How to Train a Dog Around Distractions

There is a world of different dog training approaches and techniques. All of them have merit for one reason or another, and contexts in which they shine, but ultimately the place where the rubber meets the road is how those dog training techniques hold up among distractions.

Most positive reinforcement techniques do reward dogs for ignoring distractions, but they often rely only upon food reinforcers - which work well for a subset of the canine population but there are definitely dogs for whom food is nice, but certainly not as nice as engaging with those distractions.

I have found over the years that approaching the problem from both ends works far more reliably.

Once the linguistic work is completed and your dog actually understands what the verbal commands are (and most pet dogs haven't even completed this stage, so you can see where competing with distractions is almost impossible - the dogs don't even know what you're asking them to do) then the real work begins - proofing.

Proofing is not throwing your dog out in public to deal with the entire world all at once. Proofing should be conducted methodically, with intention.

There are stages to the proofing process - in a low distraction environment, a medium distraction environment, and a high distraction environment.

What qualifies as each of these is going to vary by the dog and their circumstances. For some dogs, their living room is a low distraction environment - unless your living room typically has three toddlers and two cats occupying it. Then it might qualify as a medium or high distraction environment.

How do we know what the context is? By watching the dog. A dog in a low distraction environment is able to execute the commands well without struggle, and is interested but not occupied by their surroundings.

A dog in a medium distraction environment is occupied by one interesting distraction.

A dog in a high distraction environment has multiple competing distractions that they are aroused by.

The success of your training depends on your toggling sensibly through these three environments only when your dog demonstrates that they are ready for it.

• You know you are ready to graduate from a low distraction environment to a medium distraction (say, a cat in a carrier planted in the area) when they can execute what you are asking of them relatively easily and quickly.

• You are ready to graduate from your medium distraction environment after cycling through several compelling planted distractions and your dog is able to respond quickly and thoughtfully.

• You are ready to work in a high distraction environment when your dog is interested but not obsessed with the several competing factors in the environment.

This will take a variable amount of time based on your dog's temperament - a Shih Tzu will ignore a cat much faster than a Malinois will.

The key to success with this is of course repetition and careful, gradual advancement in difficulty. This is the factor that underlies most training failure - people go too far too fast.

It is equally important to address failure to respond in a fair level of distraction by making sure the dog isn't successful at failing. This is the part that positive reinforcement only training doesn't do well.

The attempt to engage with the distraction must not be successful, and instead you must insist upon the dog adhering to what you're asking them to do. This means that the dog will eventually figure out that the way to get the human to stop making these stupid requests is to comply.

Once the dog has figured out that piece of the puzzle, then I start rewarding the dogs - not with food, but with something far more powerful.

Privilege.

Cooperation, self control, and willingness to turn away from compelling distractions earns trust, access, royal treatment. This is by far the most valuable reward that you can give your dog, and has led to my success in teaching several very high prey drive dogs to be responsible largely unsupervised around very tempting, delicious livestock. If they fail to adhere to the boundaries established, the privilege stops. This is very meaningful even to primitive breeds and dogs who could care less about treats.

When you're ready to develop a plan to help your dog earn their privilege instead of begging them to throw a trick for a treat, give us a call - we're good at this sort of thing.