27d • Predation Tidbits
Appropriate Outlets For Predatory Energy: Satiation vs Practice
Probably one my favorite things about dog training is that dogs will always show you that you are never done learning about how to train dogs. It could be a new dog, a dog you see on the internet or even your own dog but they can humble you pretty quick. A dog will also tell you, and those around you, when you have trained them “wrong”. I say this because sometimes we have good intentions and we think we have a good plan on what we would like for our dog to learn and then…that is not what happens in practice.
An example that comes to mind is something that I was curious about with one of my own dogs, Csili (Chili) my 4 year old Hungarian Vizsla, who currently has a thing for birds (as she so instinctually is expected to).
Currently I am working on her not chasing birds so part of my plan is to make the ground productive. At first I would toss out her toy for your basic hunt drills where I would hold her and toss the toy. This was fine at first since she needed to learn to hunt on the ground with her nose and not her eyes. Quickly after she started I would toss the toy out to where she didn’t see and most of the time it went according to plan. When it didn’t go according to plan is when I saw a connection between her spotting the toy flying through the air, she immediately darts to it, retrieves toy and self-rewards for the chain of: see something fly and run and grab it.
I knew I had to be quick and get the toy first whenever I messed up. If I failed to retrieve the toy in time I would grab the toy, have it immediately “go dead” and wait for her to release it. I wanted to make it as boring and lame as possible NOT NEGATIVE! I did not fight her for it nor did I jerk it out of her mouth. I essentially made it lame so she wouldn’t have that continuous of dopamine after practicing, what is for me, an undesirable chain of behavior.
Now this is also a behavior I could use to my advantage as a reward. Clearly this is something she enjoys but I don’t want her going off and doing it on her own. She is very much the dog that will go find her own fun if left to it which can be a good and bad thing. So how could I use this undesirable behavior to my advantage? Context and timing.
The context in which I could use this as a satiating reward versus her practicing an unwanted behavior is timing of when I toss the toy for her to get out of the air/that she sees go in the air. A great time for this is when counter conditioning against the stimulus if your dog has the toy drive like she does. If your dog’s toy drive isn’t high enough in these stimulating moments, like my other vizsla Káosz (Chaos) who is 2 years old, you can start by doing this with basic/emergency recalls.
This approach has worked well with her that I can trust her a little bit more off leash when a bird might appear. I have also successfully called her off of some birds a few times now and either rewarded her with her toy or had her continue searching in the woods (her hunt is also very high).
This is only a piece to the puzzle of thousand puzzle pieces that is dog training but was something that I have really been thinking about. I am grateful to have been able to flush out my thoughts with today.
What is something that you have noticed with your dog that might be in a similar camp? Or does this make you think of a behavior your dog has been displaying that this approach might help you with?
**Yes those are photos of my vizslas this time and those are the Tractive trackers** :)
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Appropriate Outlets For Predatory Energy: Satiation vs Practice
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