Dealing with stress

I noticed Phoenix doing some things at the state fair dog show last weekend that made me realize I need to work on his “stress-proofing” more. The mistakes he was making were due, in part, to distraction but there was an element of stress there as well.

What’s the difference? A distracted dog is one who works happily, then a shiny object catches his eye and he forgets what he’s doing. A stressed dog is one who may be working adequately but his performance is littered with stress yawns, sniffing, slow responses, etc., or possibly stressing “up” with behaviors that are nearly out of control.

As trainers we may try to avoid deliberately causing stress during training because we don’t want our dogs “to hate obedience.” I’ve learned that exposing your dog to stress in the course of training BEFORE you go in the ring and learning how to work through it positively will pay off big time. Of course I learned this the hard way. That seems to be how I usually do things.

Deliberately adding stress is different from proofing the exercises. Instead, you're proofing the dog's attitude, his ability to focus and be a bright, happy worker under conditions that he may find less than ideal.

Instead of always going to train in a "comfortable" place, occasionally make it a point to take your dog to a slightly stressful environment, ask for some basic behaviors and see how he reacts. You, as the brains of the team, need to address this before you get into the ring and your dog has a meltdown.

When stress-proofing, forget about making corrections and don’t expect a perfect performance. That's not the point of the exercise. If your dog is truly coming unglued about something (a new smell, a real or imagined threat, etc.), corrections are only going to make things worse. Move a distance away from the stressor, find a marginally stressful zone and build from there, even if you end up just standing still and feeding your dog for giving you eye contact or performing something basic like a sit.

When your dog shows signs of relaxing and working comfortably, you can end the session or move closer and start again. Rome wasn’t built in a day and you won’t overcome environmental stress in one or two training sessions. This needs to be a regular part of training, as much as teaching any specific skill.

For Phoenix, training around our farm buildings is incredibly stressful. I can tell because his ears go flat, his tail goes down and he gets a frantic look in his eyes. Sure, we’re still training at home but the problem is cats. There are cats around the buildings. (For Phoenix, cats are Evil Incarnate.) He doesn’t know when a cat might appear. Maybe a cat is looking at him. Maybe two cats are looking at him. Being asked to focus on me and work heeling around invisible cats creates a great deal of stress in his mind. For him, I think cat stress might trump the noisiest, most congested show site we’ve ever been in.

I’ve been lax in working this "stress-proofing" and it showed at the state fair. Granted, the show pavilion wasn’t awash in cats but the mental muscles that allow him to shrug off stressors were out of shape and his performances did not sparkle like I want them to.

So last night we went out for a brief training session around the farm buildings. After a bit of gentle insistence, he would fetch a toy, tug, touch, bounce and give me short heeling sequences with happy attitude, even though I frequently had to call him back from attempted cat pursuit (of invisible cats, nonetheless, I swear this dog is going to make me insane). His body language gradually relaxed and I could see him start to mentally shift from obsessing about cats to thinking about how to get more steak. (Yep, last week’s leftovers were last night’s treats.)

My long-term goal is to eventually be able to take Phoenix into ground zero of the “cat zone” and have him work through several exercises with joy and focus without food or toys. He gets a little better each time we train around the farm buildings. My short-term goal is to show him he can overcome mental stress and be rewarded for behaviors I want (versus getting nothing for attempted pursuit of cats that might or might not even be there.) I am hoping this “cat therapy” will transfer to obedience trials where I am asking for higher levels of performance in more demanding classes.

Happy training!