Environmental Training for Your Dog Done Right!
Read Petli's dog trainer Sandra Tellström's best advice on environmental training. This enlightening article equips you with an effective strategy for environmental training so that you can enjoy a harmonious dog that can be easily taken along anywhere. You don't want to leave your dog behind, especially if they get stressed in environments other than your home. It's disappointing to rule out visits to the dog cafe, picking up kids from school, or visiting friends. You're missing out on good times that you hoped to share with your furry friend.
Common mistakes despite good intentions
If you choose to bring your dog anyway, what was thought to be a relaxing moment turns into a headache. You may have practiced being in new environments, sitting on park benches, and throwing treats to your dog, patiently waiting for hyper behavior to settle down, seemingly calm (or rather exhausted). Despite your efforts, your dog's behavior hasn’t changed the next time you head out together. The dog is as wound up in new or stimuli-rich environments as before. You may have spent hours walking around town, holding onto the leash and your heart, listening to all the well-meant advice about how important it is for a dog to be environmentally trained. For more on teaching your dog to handle different environments, see How to get a calm dog in public places. But as your dog's behavior intensifies, instead of calming down, hopelessness sets in. Why won’t your dog progress from environmental training?
The goal of environmental training: Relaxation
Environmental training aims to help dogs relax in numerous environments so that you can easily bring them along everywhere. Furthermore, many dogs live in environments where this training is key to being able to handle everyday outside the home without being stressed.Environmental training is a form of learning called habituation. Habituation is a reduction of a response, in other words, a reduction of various reactions and behaviors. You can say that a dog gets used to things through habituation and stops reacting to them. Habituation takes place when stimuli in the environment end up meaning nothing, and when they no longer matter, the dog ignores them.
How dogs get used to new experiences
You can compare it to moving into a new apartment. You hear every single sound because they are unique to you. But over time, you don't listen to them anymore, such as the radiators ticking, the traffic outside, because you've learned they don't mean anything. They are not worth reacting to. This is how good environmental training should work. You want to teach your dog that places, smells, objects, and sounds don't mean anything.
The importance of avoiding rewards in environmental training
If you reward your dog for being "good" in an environment, you are practicing the opposite. The dog learns that the environment, the place, the smells, the objects, and the sounds mean something. They mean treats, toys, and attention. The environment takes on the opposite meaning of what you want.Instead, create good circumstances for habituation. Let your dog explore the environment and experience that absolutely nothing happens. That is environmental training done right!
Environmental training requires patience and time
To get there, your dog must first take in the stimuli of the environment, process them, and release the feelings that arose. As with the ticking radiators, you need to notice them first and realize they have no essential value before you stop reacting to them. Your dog needs to sniff, observe, and study everything in peace, take the time needed to relax, and reduce its interest in the surroundings. This is an essential aspect of habituation and environmental training. Therefore, environmental training should never occur in the form of "obedience-training," where the dog is told to sit still or lie down.
Example of slow and effective environmental training
Last week, I took my nine-week-old puppy out for some environmental training. We walked along a street in the town center, and after about 200 meters, she came to a halt. She wanted to sit down and study her surroundings before realizing that certain things were uninteresting.
Calm and relaxed environmental training
I think it's important to let dogs come to this realization on their own so they can learn to stop caring about their environment. However, many dog parents miss this point and mistake training sessions for environmental training. Walking quickly through a new environment can be a stressful experience for dogs. It's important to be relaxed and take it easy, strolling along at the dog's pace.
Low-intensity environmental training for best results
What becomes too intense or too long is highly individual and can depend on the dog's daily routine. If your dog reacts instead of investigating and settling down in the environment you're training in, the environment is too intense. Increase the distance to triggers that stress your dog and reduce the time you spend there. You don't want to tire your dog while environmental training. You want them to find it boring. Make sure that your dog has had enough exercise before environmental training, preferably in a quiet place, to avoid the risk of pent-up energy (trigger-stacking) coming out in a new environment.
Adapt training to your dog's needs
What becomes too intense or too long is highly individual and can depend on the dog's daily routine. If your dog reacts instead of investigating and settling down in the environment you're training in, the environment is too intense. Increase the distance to triggers that stress your dog and reduce the time you spend there. You don't want to tire your dog while environmental training. You want them to find it boring. Make sure that your dog has had enough exercise before environmental training, preferably in a quiet place, to avoid the risk of pent-up energy (trigger-stacking) coming out in a new environment.
Important to remember for environmental training
If you were rewarded every time you heard the sound of the radiator in your new apartment, you would hardly lose focus on the sound. You only learn to ignore a sound when you hear it without anything happening. If the radiator sound becomes too loud or persistent, you become hypersensitive to it instead of ignoring it. The same applies to dogs during environmental training. Moderation is key, and just the right amount in a semi-challenging environment is best. If your dog has stress issues, environmental training alone may not be enough. Contact behavior advisors for help with an individualized plan
Written by: Sandra Tellström
Sandra is a dog psychologist and founder of Hundsteg, one of Sweden's largest training programs for dog trainers. She specializes in puppy development, pack management and behavioral therapy.
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