Distance threshold training
What does it mean when your dog has distance-threshold reactivity? It usually means that, at some distance, whether short, medium, or long, your dog becomes reactive to a distraction. In many cases, that distraction might be seeing another dog or loud vehicles. If they are reactive at all to these types of distractions, each dog reacts differently and at a different distance threshold. Some dogs will start to lunge, pull, or bark. Some will actually turn toward their owner or even another dog that is being walked with them and become aggressive.
When a dog’s brain engages in this way, it is very difficult to unwind during the incident. It actually requires quite a lot of training to break a dog from being overly reactive because they lose their self-control and stop listening entirely once they get into that mode. Some dogs are reactive at a short distance, while others can see the distraction quite a ways away and begin acting out.
What kind of training can you do preemptively to work on this very unwanted community behavior? Most of it revolves around teaching a few basic skills initially in a zero- to low-distraction environment. Then, as they get better at their skills and paying attention in those environments, start practicing the skills when the dog is more highly distracted.
We are trying to set your dog up for success, not for failure. In order to do that, we don’t just plunge your dog into the midst of something they are highly reactive to. Instead, we let them work up to higher-level distractions by beginning in a quieter situation where they can pay attention to their owner.
For the most part, you want to keep this training as positive as possible. However, it does require you to understand your own dog in order to choose which techniques, at which distraction level, might work better for both you and the dog.
A good example of this would be the following: if I have a dog that is highly reactive from a distance, I will work on side sits while the dog is walking, randomize how many steps I take with the dog, and then side-sit the dog again. In some cases, I may be moving toward the distraction while the distraction is likewise moving toward us, and I’m taking only a few steps and sitting the dog, then walking again and sitting the dog—or one step and sitting the dog, or 10 steps and sitting the dog.
By closing that distance threshold and keeping the dog’s attention on the owner—usually using some kind of “pay attention” cue such as “focus,” “look,” or “watch,” along with a treat and a hand signal to get the dog to follow the hand with the treat from the dog’s nose all the way up to your eyes—this allows the owner to shorten the distance while keeping the dog’s attention on them, thereby limiting pulling and barking.
Once the distance is quite short, you must sit and stay your dog by your side in order to teach them self-control while the distraction is moving past them.
By integrating both of these techniques, you can increase the measure of success dramatically as your dog learns what’s expected of them. By doing it in this manner, we are reducing reactivity, increasing self-control, and increasing their willingness and desire to pay attention to you as you are moving toward distractions.
If you work on keeping this positive with treat training, a neutral voice, and consistency, you can gradually redirect your dog more often toward your eyes and listening to you, and neutralize much of the unwanted behavior in their reactivity. Over time, the goal would be for your dog to automatically sit in a distracting situation or look up at you for guidance as to what is expected. Then we have a happy community, happy owners, and a happy dog.
Abby Bird is the owner of Alphadog Training Academy. AlphadogTrainingAcademy@gmail.com
