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 Personalized Training Program: Lucy

11/11: Mid-Session Coaching Notes

It’s been such a pleasure having Lucy here, and I can’t wait to have her again in a few weeks! Hopefully your reunion reassured her that she has absolutely not forgotten who her mom is! I’m so happy that you had the chance to watch through the entirety of the online Drama Class and found it helpful - hopefully you’re not too sick of my voice yet!

As we discussed, the behaviors that Lucy really utilized during our time together were:

• Food Scatters

• Ready - Get It

• Look at That (“What’s That?”)

• 1-2-3

• Super Bowls

As well as regularly doing some muzzle introduction and Nosework introduction, and the Karen Overall Relaxation Protocol with increasing distractions. I absolutely agree that the reactions are primarily prey-driven, but I do think there’s some vigilance/anxiety about novel experiences overall that manifests in increased baseline arousal. That came into play with her mentioned sensitivity to toys, her visits to the Long Reach village center, and her overall responsiveness when coming into a new environment. I don’t see it as something that necessarily needs to be addressed separately or even intense enough to require a lot of training focus independently, but it is something to be aware of when working with her in new environments that she is dealing both with needing a more gradual acclimation to the environment and with the appearance of her triggers, which could result in escalation more quickly.

It’s also worth keeping in mind what we saw demonstrated today - that all arousal regulation challenges result in more difficulty coping with her triggers. While she’s done incredibly well over the course of the last two weeks with squirrels and other wildlife (I forgot to tell you a deer popped out of the woods maybe 15 feet away from us at the school one evening - she got stock still but no reaction!!!) but with the added excitement of Mom and Aunt coming for her, the work was a lot harder.

Over the next week, emphasize decompression, mental exercise in the house, trying out different treats to see what gets the most enthusiastic responses, and slowly building up to a few exercises and working through the online Drama Class together. Send me Marco Polos, email or text questions, and keep me posted on her progress - I’m looking forward to seeing you both after Thanksgiving!

12/05: Virtual Handoff Notes

I’m so glad to hear you’re seeing some offered behaviors with Lucy in response to potential triggers nearby! I wanted to give a quick recap for some of the questions we talked over today and about our next steps.

Wait it Out or Look At That

I think that for the time being, I would keep intentional behavioral work with Lucy, at least through the holidays and your move, geared towards working off of “benign distractions” - things that get her attention but don’t typically provoke a reaction. This will allow her to continue to develop muscle memory for these skills without putting her over threshold or causing either of you to be too tense when there’s already so much else going on.

Since she’s not likely to react, you have more options in these situations. I would vary the work you do on letting her observe (and counter condition if you like, as below) her surroundings and then offer connection when she’s ready and playing Look At That (what’s that) or doing food scatters or utilizing more of the proactive tools for reactivity management. When deciding what you want to do, I would consider some of the following:

• How predictable is the appearance of the “non-trigger” - if you’re working off people,are they generally in one spot or could they come from any direction?

• Is it possible/likely a “real” trigger could emerge?

• How far away is “safety” - are you working by your car or the house where you could easily decompress or somewhere removed?

• How much has she already dealt with today? Is she coming to this session “fresh”?

The more unpredictable a situation, the more likely I would be to be practicing active management. The only exception I might give is the “safety” question - as long as predictability is strong and she’s feeling fresh, I would actually lean towards limited management if we’re not near the car or the house; specifically so I could bring out the “big guns” of delicious treats if I needed to really get her attention.

Counter Conditioning or Look At That

In class, it sounds like there’s a lot of focus on straight counter conditioning - feeding while she’s looking at a trigger. While this isn’t a bad tool in your back pocket, I do prefer Look at That and food scatters in most situations. Both Look at That and scatters give the dog more “breaks” while also teaching them that being aware of or even looking at their trigger isn’t a bad thing. It also gives them a clear alternate behavior they can do. The only exception I might make to that is in a class environment where you have full control over the appearance and distance of the trigger.

You can also use Look at That as an offered behavior as well as a cued one. If she’s looking at a trigger already, mark “yes” and reward her back towards you. Once she’s done so, you can smoothly move into a cued “What’s That?” or go into a food scatter, or make an exit depending on what she seems to need next.

Anxiety at Night

To build up her comfort level of going out at night, start pairing checking out her environment with a food scatter. At first, I would still be letting her observe the yard for 15-30 seconds (or longer if she needs) before telling her to search for a really good scatter. It doesn’t have to be big, but I do want it to be fairly high value. Once shes enthusiastically searching for that, I would start reducing the time you wait for her to look around, maybe by 3-5 seconds an outing until you are opening the door and sending her to search for a treat rather than having her tense up at the outdoors.

The other thing that I hadn’t thought of during our call is Super Bowls - you can work on playing super bowls in and out of your door (I use this for engagement on walks a lot but it would work here!) so she is accustomed to looking to you right after you walk out the door rather than looking around. I would play this in the day and have her really practiced at it before transitioning its use to night.

Other Dogs

On working with Lucy, I do think I’d recommend keeping social interaction to a minimum - I don’t think she’s missing out on anything by not interacting directly with other dogs, and I don’t think it is something she is necessarily comfortable with. I want to stress that I didn’t allow her much direct interaction when I did attempt it, but based on that initial short introduction, she was very stiff and tense. I would approach any social engagements in the future following similar steps to how I integrated Mouse and Fig in Drama Class online.

I should have added that she did do incredibly well with Fig when working on relaxation in the presence of another dog. This does suggest to me that she can likely be conditioned to co-exist well with a familiar dog, so while I would still advise caution and deliberation making her friends, I think it’s very likely she could have a hiking/patio buddy fairly easily.

Cooperative Care

I added cooperative care resources at the top of your page, but just to reiterate my favorite recommendations:

Cooperative Care Resources:

• Deb Jones: Online Courses at Fenzi Dog Sports Academy and her book, Seven Steps to Stress-Free Husbandry.

• Alyse Mineroff, my amazing friend and former business partner, and her online course Hands Off! - she also has a great community page on Facebook and runs zoom live sessions for practice and Q&A. She’s also local - and possibly close to you - in Germantown and is absolutely my go-to for cooperative care solutions.

Next Steps

Keep me posted on how work is going off of those benign distractions and focusing on those through the holiday, as well as finishing up her reactivity class. Once she’s got a lot of practice under her belt, if she’s doing incredibly well, the next step I would advise is working off of dogs in controlled environments - parking lots where dogs are likely to be going in and out in one direction can be nice for this. You can keep distance and be relatively sure no one is going to get too close for Lucy to handle.

Let’s connect after her boarding stay to plan her coaching session once you’re all settled in the new place!

10/02: Pet Store Follow Up