A big part of predation substitution is counter conditioning. In order to understand what it is we are looking for it is important to be on the same page of what counter conditioning means. AlleyDog.com describes it as “…a type of therapy based on the principles of classical conditioning that attempts to replace bad or unpleasant emotional responses to a stimulus with more pleasant, adaptive responses.” As a refresher lets also define classical conditioning. As found on SimplyPsychology.org “classical conditioning is a fundamental form of associative learning in which an organism learns to connect or associate two stimuli that repeatedly occur together.” With the groundwork now laid let’s talk about how to approach this with our dogs. Many dogs, even nontraditional working breeds, can have strong reactions to certain animals or objects in the environment such as bicycles and skateboards. These reactions can be anywhere from overarousal to fear. How we, the human, respond with our dog is also important. In short we must also remain calm for the majority of encounters (exceptions are those of self-defense if something were to happen. You and your dog’s safety are #1) and how you respond to those encounters (even the ones of self-defense) do impact your dog. If your dog sees his trigger, starts to become emotional and your reaction is that of frustration and punishment then your dog may decrease his behavior, but no learning will have occurred for what to do instead. All the dog will learn is that his human will be upset with him and it will have a damper your relationship with your dog. Overtime this could lead to either your dog not enjoying going on walks (and you won’t either) and/or your dog taking out his frustration on something else such as your fence, yard, pillows, housemates, etc. This cycle is something that will have a handful of outcomes: a dog that is locked away most of the time, a dog that is “forgotten” about in the backyard, a dog that is surrendered to a shelter or a dog that is abandoned just to name a few. This is obviously very sad and for those of us that understand and enjoy dogs with more energy and drive is especially heartbreaking because more often than not it isn’t the dog’s fault.

In order to understand and identify your dog’s predatory trigger it is highly beneficial to know what breed(s) of dog you have and to know what that breed was bred to do. For example, my Vizslas were bred to locate birds and other small game. Most dogs are not born with impulse control and so it must be taught otherwise they will see a trigger (or what I also call a stimulus) and want to chase after it. The chase part of the predatory motor sequence is only the beginning of the upswing for the undesired portion of the PMS on dopamine, and other feel good hormones. The peak is if they are successful in grab biting. That is when the dopamine and other hormones will start to come down and the dog will start to relax in satisfaction. Depending on what your dog is bred for, prefers on an individual level and personal experience the types of triggers will vary. Some dogs learn to use their eyes heavily to look for that exciting trigger. Some dogs will use their nose to sniff out a critter trail and some will use their ears to listen for a disturbance to bolt after. Many dogs will use all 3 of these approaches but not all at equal levels all of the time. Paying attention to your dog while out on walks (even while on leash) is very important. This is the best and safest way to teach your dog how to be safe and have impulse control around wildlife. So be sure to not be on your phone and if you have to take an important phone call do your best to be in as little of a distracting area as possible while that call takes place (even if you are using Bluetooth or otherwise hands free). So now let’s talk about threshold levels. There are three different thresholds that we should be aware of: under threshold, at threshold and over threshold. You can think of them this way: - Under threshold = green light - At threshold = yellow light - Over threshold = red light Green light threshold, a dog is able to think, be engaged with you enthusiastically and listen to you when you give a command.

Marker training is such a valuable communication tool that we as humans can have with our dogs and it is so easy to train (for most dogs). If you would like a detailed explanation on how to marker train your dog you may look at @Paul Bunker ’s first book. Most dogs will accept treats and this is the easiest way to get repetitions of what you are trying to teach. If your dog is not very treat motivated do not worry most, if not all, of this can also be accomplished with toys just remember you will get less repetitions per session. Once you have a marker trained dog this will make telling your dog that they have done the correct behavior much easier. It is important that your dog clearly understands his marker and that you mark the correct behavior at the right time. If your timing is off once or twice it is fine just make sure that mistakes are kept to a minimum. So how can this skill be used in predation substitution training? If you have watched my classroom videos then you may have seen me use a marker in a couple of the games when my dog performed a certain behavior. This is great practice in a setting that has no distractions that way my dog can understand what I am marking and rewarding and it ensures to me that my dog understands his marker is various context. So, let’s say you are out at a local park or trail and a stimulus catches your dog’s attention. You’ve been playing some counter conditioning games and so you are ready for this moment! Your dog is staring at the stimulus, you are ready with your dog’s treats (and/or toy), your dog does the correct behavior (turns back and looks at you), you mark and…your dog turns back and continues to stare. This is where having an understanding and a plan comes in VERY handy and sometimes that plan has to change on the fly. This may not or may not mean adjusting your current plan or completely having to come up with a new one. In either case I would suggest having 1 goal in mind that you would like to accomplish with your dog.

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.

I want to start out by saying that setbacks or regression are not the end of the world. In fact, I choose to look at them as learning opportunities: - Where did I go wrong? - How can I better communicate my goal with my dog? - Did I move us on/progress too fast? - Have I been consistent? Did you notice a theme with those questions? They all had “I” in them. This is because we, the trainer, the handler/guardian, are responsible for setting our dogs up for success. If something needs addressed 9 times out of 10 if not 9.9 times out 10 it is a failure in communication of some kind with our dogs. Our dogs are very good at telling us and those around us what they have and have not been taught (except for that one thing that one time that they had never done before…). We should listen to our dogs when they tell us there is a gap in their understanding and if we are not sure how to address that please seek out help from a professional. Something else to remember is that each dog is an individual. How each dog learns and what motivates them is just as unique as they are. Some dogs prefer treats only, some prefer toys only, some like both, some like both but are quite particular. Another thing to remember is that some dogs require the steps to be broken down into even smaller steps. It is important to have patience and understand that training is not linear. Training will have ebbs and flows of good days and bad days. If your dog seems to be having an off day in training (or in general) it is important to rule out anything veterinary first. - Did your dog eat like normal? Was their energy the same about eating? Are they drinking more, less or the same amount of water? - What do their gums look like? Are they pink, moist with a capillary refill time (CRT) of less than 2 seconds? - Did your dog have normal bowel movements? - Are they limping or licking an area excessively? - Is there head hanging low? Is their back arched? - Do they seem hesitant to be in a certain position?