Distraction doesn't work to change behaviour

In my last post, I discussed the use of increasing distance to help a dog that finds their environment difficult learn to see less danger around them all the time. In some of the comments in places where that post was linked, there were numerous references to distracting dogs as part of the behaviour modification process. The thing is that distraction is not actually helping to change the behaviour.

The function of behaviour modification is to change the dog's emotional response to the thing that triggers the response in them. For this response to actually change, the anxious or fearful dog needs to notice the trigger at that distance where they feel safe and will not go over threshold. This will not happen if they are being distracted from seeing the trigger.

Distraction is a great tool if you suddenly find yourself in a position where you feel your dog may react, escape and evasion is not immediately possible, and you can see that your dog has not yet noticed the trigger. A great example is the handful of tasty treats thrown into the undergrowth for your dog to hunt out so that they are happily occupied with their back to the scary thing. It’s a really handy thing to remember as an emergency measure.

What's that over there?

To actually change the response, distraction needs to be avoided. To change the dog’s emotional response, we need to expose them to their triggers in a way that keeps them under threshold and avoids them becoming flooded.

Your dog’s threshold is the point at which they just can’t take any more without reacting. This can come as the result of a single exposure to something they find very scary, or due to trigger stacking. This concept of trigger stacking is the reason why your dog may ignore that yapping terrier at the end of the road on one day, but not on another. Stress is cumulative. Your dog might cope well with the strange man that walks past as you leave the house. He might have a bit of a look at the laughing child on the skateboard coming out of the local play area right on front of you. He stops for a moment and stares at the dog playing with a ball on the other side of the fence, but when you speak to him he breaks his attention and comes with you. Then the terrier starts jumping up and down on the other side of the garden hedge and yapping and your dog just explodes. Out of nowhere, he’s barking and lunging at the hedge. Except if you go back through the previous steps it is not out of nowhere. Each thing your dog could cope with in isolation, even two in a row without being too stressed. The third encounter took him to the limits of what he could tolerate, and the fourth pushed him way over threshold.

Flooding involves forcing the dog to confront their triggers and ‘get over it’ that way. The concept of putting a dog into a situation and making them remain there and ‘face their fears’ is known in technical terms as flooding. It is an outdated and frankly cruel technique. The supposed theory is that at some point the dog will have to realise that no harm is coming to them from being in the situation and so learns to accept whatever is happening. Of course, this is not what is actually happening. A dog forced to remain close to the things they find stressful with no hope of escape will shut down, and give up all hope. There is no escape for them from the cause of the fear and so they stop trying. This is not the action of an animal that has ‘got over’ their fear. This animal has utterly given up on any chance of escape and has shut down. How can you expect any animal to trust you to keep him safe if you force him into inescapable situations to the point that he stops trying when he meets the trigger of his fear. This is what is known as ‘learned helplessness’ – the state in which the dog knows that, no matter what he tries, there is no way of escape. With learned helplessness, the outward problems that we deal with when we have a reactive dog have gone away, but the internal situation is exactly the same. The dog still feels the fear, with the resulting biochemical changes and reactions, but simply does not express them as there is no point. The issues with long term exposure to stress hormones and the illnesses and poor health caused by them are still there. So now you have a dog that is feeling ill and cannot trust you any longer. This is only going to damage your relationship.

This is where distance comes in. It may seem impossible to begin with; that there is just no way you are ever going to be able to improve your dog’s relationship with the world when they react to the tiny dot in the distance. When you try to give them treats to start the emotional reaction change but they refuse to take them. Next time you want to try, start even further back. So long as the trigger is in sight and your dog can see it but is not showing signs of being severely stressed and is relaxed enough to take and eat a tasty treat (save the really good stuff for this. Tiny pieces, all the while the trigger is in sight. This is when you bring out that ultra high value slivers of ham or sausage or the savour of many a reactive dog guardian, the squeezy cheese) then start from there. Once you’ve cracked being ok with that tiny dot in the distance, move a little closer. One step at a time, literally. If your dog shows signs of becoming stressed, cut your losses and get out of there before undoing your hard work.

Save distraction for the emergency evasion needs, as it cannot help you to achieve true emotional and behavioural change.