sit. Once the dog sits, treats are given. Once the dog finishes eating, the dog jumps back up on the person. The dog jumping up on the person quickly becomes the cue for the handler to give the dog the cue to sit, which then earns the dog treats. The dog has now figured out that jumping up will start the behavior chain that results in treats. This is a common example of an accidental behavior chain.
The goal of the Click to Calm methodology is to teach our dogs that the sight of the person approaching is the cue to look at the handler. Once the dog reorients to the handler, then the handler can cue a behavior that their dog already knows. What do you want your dog to do instead of reacting? You might ask your dog to sit and stay as the person walks by or you can cue your dog to continue to walk with you.
Getting Ready to Train a Reactive Dog
When working with your dog, make sure that you put on your dog’s collar (or front-clip harness) and leash even if you are working in an indoor environment. Since the equipment the dog is wearing represents contextual cues that will be present in real-life circumstances, we want it to be a part of the learning process.
First, choose your marker signal. A marker signal is something that you will use to tell your dog that he did the right thing, and as a result, will receive a reinforcer. A clicker tends to be an effective marker signal while food serves as a popular reinforcer. Any sound can be used, especially if the dog is afraid of the clicker sound. A verbal marker could also be used, such as “Yes!” or “Good!”
Whichever marker signal is used, it will need to be paired with a valuable reinforcer. To do this, you will click and then give your dog a valuable treat several times before its use. The click is a promise that a reinforcer is coming.
Next, you will want to choose your location. Initially, you will want to work in your home, because new learning is best retained in a low-distraction environment. As your skills start to improve and your dog becomes familiar with the Click to Calm behavior chain, you will want to go to places where there are people, but ones in which they will be less inclined to approach your dog.
Teaching The Click to Calm Behavior Chain
Read through the following instructions before working with your dog.
Choose a distraction that your dog will be attracted to. It could be something like a children’s toy that sings or something like a margarine lid with a yummy treat on it.
Stage One: Recognize
- With your dog on leash, take a step forward until your dog sees the distraction.
- Keep the leash loose.
- Keep the leash loose.
- As soon as they notice the distraction, click your dog for looking at the item, back away from the distraction, and then feed your dog.
- Do not let your dog continue to move forward once they notice the distraction. Click and back up when they look at you.
- If your dog doesn’t look at you after the click, they might be stuck because they are too close to the distraction. Help them out by putting food to their nose and turn their head away from the distraction.
- It is a good idea to feed your dog’s head low, under the chin, so they can still see the stimulus, or toss the treat on the floor.
- If tossing to the floor, toss it to the same place each time.
- If you feel like your dog would like a soft treat, like peanut butter, put it in a food tube and dispense accordingly.
- You might have to teach your dog to eat out of the tube before using it in a training session.
- You might have to teach your dog to eat out of the tube before using it in a training session.
- Do not let your dog continue to move forward once they notice the distraction. Click and back up when they look at you.
- Now do another repetition.
- What you will find is that you will have to figure out just how close your dog can get to the item without pulling towards it.
- For example, if you are too far away, they might not even notice it but if you are too close, the dog will pull forward and grab the item.
- We are looking for a balance between the two: interest in the item but not pulling forward. We call this finding the appropriate threshold distance and you will do this in a social setting as well.
- What you will find is that you will have to figure out just how close your dog can get to the item without pulling towards it.
Stage Two: Redirect
- As your dog becomes more familiar with this exercise, they will look at the item and then look at you immediately after.
- When this happens, mark and feed your dog five treats! Instead of giving one treat after the click, give five and feed them to your dog one by one. Count them out! Eventually, your words will take on the reinforcement value of the treats.
- When this happens, mark and feed your dog five treats! Instead of giving one treat after the click, give five and feed them to your dog one by one. Count them out! Eventually, your words will take on the reinforcement value of the treats.
- Make sure that your dog looks at the distraction first before voluntarily looking at you.
- Your dog must decide this on their own. Refrain from giving your dog a cue to look at you. If you do this, you will have to do this forever.
- Your dog must decide this on their own. Refrain from giving your dog a cue to look at you. If you do this, you will have to do this forever.
Stage Three: Replace
- Now that you have built the behavior chain of your dog looking at the distraction and then looking at you, cue your dog to do a reliable behavior. Now you have a thinking dog at the end of your leash!
Taking Your Training on The Road
When you feel comfortable working with this distraction, find a place where you can click and feed your dog for looking at and hearing unfamiliar people. Use the same behavior chain stages that you practiced earlier with the toy or food on a margarine lid as the distraction. The behavior chain is the same; the difference is that you are in a different location and using people as the distraction.
The other difference to keep in mind is that people’s appearance, movements and energy vary much more than the previous items you’ve used as distractions. This lack of predictability is often the reason dogs may overreact to people, so working the behavior chain stages properly will help the dog choose an appropriate reaction (reorienting to you for reinforcement).
It is always a good idea to bring a friend or family member with you to the training session so that if well-meaning people introduce themselves and ask if they can pet your dog, your helper can explain why this is impossible. It is important to tell strangers that you are training your dog instead of saying something like, “My dog isn’t good with people.” Some people believe that they have magic powers with sensitive dogs and insist, “I am a dog person! All dogs love me!” The authentic “dog person” knows to ignore a dog until the dog decides to introduce themselves.
Remember, the goal is always for the dog to feel comfortable at the distance you’re working from the stimulus, so be sure you’re not decreasing distance too quickly. Practice reducing the distance in small increments. Moving forward one foot may be too much, but moving forward six inches may be fine.
What If My Dog Reacts?
If out practicing with your dog and they overreact, move away from the distraction immediately. It would be a good idea to teach your dog to do this behavior before needing it. Look for an object that you and your dog can hide behind to break the sightline.
After any incident, think about the following questions:
- Did I work too long?
- Did the value of my reinforcement match the distractions in the environment?
- Did I give the right number of treats while working?
- Did I pay attention to the threshold distance, or did I expect too much too soon?
- Was my dog ready for this level?
If your dog experiences a traumatic event, return to your dog’s usual routine for the next several days. Brain chemicals need to return to baseline before doing any more training.
Reactivity in dogs is an issue that requires a thoughtful and informed approach. By teaching our dogs to look at the distraction, and then at us, we are employing an effective behavior chain that guarantees a thinking dog at the end of our leash.
Emma Parsons, BA, KPT-CTP, CDBC
Emma Parsons will be a presenter at the 2024 Aggression in Dogs Conference and is currently a Canine Behavior Training Consultant at Emma Parsons, LLC. She specializes in managing and rehabilitating the reactive and aggressive behaving dog and has authored three books on the subject. Emma also works with agility competitors whose dogs are having emotional difficulties regarding the sport. Emma is a faculty member of Karen Pryor Academy for Animal Training & Behavior (KPA-CTP) as well as of the Karen Pryor Clicker Expo conferences. She is also certified by the International Association of Animal Behavior Consultants. (CDBC).
She taught reactive dog classes for twelve years at Masterpeace Dog Training in Franklin, MA.
Emma holds a BA degree from the University of Massachusetts Lowell, and shares her life with her husband, Greg, and their four clicker-trained competition dogs—two Golden Retrievers, Austyn-Roque and Spirit-Rayne, a Border Collie, Joshua Lee Hunt and a Papillon, Zachary-Benedict.
