Dachshund: Sound Sensitivity and Barking
Like 2 Dislike 0 Published on 2 Mar 2016
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Alyssa Rose is a Professional Dog Trainer and Behavior Specialist, based in San Diego, CA.
About this video: Watch the video if you have ever had or known a dog that alerted to every sound or movement in the environment. The type of dogs that will bark at the wind, or a bird rustling in the trees. The same exercise can be applied to dogs that exhibit other types of stress responses. For example, dogs that become overwhelmed on walks, and freeze, or attempt to run back home to safety. The point of this training exercise is to help dogs adapt to environmental change by intercepting early warning signs of stress. This is sort of like meditation for sensitive dogs. ;-)
Training Pre-requisite: Hudson has a strong reinforcement history for behaviors that are conducive to being calm. For example, we worked on settling into a sit, or settling into a down on a training mat in a low stress, low distraction environment. This foundation is important because Hudson will default back to these behaviors as the targeted training environment becomes less stressful.
Phase One: When Hudson alerts to any change in the environment or exhibits any type of stress signal, I'm going to mark the moment for viewers with a "ding." In the video I am marking the moment for Hudson by saying "good" and pairing with primary reinforcement (high value food). On a practical level this will reinforce Hudson for acknowledging stressful stimulus without impulsively or reflexively escalating to a bark. With repetition, this will minimize stress and improve her ability to adapt to environments that would otherwise generate frequent, excessive barking.
Phase Two:
Successfully intercepting early signs of stress will lead to greater focus on handler and calmer overall demeanor. If I see this progression, I modify my criteria and reinforce for calm behavior.
Phase Three: Progress can be measured by a decrease in stress signals and/or stress related behaviors and an increase in learned behaviors. Your dog's general demeanor, body language and facial expressions should begin to relax she will begin offering behaviors that have previously earned a strong history of reinforcement, like lying down on her training mat.
Practice this type of exercise for 5-10 minutes, once or twice a day with dogs that exhibit sensitivity to sound or changes in the environment. Continue until you notice the dog becomes noticeably more focused on you, and begins offering previously learned behaviors. Begin training in environments that will ensure a high success rate and systematically build to moderate and high distraction environments.
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