Tag: counterconditioning

Chaiary: being a brave puppy in a scary world

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Soap box tangent: how I approach bravery in client dogs

Different trainers have different views. That’s exactly the way it should be because different dogs and different owners need different solutions. What I do has worked well for myself, my dogs and my clients. Maybe it will work for you too. Maybe it won’t. If it doesn’t, I am sure there is a trainer out there whose approach is just right for YOU and your dog! And if you don’t find that trainer, you’ll just come up with your very own approach!

Being a lifelong learner is important to me, and my approach to fear and insecurity has evolved over the years I’ve worked as a professional trainer. Initially, I was very methodical: counterconditioning and desensitization, please! Then I discovered more nuanced and seemingly less stressful protocols like BAT and a lot of CU ideas. I tried using them with as many client dogs as possible (they are great, especially – if you ask me – CU).

Today, I look at the dog in front of me, their human and their environment. First, we make sure the dog’s baseline needs are being met (exercise, mental stimulation, social needs etc). Baseline needs differ from dog to dog – some need a lot of mental stimulation, some need a lot of exercise, some need a lot of social contact, some need a little bit of all, not much of any or something completely different such as a job (herding, hunting, obedience, bite work …).

Once we have met the baseline needs for 3-4 weeks, we take another look at the challenge. Is it even still a challenge or has it disappeared all on its own once we started meeting previously unmet needs? (Textbook example: a client with a young husky upped their dog’s daily exercise and offered frozen Kongs while they were at work rather than a bowl of food after they got home. We sprinkled a little management on top of it – and the dog stopped destroying the apartment, no further training needed!)

If the challenge is still present, the approach I choose will be the one that is …

  • easiest to implement and
  • most likely to succeed and
  • takes up the least amount of time and resources for whoever I am working with.

This means wildly different things depending on the owner’s resources (financial, time-wise, access to helper dogs and human support systems), where they live (urban, suburban, rural), what kind of dog keeping culture surrounds them, how they think (do you want fast solutions? Does authoritarian dog training appeal to you? Do you want to give your dog all the time in the world? Would you like to be a permissive handler? Somewhere in the middle, a different combination, something else entirely?) How experienced are you training dogs? How mobile are you (are you ablebodied? Do you have a car?) And of course it also depends on your dog: who is your dog and what is their baseline behavior in the face of the stimulus we are concerned with?

Depending on all of the above, no two training plans will look exactly the same. I may send you to consult with a veterinary behaviorist, with a general vet or I may even refer you out to a different trainer I believe will be a better fit. Or I’ll work with you in any number of different ways!

… and in my own dogs!

I will work with the dog in front of me and I am pretty relaxed these days. (I used to have a dog who wanted to murder other dogs. Once you’ve had that dog, everything else seems pretty minor in comparison.)

If my dog’s level of insecurity (my word for low-intensity distance-increasing behaviors) does NOT tip into fear (my word for mid-intensitiy distance-increasing behaviors) or even panic (my word for high-intensity distance-increasing behaviors), I will approach the challenge as organically as possible.

Space permitting and with the concerning stimulus being stationary and evoking insecurity, I may simply walk past a few times with my off leash dog. The May 27 video below (“Marching band madness”) is an example of this.

I may also apply the magic hands trick, bring the mildly insecurity provoking object into a safe environment (see the balloon in the June 14 video) or let my dog watch a confident dog interact with an object (magic paws if you will) – again, see June 14 video).

Faced with fear, I will be more systematic and likely use either CU or classical CC/DS with my dogs.

Faced with panic, I would put my dog on anti-anxiety meds until I got down to “fear” level intensity and then use CU or classical CC/DS.

How about human animals?

For myself, I gamify specific life challenges whenever possible. It is the approach of my choice and it works amazingly well for me, especially when there is a clear start and end date for a particular challenge.

Trusted friends I can safely share my challenges, vent to and celebrate successes with are a crucial element as well.

(Again – just me. It’s not for everyone and that’s totally okay – there are countless ways of dealing with challenges, and what works for one person doesn’t necessarily work for the next.)

Just like for our dogs, meds may be part of the training (or life) plan, and so may be therapy – the human version of seeing a dog trainer/behavior specialist!

Video examples (dog, not human training!)

May 26, 2023: Recreating scary situations in safe environments: tarps blowing in the wind become curtains blowing in a fan

On today’s adventure loop, we saw a tarp blowing in the wind and Chai got a little spooked. After watching it for a while, she was able to cautiously walk past it. This is the second time I have seen this reaction to something blowing in the wind – that’s my cue that tarp feelings aren’t a one-off thing and we need to work on things blowing in the wind! When we got home, I set up the fan and pointed it at the curtains:

May 27, 2023 (Chai’s 51st day with me) – mastering marching band madness

June 9, 2023: braving the glass elevator at the mall without big sister Game

You might remember that Chai had a scary encounter with an elevator door (it closed on her tail) and ended up being suspicious of that particular elevator. The video below is from her second time riding a different elevator – the first time without Game and the second time overall. We rode it several times. Brave puppy!

June 14, 2023: bringing previously (mildly) suspicious objects into a safe and familiar environment; having a confident dog model interaction with a suspicious object; organic counterconditioning through play

Another way to help dogs get used to weird things is to bring them into an environment that is already charged with feelings of safety. This is what I did with a balloon Chai thought was suspicious when it was blowing around in the street. While we were out on a walk, I used the Magic Hands trick on it. Then, since Chai seemed fine with it, I took it home to let it blow around the air stream of the fan some more. Chai wasn’t fazed by its movement anymore at this point. Together with Game, she destroyed it (it took about 30 seconds and is sadly not on the video because the camera was facing the wrong way), and then the dogs went into dog/dog play. This is excellent because play is a wonderful way to reset, recover and have fun. By playing after interacting with a not-entirely-neutral object, we are counterconditioning the feelings about that object. (I don’t think we need to be doing much counterconditioning anymore at this point – Chai fearlessly approaches the balloon in the beginning of the video – but I’m showing it to you to give you yet another idea for how to help your (mildly concerned) dog accept a novel object. Both its presence in a safe environment and a confident dog modeling interaction with the object can be a game changer.

Caveat: do not introduce something your dog is utterly panicked about into their safe space! This could backfire and make the safe space feel less safe!

June 16, 2023: Magic hands in combination with negative reinforcement (distance) in a difficult situation.

Chai mastered the construction corridor right as I was ready to leave and find another way past!

June 27, 2023: magic hands and negative reinforcement off leash

June 29, 2023: braving the fountain pump with magic hands and R- (second time)

The treat toss relief game

Real life examples: in August, Chai was suspicious of the warm, loud sound/air coming from a vent we passed. We walked past several times, each time marking with my cookie toss marker and tossing the cookie away from the entry once we had passed the vent.

I’m calling this the treat toss/relief game (until I think of a sexier name). It is R- because having moved past the entrance is a relief. Of course I made sure the leash stayed loose the entire time and let Chai decide with how much distance she wanted to move past the vent. Chai’s comfort curves allowed her to have agency and be brave. Every time we passed, her curve was less pronounced and she was able to pass closer to the vent.

She still kept a little distance when we ended that first session, but has since – we’ve gone back to practice a few times – lost all fear of the vent.

In December, Chai encountered a suspicious tree stump on a sidewalk in our neighborhood and we applied the same strategy. After walking past several times and getting treat-toss relief on either side, she bravely walked up to the tree stump and sniffed it!

Here’s an example of what this looks like with a pretend suspicious object – on and off leash:

Puppies/juvenile dogs and fear responses

Young dogs are still learning about the world. Their brains are under construction, and occasionally, they will respond in unexpected ways to things that, to our human eyes/minds, are perfectly normal. Sometimes, they’ll even have a day where they will respond with suspicion to something they have previously been fine with such as your trash can.

If you take your dog out into the world on a regular basis and these incidents are few and far between – no need to worry at all. Chances are you’ve just encountered an object while the part of the brain that considers this object normal is closed for business. (I imagine puppies and juvenile dogs with cartoon brains, and one part of the cartoon brain, for example, says, “Trash cans are okay.” As your dog grows up, there may be days when that part of the brain is taking a vacation and not accessible to the rest of your dog. Don’t panic – just come back another day or use one of the organic strategies to remind your dog of that part of their brain.

Royalty-free Pixabay image by GDJ – thank you!

When to take further measures

If a particular fear persists for more than a week – think about training that may help; organic or structured. Example of a more structured session: Control Unleashed games or Shaping Confidence!

Shaping Confidence

Hadley demoes what Shaping Confidence looks like when encountering a rude penguin in the outskirts of Vienna, where penguins are an invasive species and not supposed to hang around doorways:

The clip above is an older video (ca. 2015; hence the less than great quality). Look at the video description to read my thoughts on this session at the time!

CU games

In the video below, Windsprite Winnie and her wonderful human Chantal play LAT and TAB:

LAT is hands down my favorite CU game for environmentally sensitive dogs! I LOVE working on it because I’ve seen the most amazing results. Winnie is an environmentally sensitive dog, but Chantal has helped her grow her comfort zone and relax in more and more spaces by first playing CU games (like Look At That and Take A Breath) and then shifting to chewing on Toppls while watching the world go by.

If fears gets worse or if your dog responds fearfully to many different stimuli in many different environments all the time, see a veterinary behaviorist (if you live in a country where behavior is a veterinary specialty) or consult with a trainer specializing in behavior who has a basic knowledge of medications and connections to vets (if there are no veterinary behaviorists in your country).

One US-based team of vets and trainers (who also offer virtual services) I recommend is Behavior Vets (New York, Colorado, virtual).

Days 68 & 69 – June 13-14, 2023: just doing life and grabbing opportunities for training when they present themselves!

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June 13, 2023: walks, friends and magic hands

Activity level: average

Both dogs went for a morning walk. Then, Chai and I played tug on the roof with a blanket target to bring the toy back to – our newest experiment!

Of course, we got in a bunch of morning wrestling fun as well:

Around noon, I took both dogs on a walk around the block before leaving them home alone to head over to a friend’s place to co-work.

My friend and I walked back to my place after, rope-and-facade climbing an abandoned building along the way:

Nature taking back the city – the view from the abandoned building we climbed. There’s a colony of cats living there but – strangely – no humans.

Beauty in strange places: the little things you find on a walk if you know how to see! This hidden piece of art is not much bigger than the palm of my hand. It’s close to the ground (where you may not usually look). Finding it made my day. CDMX readers: I’ll hide location clues in my the next posts! Find it and send me a picture and I’ll buy you tacos!

Then Chai got to see my friend who is her friend as well, too. She got snuggles and attention, and then all four of us went on another walk. Chai saw the same Afghan hound she had found a little creepy just the other day but showed no fear this time. Go puppy!

We also came across a large donut-shaped pillow someone had left by the side of the road. Chai thought it was suspicious. I used the Magic Hands trick to show her it wasn’t out to get her.

Magic Hands

Magic Hands is what I (and probably some other trainers; I don’t think it was me who came up with that name) call it when we use our hands to touch an object our dog is scared of. This doesn’t work with all dogs (and all objects), but for the dogs it sometimes works for, it can be an easy solution.

Chai is one of these dogs. I tend to use magic hands in combination with increasing distance (negative reinforcement) for her. I never drag or lure a dog closer to an object – it’s up to them how close they are ready to come.

With the donut-shaped pillow, my Magic Hands alone did the trick: I let her stand back on a looose leash, walked up and touched the donut pillow. Seconds after, Chai walked up to sniff and investigate it herself. Brave puppy!

At night, Chai stayed home alone again for Game’s evening loop. Good, good puppy!

June 14, 2023: toy play, co-working, LLW …

Activity level: average

We started the day with a morning walk together with Game, and then Chai and I headed up to the roof for another tug session with the blanket target.

Zane and I co-worked from my house today, so Chai got an opportunity to stay home with Zane during Game’s noon and evening walks and both dogs hung with him in the afternoon while I went to the bakery.

Loose leash walking

We worked on collar mode up and down our street and made it up to 15 and then 20 steps between treats!1 Go puppy!

Fresa Parque freedom and games and LLW success

Chai got to run around Fresa Parque briefly, and then we played a brief 2-ball fetch game at the calm and hot park.

On the way back home, Chai waited for me in front of a store – and then we went right back to do more LLW practice on her collar! She went from zero to 20 steps between treats right away and did amazing all the way back home – even passing a Shih-Tzu along the way without breaking her 20-step streak!1

Our walk was only interrupted by a scary balloon blowing in the street. I used Magic Hands for it and then picked it up and carried it home to have it blow around the apartment as well for some more balloon demystification.

As on most evenings both Zane and I are home, Chai got some social time and human-friend snuggles at night to round out the day.

(1) For more leash walking context, check out the leash walking lectures from Out and About in your FDSA library or look here for my December class and a micro e-book on LLW.

Chaiary, day 49-50: a calm day and a full day!

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Day 49 – May 25, 2023: not a lot going on!

+ Both Chai and Game got to go to UNAM and run around the campus.

+ We had a single positions-practice session.

+ Husbandry: I clipped Chai’s nails on both front paws and she got brushed, and I cut a little around her front paw fur (another thing I’d like her to get used to in case she turns out to be a furry-paw Border Collie!)

+ Both dogs stayed home alone for a few hours.

Day 501 – May 26, 2023: Huayamilpas, kids, cohetes … a full day!

Today was a BIG day!

Training

We started the morning with some more position work. I pulled out the fold-back down and we did two rounds of down with “good” (room service: stay in position; the treat is coming to you) versus “get it” (chase the treat marker) – one round for breakfast and one for lunch. In the video below, you’ll see me work with a hand signal to get the fold-back down some of the time and with a lure some other times.

The reason I help relatively quickly rather than waiting Chai out is that she would otherwise default to a sit (and then try a down from the sit if the sit didn’t work).

I specifically want a fold-back down rather than a down from a sit, and the way to teach this is from a stand.

The video below is an uninterrupted 10-minute session with a 5-months old puppy. As I said in an earlier post, this is not what I’d recommend most clients do (unless they have really worky puppies). I happen to have a worky puppy who loves training and so do I – so I get to do this on days I need something to obsess over or something that I can focus on without thinking about anything else in the world! Dog training is that thing for me, so here we go – both having fun!

Note that often, I will have heavy-training days followed by little or no other adventures or very low-key days like yesterday. I don’t want Chai to turn into a super-athlete who needs to either train or run nonstop. So heavy training days tend to be low-physical activity days (just not today) and heavy physical activity days tend to be little-to-no-training days.

Husbandry

+ We did some cutting of Chai’s front paw fur and I brushed her.

Indoors spaces

+ We went to ride the elevator.

+ We toured the busy Walmart corridor (people, shopping carts) and a bank with Chai in her backpack. (Thank you so much, Scarlett, for lending me the puppy backpack! It is GREAT!)

Tarps blowing in the wind

It’s a windy day today, and on our adventure loop we saw a tarp blowing in the wind and Chai got a little spooked. After watching it for a while, she was able to cautiously walk past it. This is the second time I have seen this reaction – that’s my cue that tarp feelings aren’t a one-off thing and we need to work on things blowing in the wind! When I got home, I set up the fan and pointed it at the curtains:

It never hurts to learn about the safety of objects and situations in set-ups you can control before encountering them in the real world (again)!

Huayamilpas

In the late afternoon, we spontaneously returned to Parque Ecológico Huayamilpas briefly before 6pm: when we were there a few days ago Chai barked at suddenly appearing strangers (and they all started to appear around 6 after we had had the place to ourselves all afternoon). I wanted to make sure to counter the experience by orchestrating positive interactions with suddenly appearing people at the same spot (I haven’t seen her bark at people before and I would love for it to stay that way).

Unfortunately, things didn’t start out as well as I had hoped they would: soon after we got there, someone elsewhere in the park, but clearly not far, set off a bunch of REALLY loud firecrackers (you can hear them in the video but they are muffled by the microphone – this doesn’t compare to the real-life volume). I don’t think Chai has heard firecrackers before – and definitely not at this volume. She got worried – not panicky, but worried enough to tuck her tail and seek my consolation.

Right after, the first person suddenly appeared. Not the best antecedent arrangement to set her up for success! Luckily, the person had a dog and Chai trusts dogs. After watching the two approach suspiciously, she greeted the dog and a little later, I had the person do a version of our food protocol (they had already reached for her so I just gave them treats to feed). All was well with Chai and she even jumped up on them for more. We hung out for a bit and talked dogs, and Chai and the other dog – Kipper – socialized and she did drive-byes with both of us humans.

We then followed the next pair of passers-by for a little – an adult and a kid. As we turned around to look back, a family with several kids had come to the concrete snake in the center of the park and we turned around to see them up close. Since Chai could see the family from a distance, this wasn’t a sudden environmental change (which I specifically wanted to work on). Still, she had positive interactions with people at the snake!

Because it went so well, I waited longer and Chai got to briefly greet an adult and a kid walking with two dogs. Then, we called it a day and made our way towards the exit.

Sadly, right as we were walking away from the snake, the nearby firecrackers started up again. Chai was – again – concerned. All I had was kibble, but she was able to eat and I fed one after each boom. Still, the insecurity lingered after the firecrackers stopped. Unease is not the emotion I want her to associate with the snake, the park or firecrackers. So I will probably be going back for another round of sudden environmental change – hopefully without the firecrackers.

The saving grace today was a Lab mix we met at the parking lot: Chai and the dog played for a minute or so, and then Chai, tail proud and high, eyes shining and body language loose left the park on a good note.

By the time we got back home, it was dark out. On the walk from the car to the apartment, Chai got spooked by people unloading stuff from a truck. We watched for a bit, curved around and then I encouraged her to watch some more, but she was ready to leave. Note to self: take more night walks around weird stuff and people carrying strange objects!

Growing up and changing

Today was quite the day! Our outings were not very long, but jam-packed with things going on. Puppies and adolescents change every day – and these days, Chai is highly sensitive in all directions: picking up behaviors from older dogs and having an easier startle response than she usually does. However, the good news is that her recovery is still amazing (playing with that Lab mix a minute after hearing firecrackers? Go Chai!) and that even in a state of firecracker insecurity, she was able to eat kibble.

It is also interesting to see a dog who learns really fast overall have sensitive days: they are impactful in a different way than in the last two puppies I raised (Puzzle and Game). It is like watching Chai have an experience and then assimilate it into this 10 000-piece puzzle that is the map of the world in her head. Nothing exists in isolation. Every experience Chai has gives her a puzzle piece, and she is quick to find the exact spot it belongs in the map of the world she is creating for herself. If we think back to the elevator experience: her baseline assumption about the world is an optimistic one, but she is fast to learn what to exempt from optimism (such as this particular elevator – I don’t know about others because this is the only one I have currently access to and the first one she’s ever been on).2

A slice of Mexico City’s subway web. Maps are necessarily an imperfect representation of the world. Subway stops are one of my favorite way to conceptualize big cities. Once I have a subway map in my head, I’ll generally find my way around. Subway stops are my favorite landmark.

As far as I can tell, Chai’s initial hesitancy around people was based on a lack of exposure and my two protocols (the one for strangers and the one for expanding her circle of friends) have helped her become a socially optimistic dog. She’s a Border Collie, not a Lab, so she is never going to have problems with hyper-sociability towards strangers. But she is now significantly more confident around them and open to making new friends.

In everybody poops news …

(Feel free to skip this paragraph if you’d rather not read about my puppy’s bowel movements!)

Chai peed AND pooped at the park without another dog to imitate! Our house training project is coming along! In fact, she has only had a single accident inside what I define as the living space of our Coyoacán apartment in the last month, since we’ve been here! (She will go to pee/poop on the outdoors patio. If I leave her by herself, I do so in the bathroom, and she will pee/poop in the shower when she has to go rather than waiting – as far away from where my bed as is possible to set up in this small space. All of this is great news for a dog who had no idea about defined toilet spaces when I got her. If I had a yard, she might be doing all her business there already (apart from the occasional accident even adolescents still have).

Sidenote: fear periods

People like talking about the elusive “puppy fear period” or “adolescent fear period.” Some trainers even define at what age exactly fear periods (sometimes called sensitive periods) are supposed to happen and how many of them there are.

To my knowledge (readers: please correct me and send me peer-reviewed sources if I’m wrong!), there is no scientific evidence that fear periods exist or that every dog has them. (Most of the puppies I have raised have not had anything I would label “a fear period.”) In the absence of scientific evidence for “fear periods,” I don’t generally use the term.

Instead, I just think of any young developing brain: there are changes and shifts in hormone levels and neurotransmitters and neural connections and all kinds of other things I do not know about because I have no medical degree. Young brains are brains under construction. When constructing, say, a house, there will be days electrical wires are exposed (and you hope it won’t rain). Similarly, there will be days that a growing brain (the wires) is more sensitive to external stimuli (the rain) than others. Other than with the wiring of your house, you don’t know when this will be because you are probably not cutting open your puppy’s brain. So you just hope that if and when your puppy is having a sensitive day, they happen to not encounter the kind of stuff that would trigger an electrical fire. But if it happens? Well, it happens. Nothing you can do about it. No one’s fault – sometimes life is a shitshow.

Observe your puppy and if you see the experience have a permanent impact (it won’t necessarily have a permanent impact at all, no worries!) or you just want to be on the safe side, give it a few days (to be sure the exposed wiring of your house has been covered) and then repeat the situation under different conditions, setting your puppy up for success. This is what would have happened today with the snake head had there not been firecrackers.

Apart from the fact that young brains are under construction, dogs of all ages – just like other animals of all ages – sometimes have a less-than-ideal day. Sometimes, you wake up with a headache and it just shaves a little bit off of your patience with your coworkers or your friend or your partner. Sometimes, your dog is in pain – it may be invisible pain – and this too can cause a slight shift in their response to otherwise uninteresting stimuli.

How sensitive a dog’s behavior is to pain differs greatly from one individual to the next, just like it does in people. Personally, I’ve observed myself having a shorter fuse under (very specific) pain conditions.

On the other hand, my grandfather has been livingwith a crumbling hip bone for a decade, refuses to take pain killers or go in for surgery and is still the kindest and most patient person you can imagine, just like he has always been. People are different. Dogs are different. And your puppy is a different person every day because they are still in the process of becoming themselves! (We could argue that we all are always either in the process of becoming ourselves or we are dead – but that’s a blog post for another day.)

(1) Day 50 (the 50th day Chai has been with me) – half way to 100! – is a good day to change my diary approach. Going forwards, I will mostly share general Chaiary videos and videos that don’t fit into one of my categories (play, foundations, obedience, socializing, the art of doing nothing, recalls, leash walking, tricks, being brave) in my daily reports. The categories themselves will each get their own posts that specifically talk about THAT category and feature our progress from start to finish (if/when there is such a thing as “finish”). I will link to these more specific posts in future Chaiaries instead of directly inserting the videos every day. You’ll re-encounter some sessions you have already seen under these specific headings.

(2)Update from the future: Chai did not generalize her elevator fears to other elevators! It was just the one. Fundamental optimism for the win!

Chaiary, day 5: market day!

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Tuesdays are market days at Diagonal San Antonio! We used this opportunity to walk through as the vendors were just setting up shop in the morning.

A week later, the Tuesday after, we went back to this same market. You’ll see the remarkable difference in Chai’s confidence!

We also did – as we do most days – a little (or a lot of) shaping, drove a slightly longer (about 2 minutes while yesterday was about 1 minute) loop on an empty stomach (success! No throwing up or pooping!), spent some time in the car crate, and hung out at home with Game.

Crated and relaxed car puppy

Left: hard at work. Right: tongue-out Tuesday!

Chai day 4: MORE puppy socialization adventures!

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Today Chai went to Parque las Américas and saw lots of people and dogs, heard new sounds, walked on different park surfaces and smelled new smells. Before we got there, we had this little encounter:

We then walked all the way to the park on our own four paws and saw and met, among others:

A person who followed my instructions about how to invite Chai to approach: not from above, but from below, being still and letting the dog take the first steps. I decided, after seeing Chai shy away from hands reaching for her a little more than I’d like to in the last two days, that I will make a point of having her meet people “the right way” every day. There is, of course, no one right way – you’ll have to look at the dog in front of you to find out what works for them. In Chai’s case, I opted for asking people to stand still and hold out their flat hand, palm facing up. If and only if Chai approaches, sniffs the hand and looks comfortable, I will then give the person a few pieces of kibble to hold in their other hand and feed them, one after the other, from their flat hand without touching Chai and holding the hand low enough so all four paws stay on the floor.

I would NOT start with food without having Chai opt in and approach voluntarily first, and if she was shyer than she is, I would not use food here at all. Food can backfire extremely easily if used as a lure to get an uncomfortable dog closer to a stimulus they are unsure about: they’ll take the treat and then realize they are WAY TOO CLOSE! With Chai’s level of people curiosity, it is really just the head reaching she has feelings about. And because she is cute, people will reach for her head. I am countering these experiences by means of providing positive ones in the way I described above. My instructions are simple and easy to follow, and they work well for Chai. In the case of my very first helper (random stranger from Costa Rica I met in the street), we chatted long enough that they actually ended up making friends with Chai and being able to scratch her chin:

We also saw a bakery bike!

… and several dogs …

We met another person who also ended up touching Chai on the side of her head – not something I encouraged, but she was okay.

We walked past an outdoors assembly of some kind and saw a person on a skateboard with a dog, a kid in a stroller and more dogs:

And the Chai and I rested in a (comparatively) quiet corner of the park and she posed serenely for a bit before we made our way back home.

How much is too much?

… you may be wondering. Didn’t Chrissi just get this puppy, who had been confined to her house and yard and a crate from 8 weeks to 3.5 months of age, literally three days ago?

Indeed, I did. And indeed, this would be too much for MANY Border Collie puppies with this (lack of) experience. It would have been too much for Hadley right after T got him and it would have been too much for Mick (and would still be too much for Mick today. Mick is a farm dog who wants exactly three things in life: sheep, a person to work sheep with, and zero other people). Hadley today, as an adult, would likely be okay in this environment – he’d just pull all over the place trying to sniff things, I suspect.

Is it too much for Chai? Am I flooding the poor puppy? No – at least I wouldn’t say that I am. But in order for this term to have any meaning at all, I need to first define it. “Flooding” is one of these buzzwords everyone uses slightly differently.

I just looked at the glossary of my 4 go-to behavior books, and it isn’t in any of them. That surprises me – but maybe it shouldn’t. Maybe flooding is a term trainers borrowed from human psychology, or maybe it is simply a layperson’s word. Next stop: Google.

Bingo! I got lucky at the APA Dictionary of Psychology, which sounds like a decent source. Plus it matches my own definition of the term and the way I’ve been using it, which is reinforcing.

So – no, I have in fact not flooded Chai. She is not an anxious dog – just a curious one who lacks experience. I have not exposed her to a maximum-anxiety-producing situation or stimulus. (I would have on day 2 when I was just trying to get a feel for where we were in terms of exploratory behavior, fearfulness and resilience. Based on what I saw on day 2, I made choices for day 3, and based on what I saw on days 2 and 3, I made choices for day 4.

Because Chai is not an anxious puppy and her sensitive socialization window is rapidly closing, I want a lot of exposure to what is going to be normal in her world if she becomes a Mexico City dog. If she doesn’t become a Mexico City dog but finds a home somewhere else, all the experiences she is currently having won’t hurt either. For example if she goes on to be a sports dog, these experiences might help her learn how to focus on what matters (“gate”) in busy trial environments.

The Puzzle Week – Part 15: Superbowls Wrap-Up

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In part 14 of Puzzle’s Superbowls series, we reached our goal: Puzzle is now fluently taking me to bowl #5 and back, and doesn’t worry about the vacuum we’ve plugged into the pattern. This video is a 6-minute review of the training process (explaining the pattern to Puzzle) to the first scary stimulus she conquered with its help (the vacuum).

If you are familiar with CU, but new to the Superbowls game, this video should give you a pretty good idea of how it works:

Will it always take 25 sessions to reach the goal?

We worked on the Superbowls game for 25 sessions. Will it always take this long?

Not necessarily. Remember that the first few sessions were an explanation of the pattern itself – they were not about the vacuum, but about teaching Puzzle how she could make the next treat appear (eye contact), and where that treat would show up (in the next bowl of the line). The first nine sessions were all about the pattern rather than about a specific trigger.

Now that Puzzle knows the Superbowls pattern, we can plug different triggers into it. Say, for example, Puzzle was scared of the coffee maker. I could start my work with the coffee maker right away, and plug the coffee maker in the same spot where the vacuum sits in the video above. Or if Puzzle was scared of grandma, I could ask grandma to calmly sit in a chair in the spot where the vacuum was in this session. I won’t have to start over with a trigger-free line up.

Unless I plug something excessively scary into the pattern, it is also likely that Puzzle will reach the goal faster with each new trigger: in the vacuum series, she wasn’t just learning about the vacuum – she was also learning about the fact that within the structure of the Superbowls game, she will never, ever directly have to interact with the trigger. Every approach will be followed by a retreat, and there will be no touching of or being touche by triggers. This is HUGE. With every new trigger we work with, Puzzle’s trust in the pattern itself will grow, empowering her be braver faster.

Want to learn more?

To learn more about the Superbowls game and other pattern games, make sure to get Leslie McDevitt’s book Control Unleashed: Reactive to Relaxed. You may also want to follow the Friends of Control Unleashed group on Facebook to kearn about upcoming CU-related events. And make sure to keep an eye out for Julie Daniels’ CU classes over at FDSA!

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For more dog training tips and videos, join Chrissi’s February class at FDSA: Calling All Dogs!

The Puzzle Week – Part 14: Reaching Our Superbowls Goal!

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Puzzle makes it all the way to bowl #5/5! I release her when she doesn’t offer eye contact quickly after the fifth bowl. The amount of time I waited her is out right for this puppy – this is what we’re aiming for.

I’m curious whether she can approach again, and give it another go after the treat toss release. She doesn’t make it back to the last bowl. This is good information: my gut feeling was right. With Puzzle, I should end sessions after a treat toss release, and try again after a break. (This may differ depending on the dog you are working with! Some will do better in later approaches within the same session. Others struggle more and more as the sessipn continues. Always train the dog in front of you (as Denise Fenzi would say)!

Puzzle goes all the way to bowl #5 in the first round of the session. We approach again after the release, and only make it to bowl #4. I don’t want to push too hard – at this point, Puzzle is a one-approach-at-a-time kind of puppy. However, eventually, I want to get to a point where we can cheerfully approach and retreat several times in a row. That’s when I’ll know that Puzzle truly understands that she will never have to directly interact with a trigger in the context of the Superbowls game!

Puzzle makes it all the way to bowl #5/5 AND BACK! YES! You go, puppy!

Puzzle leads me all the way to bowl #5! She hesitates at the fifth bowl, and I opt for a treat toss release rather than waiting for her to give me eye contact. Since she was so brave, we do another approach. At 00:36, right after eating her release treat, she offers eye contact again: “Let’s keep playing!” So we start over with the first bowl. She’s being a superstar, and makes it all the way to bowl #5, and then back to bowl #4. On her way back, she starts feeling uneasy about the vacuum. That’s okay – treat toss release, and end the session! A well-deserved break!

The most amazing puppy makes it all the way to the vacuum – not just once, but twice, and if I didn’t run out of treats, she’d have kept going! You go, Puzzle!

This ends our Superbowls adventures with the vacuum! Tomorrow, I will show you the Leslie-approved video I submitted for my CU instructor certification, and share some wrap-up thoughts. No worries though: the fact that we’re almost through the Superbowls videos doesn’t mean there will be no more Puzzle posts. Stay tuned!


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For more dog training tips and videos, join Chrissi’s February class at FDSA: Calling All Dogs!

The Puzzle Week – Part 12: Braving the Live Vacuum

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We stay at the very first bowl, and then end the session. Puzzle lets me know she wasn’t ready to approach the live vacuum any further, and I listen. CU is all about communication!

In her second session with the live vacuum, Puzzle is being very brave, and takes me all the way to bowl #4. At that point, she does not make eye contact again. I listen to her, increase the distance, and end the session.

Followed by another short session:

We make it up to bowl #4/5 again:

… and again:

In the next session, you’ll see Puzzle reach the fifth and last bowl for the first time! Stay tuned!

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For more dog training tips and videos, join Chrissi’s February class at FDSA: Calling All Dogs!

The Puzzle Week – Part 11: Plugging the Dead (i.e. Silent) Vacuum into the Superbowls Pattern

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Now that Puzzle has shown me that she can predict where the next treat will show up in the Superbowls game, it’s time to add the trigger into the pattern. In Puzzle’s case, that trigger is the vacuum. She thinks it’s quite creepy!

When working with fear or anxiety, raising criteria slowly (rather than starting with the trigger at full intensity) is always a good idea. In the case of the vacuum, I’ll start with a dead – i.e. silent – one before asking Puzzle if she wants to approach a roaring, growling live vacuum.

Doing SO well! Puzzle is ready to face the live vacuum in her next session! (And if she isn’t, that’s okay, too: she’ll be able to ask me to stop approaching at any time.)

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For more dog training tips and videos, join Chrissi’s February class at FDSA: Calling All Dogs!

The Puzzle Week – Part 10: Adding Movement to the Superbowls Game

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We’re starting to move between bowls! My first click in this video is late.

Puzzle still has to figure out where the respective next treat is going to show up! The wheels are turning …!

An excerpt from Puzzle’s second session involving movement between the bowls:

The subsequent session resulted in a blurry video – that’s what you get for not cleaning the lens of your phone before hitting record! I’ll spare you that video. Below is the session after that one:

Now things are starting to get interesting! You can see Puzzle look ahead to the respective next bowl in some of the reps below: she is starting to predict the location of the next treat! Smart puppy!

Towards the end of the session below, we are getting some lovely looking ahead/prediction. That’s it, Puzzle! You’re a superstar!

In our next session, we’ll be plugging the silent vacuum into the Superbowls pattern! Stay tuned …!

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For more dog training tips and videos, join Chrissi’s February class at FDSA: Calling All Dogs!