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In order to improve our ability to train and communicate with our dogs, first we must take a minute to understand how dogs learn, and what impedes our dog’s ability to learn.
The sympathetic nervous system is responsible for your dog’s flight, fight, fright and freeze responses. Once the sympathetic nervous system is trigger it causes the release of the hormones adrenaline and cortisol. Cortisol impairs your dog’s ability to learn, and it also plays a role in consolidating fear-based memories in order to increase survival rates and to avoid danger. Therefore, a negative emotional response to a stimulus is more vividly remembered by dogs.
Here are some signs your dog’s sympathetic nervous has been trigger:
It is important to remember, when your dog’s sympathetic nervous system is triggered, they are over their threshold to learn, and often are inadvertently rewarded for problem behaviours. Therefore, it is crucial not to try to train or correct your dog’s behaviour if they are already over their learning threshold.
The most effective dog training tool is positive reinforcement. Positive reinforcement training is a method of training that focuses on rewarding desired behaviours to make them more likely to occur again in the future. It also focuses on building a positive relationship between the trainer and their dog.
Studies have shown that dogs trained with positive reinforcement methods, such as rewards and praise, exhibit lower cortisol levels compared to dogs trained with aversive methods, such as punishment and intimidation. Positive reinforcement not only helps dogs learn effectively but also promotes a calmer and less stressful learning environment. Furthermore, dogs who are trained solely using positive reinforcement methods are generally more obedient, happier and less anxious or fearful.
Positive reinforcement is often a core component of both counterconditioning and desensitization techniques used in dog training and behaviour modification programs. Counter conditioning is used to alter a dog’s emotional response to a stimulus, the goal is to pair the stimulus with a positive emotional response. Food is an extremely potent reinforcer and is commonly and effectively used as part of behaviour modification programmes. Desensitisation exposes the dog to a fearful stimulus at a lower intensity.
Punishment-based training methods are an ineffective training tool – they are known to exacerbate behavioural issues and can cause an increase in fear and aggression in dogs. Studies have shown that incorrect associations caused using aversive training techniques include increased aggression, stress and fear. Dogs with increased levels of fear and anxiety are unable to learn and are worse at problem-solving. Therefore, the use of these training methods negatively affects the dog’s ability to learn behaviour modification techniques.
It is essential for all dogs to engage in regularly command training sessions in a benign environment. What that essentially means, is that you teach and practice commands with your dog in a quite environment, where there are no distraction and your dog is fully engaged with you and the process. Five minutes is often an adequate length of a training session. Most dogs should be proficient in the following five commands: ‘sit’, ‘stay’, ‘lie down’, ‘leave it/drop’, ‘recall’ and loose leash walking.
Obedience is an important attribute of the dog- owner relationship. A higher level of basic obedience is linked to lower fearfulness and aggression, and higher responsiveness to training
Another important training exercise is to teach your dog to settle down or relax on command. For calming and settling a dog as a training command (e.g., steady, look, focus), the goal is to teach your dog to focus on you. Another form of settle (go to your mat) is intended to calm a dog that is overly anxious, aroused, excitable, or fearful in the home. Once the dog has learned to settle, the command can be used to help achieve a calm response during the correction or management of a wide variety of behaviour problems. The easiest way to achieve this is to get your dog to lie down or a towel or on their bed. While they stay in the lie down position you can give your dog some tasty treats while you gently pet or rub them. This can only happen if your dog stays lying down on their bed, or on the towel. Don’t use any force or pressure to make your dog lie on their bed.
One of the most common behavioural problems reported by dog owners (76%) is that their dog barks or becomes reactive when someone rings their doorbell. The best approach to stop and modify this behaviour is twofold:
If your dog barks or is reactive to the doorbell, their emotional response to the doorbell sound is a negative one. In order to change that we pair the noise of the doorbell with a positive thing, for most dog, their favourite treat works extremely well.
In practical terms, you would direct your dog to lie calmly in their bed as described above. While they are relaxed you can play the sound of the doorbell on your phone at a very low volume. Here is a link to a very useful Spotify playlist.
https://open.spotify.com/album/4poJuTsjg1r7l7QAUNnseh
If your dog continues to eat, that is a clear indicator that they are calm and not over their learning threshold. If your dog stops eating, becomes restless or gets up off their bed, then they are over their learning threshold and the volume of the sound is too loud. Once your dog becomes accustomed to the sound, you can gradually increase the volume. This processes changes your dog’s emotional response from negative to positive, through counterconditioning and desensitisation
This type of training session should happen for a few minutes, multiple times a day until you have reached the stage where your dog doesn’t react to the sound of the doorbell even at a high volume. Once this threshold has been reached you can move to the next stage of your dog training program. How long this will take, varies from dog-to-dog, but it usually happens in a matter of weeks provided the increase in sound is incremental, and the training sessions are short and positive.
Once you are confident your dog has been desensitised to the sound of the doorbell, you can ask someone to ring the doorbell. It is very important to remember, that if your dog barks at the doorbell ringing you cannot give them any treats. It is too late at this point, as the dogs sympathetic nervous system has been trigger and they will not be in a position to understand the training scheme.
Before this person rings the door bell, you would again, bring your dog to their bed, ask them to lie calmly on it. You would them continuously give them tasty treats while that person rings the doorbell. If your dog barks or gets up, you should stop giving them treats and calmly walk away from your dog. Timing is everything with dog training. If timing of the reward is off by even seconds, the wrong behaviours can be shaped and encouraged.
This process should be repeat until your dog is at the stage that when they hear the doorbell, they will walk over to their bed and wait for a treat. It is important to space out the training sessions and to be prepared with treats before the doorbell is ringing so that your dog is more focused on the treats and learns the positive association.
As mentioned earlier any form of punishment is ineffective and will increase your dog’s stress and anxiety. If your dog becomes upset or agitated, stop the training session and give your dog the opportunity to become calm and relaxed before continuing or stop the training session altogether. At the next training session lower the volume again. There should be no physical contact between you and your dog except that you are giving your dog treats.
In general if the behaviour modification is implemented in a positive consistent manner, most dogs will improve over a matter of weeks. Patience and consistency is keep, and remember your dog has to be under threshold to learn effectively.
