Dog Reactivity vs. Socialization: Working Dog Training Tips | Source Podcast Ep. 3

What's up everybody, Brandon with Custom K9 Unlimited back at it again with The Source Podcast, all things working dogs. Joined by the lovely Keeley on today's episode. How are you doing today, Keeley?

Been too long. It's hot.

It's hot.

Just ran into like 20,000 spider webs because of you.

Yeah, we did just lay a— I just laid a pretty good track that I thought was pretty fun. Uh, I'm about thigh deep in water, uh, so we're gonna try to make this short, sweet, and to the point today. Um, uh, today's episode we're going to talk about building confidence, a little bit of what the difference between confidence and reactivity is. Kind of dive into those things and kind of move on from there. If you're not already, go ahead and like, subscribe, comment. All of those things help us get our information out there, uh, in the world of YouTube. So if you could hit that subscribe button, let us know what you think. All right, so like we said, we're going to kind of talk about confidence in a working dog and reactivity and how those things do not go well together, or how reactivity doesn't go well with a working dog. But in the flip side of that, how it is important to have that confidence in your working dog. And so we're going to kind of talk, uh, just about some different key points here. Keeley, Brandon, what are some key things that you look at when it comes to what a confident dog looks like, especially in the working world?

Uh, to me, like, like a dog that's just about it, like one of those like wired dogs that stir crazy, just get to work. They don't care about nothing else going on around them. They don't care about traffic, dogs, fucking people, anything. Just the dog that's about that life, just wants to work, ready to go.

Yeah, so I would agree with you. You know, that dog that you pull them out of the kennel and he's got that head high, chest out, and he, like you said, he's just about that life, uh, typically those are the dogs that you don't want to mess with in a sense. You know, obviously, uh, we've got a couple dogs right now that come to mind in the kennels that I think about being confident dogs but yet still can be relatively sweet dogs. And so, um, Chuckles. What is it?

Chuckles? Charlie?

Yeah, Charlie.

Yeah, yeah, Charlie's the first dog that comes to my mind. Charlie's a great, great working dog, always confident, but like you get him on the tail end of things and he's just like running into your lab breakers.

Yeah, absolutely. Um, so, you know, when we talk about confidence, we're kind of talking about that, that ability to perform under pressure regardless of what the situation is. They're able to walk into a room, own the room, whether it's detection, obedience, tracking, patrol, whatever it is. They have that it factor, if you will. When they walk into that room, you know, hey, look, this dog's going on shit.

Dude, I've seen, uh, something— it was like a street scenario. Someone deployed their dog and someone, for some reason, the suspect had a ladder. So now people are trying to incorporate ladders into the fight work to boost that dog's confidence and under pressure. So like, he was taking the ladder, he was like trying to hit the dog with the ladder and shit. So now people are trying to train for that scenario. I guess people just have ladders readily available to hit dogs with. But, but no, like, even the dog on the street, like, when he was like hitting, like trying to hit him with the ladder, like, that dog wasn't backing down. He was trying to find a way to get to him.

So, you know, just kind of once again breaking down a little bit of what that confidence looks like. A truly confident dog is neutral, composed, and able to work without emotional fallout. I think that would be the best way to describe that. Uh, you know, when you think about it like from an emotional standpoint, they don't let their emotions get in the way of what they're trying to do.

I think another, um, factor of confident dogs too is most of our confident dogs have an off switch.

Yeah.

So like, someone, someone on a bike, as soon as you get them off, like, they're like, all right, I'm good. It's like the flip of a switch and they're back to doing OB, walking away from that guy.

Yep, yep. So that kind of breaks down what confidence is. Uh, now on the contrast, let's talk about reactivity. What does reactivity look like? How does that hinder, especially in the working dog community? And that's going to be the premise of this conversation. We're not going to get into the pet side of things, uh, too much at all, realistically, um, because it's just two different worlds that I don't really necessarily want to go down.

And it says all things working dogs.

And it does say all things working dogs. Um, you know, if we can in the future do a podcast on, you know, what it looks like for a pet, that's a little bit different. Um, but when it comes to reactivity in a working dog, um, it— I would kind of lean back to that definition that I used before about it being an emotional disconnect. Well, this is an emotional connection. This is something that a dog that you have exceeded its titration level, and the stimulus that is being provided, or that is in front of that dog, is just too much. And so when we get that reactivity, we start seeing the barking at people, the barking at other dogs, the lunging, um, cats. Yeah. And I think, you know, in my notes here, that's one of the things that I talk about is prey animals, if you will.

Yeah.

Any kind of smaller animal, something like that. Now the thing with pet, or with cats and prey animals, is even that confident dog can still have reactivity to some of those. But that kind of taps into that prey drive that we want anyways. So it's hard to kind of look at that and be like, yes, it's still a reactivity or being reactive, but it is not so much the worst thing in the world. You need to train out of it, but that's pretty dry kicking.

Yeah, my thing is when it becomes a hindrance to them performing the task at hand, that's when it becomes a problem.

That's when it crosses that line into reactivity, and that's like you said, that's where the problem— um, you know, one thing that a lot of people misinterpret is their dogs being reactive to people. For example, I bring a dog out and it starts losing his mind because you walk up, and they go, oh well, it's just protective. No, your dog's reactive. Yeah, like it wasn't properly socialized. Um, so that's, you know, there's some things that we kind of try to avoid when it comes, especially when we select dogs. Um, but when it comes to those dogs that have that, whether it's confidence, and we try to avoid reactivity. All right, so when we're talking working dogs, what, what are the foundational steps to developing a confident working dog?

Ages. Awesome.

So where I'd like to start is the early development, which I think is probably No, I don't think— I know is the most important part. Yeah, in early puppy development.

I think a lot of people go wrong when it comes to like starting to develop that confidence is they push them too fast and they don't go at that dog's level of development.

Really glad you brought that up because one of the things that I have in my notes here and a little bit further down is not exposing the dog to too much too fast. And I think that that is exactly what you're saying, is people throw a dog into the fire and expect to perform, but they were never exposed to the spark, for example.

Yeah, so I think like one of the biggest things is one, introduce your dog to play. Teach your dog how to play, what play is, how to be engaged with you. And then once you have that foundation down pat and you know that your dog's always going to engage with you when you want them then start introducing him to that social environment. Take him to Home Depot, see, will he play with you around Home Depot, around other people? Um, and then just gradually introduce him to heavier traffic areas and just keep him playing. So then, like, he just learns, hey, if I just play with her and I just ignore everything else that's going around me, everything's gonna be cool. Uh, and I think that's, that's the gateway to having a successfully confident dog.

Well, and you know, we, we have a good understanding of what, you know, building that successive approximation with, with training, especially in those early, early puppy development, the imprinting process, if you will, like that early, those early stages of that dog's life. Um, so, you know, you mentioned engaging in the play, which is great. Now, what you also mentioned like taking your dog into Home Depot or, you know, social environments, what are you looking for to achieve when you put that dog in that situation?

Really just engagement, honestly.

Okay.

Say like, uh, dog really wants— like, say you start taking them out and dog really wants to just pull to like some people or something. Now you have to get that distraction out of them. Like, hey, I don't want you calling people, I want you to engage with me. So now you become more exciting than that calling to that person. And then once they come play with you, it's the biggest thing in the world. Like, hey, I'm more important than that person over there, so you just pay attention to me and then you'll have all the fun and excitement you can have.

So, you know, building that puppy development throughout, uh, the developmental stages of the puppy brings us to the hopefulness that we can develop environmental neutrality. So they can go in, like we were saying earlier, and go into that environment and not anything outside of their little bubble bothers them. You're the primary focus of what that dog is engaging with, and that's the only thing that matters unless it's given some sort of task to accomplish, right? Some kind of guide, guidance. The other aspect that we see, and we see it all the time, is handlers. Handlers freaking out in those environments because their dog's freaking out, or dog starts freaking out because the handler's freaking out. And so, you know, handlers being neutral is equally as important because we say it all the time Does that emotion or that reaction from that handler travel down the leash? Every time. Dogs feed off of their handler's energy. Anything else to add to that on development?

It never stops.

Yeah, and I think one other— that's a good aspect of it too, is it doesn't ever stop. Typically it's little things that we see Um, but another aspect of that is that, like you just mentioned, is it's never-ending. You have to continue to work on this. If you put a dog in a kennel even after it's fully trained and you just never touch that dog again, there's a good chance that dog is going to be— is going to take steps backwards. And, you know, uh, and so having that continuous training plan, and it doesn't have to be excessive Once you get a good baseline, you can still train and not kill everybody in the process as far as being fatigued and kind of get to a point where you're just slowly building it, continuing to build it.

Yeah, like I think people think that it takes a lot of time. Like it's just a simple 10-minute walk. Yes, somewhere doing OB somewhere is more beneficial than not even doing it at all.

We just talked about how we— or the training that needs to continue, and that's going to lead us into what I think the topic is going to be, uh, and I don't even think you realized it, is training methods to build confidence. What does that look like and how we kind of recommend slash how we kind of do things, um, in order to develop a confident dog. And one thing is, is it's better to get ahead of it before it becomes a problem. When that dog starts becoming reactive, you're already too late. It's almost too late, and we have to backstep a whole lot more than if we just started from puppy and started building it then. So, uh, we're gonna kind of go into what some training methods, uh, that we believe here at CCU would help us build confidence, or do help us build confidence. Um, and the first one that I like is consistency in routine, which is exactly what we just talked about.

Yeah.

Um, you know, especially with a lot of these young handlers, they don't necessarily— they don't know everything. We don't know everything. We don't want to act like we know everything. But, uh, I think if one thing is taken away, it's do something consistently Even if it's kind of the wrong thing, it's something.

I don't know about that one.

Yeah, but you know what I'm saying? Like, have a plan and stick to it. Do it consistently and in a routine. And I don't mean in a routine so much that the dog knows, like, hey, Monday morning we're gonna get up and we're gonna go to Home Depot and we're gonna go do this X, Y, and Z. Every, every Monday we do the exact same thing. But have some sort of training plan to continue to develop through dog's life.

Yeah, and I think that's, that's what a lot of, um, like new handlers kind of struggle with. Like, one, they're, they're scared to make mistakes and they're scared to embarrass themselves. But I think the biggest thing is like, hey, you have to realize, you know, like you're a human, you're gonna make a mistake, and this is something we do. We all had that time frame in our lives where we were making mistakes. As new dog handlers. But even if you go out in public and let's say you don't do perfect and people are looking at you and judging and whatever, but it's not about them. It's like, what did your dog learn? What did you teach your dog? Did you get that goal of, hey, I just want my dog to focus on me for 10 steps and come deeper? Did you complete that goal? And then once you complete that goal, go to the next level. You know, can my dog walk through a whole aisle of Home Depot while just staying focused on me and looking at me?

You know what I mean?

I think that's where a lot of people kind of come in that those crossroads where they don't want to make a mistake in public, and then that kind of brings into more, more and more problems with their dogs.

Well, because they're being— they're, they're holding back what could potentially be potential because of their own, like, insecurities, if you will. Um, and you know, I, I've— we've gone— we go to Home Depot all the time and I've never had a bad experience, you know. Like, I don't think that— it's an overthinking thing more than anything. And that, you know, we just kind of talked about it. We talked— we touched on it just a little bit, but that gradual exposure, not just throwing your dog into that fire, I think is going to help as well. So we've got consistency and routine, we've got gradual exposure, Um, what about problem solving? So like, you know, say you do start to see that reactivity, how can we combat that? And I think that— I think we're going to be on the same page here, um, and in a sense of, I don't want you— your dog starts reacting to something out of fear, for example, because that's a lot of times what it is. Is the un— I would say the uncertainty of the situation, which like you agree with, yeah, dog's reactivity is because of uncertainty. Is the right answer to correct a dog for that behavior?

So I would say not necessarily a correction, but I would more so just ignore it, you know what I mean? Like if I'm, uh, the only example I can think of is a dog was scared of those, you know, those public black trash cans. That are like all over downtown and like at stores and stuff. I had a dog that was terrified of them, unknown reasons, had no clue, would not get within 10 feet. So all I did was I just, um, one, I just ignored it, and then two, I used leash pressure to get them to come investigate it. Like, you're not backing out, but once you come closer, all that pressure is relieved. Does that make sense?

Yeah, no, that does make sense. And then I think the other thing to that too is rewarding that curiosity, which, like, would you reward that curiosity?

No, just move on.

Move on. So just don't even make it, like we were saying earlier, neutral. It's a neutral experience. Don't make it a big deal. Yeah, I would. I like that.

I do.

So, and then kind of talking problem solving there, moving on to, I think, something that's kind of important that people sort of neglect, especially when it comes to reactive dogs, is obedience. And here's why I say that. I think that if you can get your dog to a point with— in a neutral setting— to a point where he understands basic obedience or even advanced obedience, whatever you want to say that looks like, uh, but I think obedience is basic in general, but some people may disagree. But, um, I don't look at obedience as so much of it's a control aspect. Yes, there is that, um, but it also gives a dog the opportunity or the ability to regulate itself based off of that obedience. So it gives its— gives that dog some clarity. Agree? Disagree? No, I disagree. No, it's okay.

I think I agree for the most part.

You did say degree.

I agree for the most part.

Well, I, I look at it from a sense of, okay, dog's being reactive, but if I can call my dog to a heel and break that focus, it provides that dog with some kind of clarity and understanding of something that—

yeah, kind of gives the dog a task, right?

Kind of gives that dog a task. And I think that those things can help build that confidence.

Yeah. Um, actually, actually, I could see that a lot once I pick up to the beach, just doing that heel in the overcrowded environment. I think that helps, right, with his development as well.

Yeah, I think that it, like I said, it just kind of makes it a clear, you know, especially if they're being reactive, and we see it a lot, they're being reactive, giving them guidance helps them. You know, just, hey, nope, you know, sit, whatever that looks like for you in your certain situation, provides clarity to that dog and just makes them— all right. Some common reactivity triggers: people being one of them. What else you got?

Dogs.

Other dogs.

Cats.

Other cats. What about cars? Cars.

Yep.

And I think a lot of that, once again, is just uncertainty. Um, but loud noises was another one that I had thought of. But when it comes to corrections, we kind of talked about it a little bit. Do you ever find that there is a place for a correction?

Yes.

I like that.

I do.

So my thought was that exactly. Yes, there is a place for it. My thought was correction should mark an escalation or an unwanted emotional trip, but not to punish fear, because I think there's a difference there between the being reactive aspect of it and then the fear aspect of it. They're correlated sometimes, but not directly related all the time.

Yeah, I mean, definitely in like a bunch of different situations, I mean, I think the biggest one is chasing cats.

Definitely needs to be corrected. Yeah, 100%.

Like, I don't— like, you go search a house and you're trying to find some dope, or you go search a house and you're trying to find a bomb. There's a cat. That's a problem. I'm going to explode, or like, this person's going to get away with having a kilo of cocaine.

I don't know, but I don't want you chasing a cat.

When I'm trying to get you to perform the task again, you know what I mean? So like, I would say like, even if I'm just doing obedience, see—

oh, 100%. And I would almost say that that opportunity during obedience is probably more beneficial than doing it during like a detection set.

Yeah.

And I say that because especially if you're running like a blind or something, you have no idea where the odor is, you correct what you believe is reactivity to a cat, and the dog was an odor. Yeah, now we've got correction to odor, and now the dog was like, and now we've got an avoidance because of that, right? And so I, I think that that kind of needs to happen in that obedience session more so than anything else. Yeah, that also takes me into the corrections being timed. Properly.

We struggle with that when it comes to new handlers way too much, but it's understandable, right?

I mean, we struggled with it when we started, and we struggle now teaching people how to do it properly.

That's the hardest part of teaching people.

But I also— one other thing that we kind of struggle with is, and we, we had a conversation very recently about people being too hard. I think that the correction should be applied in a fair manner according to the dog. Yeah, according to the dog, right? Not according to us, according to what the dog is.

Yeah. Um, that's the other thing, like, people have to understand, like, like, what a lot of people don't get is if I apply correction to the dog and I think that it's fair, or that I think that it is a correction for something, for chasing the cats, um, and I give that correction, but the dog doesn't see it that way, then was it really effective?

Right, it wasn't at that point. Your dog just thought you were being mean. Yeah, for no reason. Right. But I also think that an aspect of that is obviously timed properly, needs to be fair, but we need to also provide a path for success. So what's the right answer for that dog?

Showing, you know, just showing the dog the right answer as well, and then marking and rewarding that behavior. Yeah.

Um, another aspect, or another kind of key point that I like here, was do you believe that you can correct a dog into confidence?

Into confidence?

Yeah. Do you think you can make a confident dog with correcting?

I don't know. Good question.

I don't think that if— especially in a fearful situation a correction is not going to build confidence.

Yeah, in a fearful situation. Yeah, I agree.

And now in some of the reactivity scenarios, 100%, but in that fierce reactivity, I think that the correction can hinder stuff.

Yeah, I think it, it actually probably could probably make it worse, right?

Well, yeah, I mean, you— they're now afraid, like, oh, I'm gonna— I'm afraid of this and I'm afraid of you, but like What am I going to be okay with? So moving into the next topic, um, this is one of my favorites. I believe it's one of your favorites, probably. And I think that a lot of CCU staff would agree that this is also their favorite. But, um, we're going to talk a little bit about confidence in our patrol dogs and how we we can build confidence, how we can break confidence, and reading the dog and knowing when to apply pressure. And, you know, when you're, when you're doing bite sets, um, and kind of break that down a little bit.

I think the biggest thing with that is people don't realize how important decoy actually is.

Well, and I think that a lot of, and, you know, when we get students in, they think that, oh, it's just a big puffy suit, I'm gonna get bit and that's the end of it. And they don't realize that they're the primary person working that dog. Like, the handler's attached to the dog, of course. Yeah, but the dog really— or the handler realistically is just holding a leash, like you're saying. Like, so, um, we would both agree, and like I said, I don't think anybody would disagree here, that a really good decoy can make or break a dog. And I think— not a really good decoy— a decoy can make or break a dog. And so, uh, you know, that kind of breaks down into the decoy reading dog body language, understanding that, hey, if I'm applying pressure and that dog's lunging and barking and ready to fucking get after it, then I'm doing something right, I'm making improvements. But if that dog is tucked behind the handler, completely avoiding the situation, you're probably applying way too much pressure.

Yeah.

Um, one thing that we preach on a regular basis is that bite work for a dog is a fun and it should be fun. It should never be a situation where the dog is biting out of fear. They're biting you because they enjoy the work and they enjoy doing it. And I think that, uh, I've seen comments on some of our previous YouTube videos, comments on Instagram or whatever, about how when we use dogs for whatever it is, we're forcing dogs to do shit, or it's animal abuse, or yeah, it's animal abuse. And what I don't think people realize is that somebody like us, or somebody who's a dog trainer, can look at that and read dog's body language and tell, like, no, that dog is enjoying that crap. And so, um, I think that there's a huge common misconception that working dogs is animal abuse or whatever.

Yeah, it's not like we take a whip and just whip them out of fear until they decide Yeah, well, and now you're creating a reactive dog.

So every time somebody— a non-confident dog. And so every time somebody raises their hand, dog's ducking and, and thinks that they're going to get hit. And that's not what we're doing. We don't want to do that.

Then it turns into a bite, and that's not what we want. We don't want fear biters. We want a dog that's ready to go, ready to tackle that problem.

And then, so, you know, dogs reading— or decoy reading the dog's body language, um, I, I think that we talked a little bit about it, but I think that the handlers in those situations being confident on the ability still helps. Yeah, I think that, um, a neutral handler sets the tone and provides clarity for a dog.

Yeah.

All right, all right. So we've kind of talked a little bit about this, but do you have any real-world scenarios that you've seen? I know you talked about Charlie a little bit. Another one that comes to mind for me is Ralph, second favorite dog of all time. Argus, Argus being the first.

Duncan.

Duncan, yep.

He is also wrapped in cats, but I think he was willing to eat it.

Yeah, well, that's that prey drive kicking in. Yeah, well, I think that we, we've seen both ends of the spectrum. So those are our confident dogs. Those are the dogs that walk into the room, own the room, and have no issues that I can think of off the top of my head with reactivity.

Yeah.

So now the other side of that, we have a dog we've worked with in the past few months that is very reactive.

Yeah.

I don't know what he's reacting to, we're still trying to figure that out.

Everything.

But an example of that is, is you can be standing in the room and perfectly fine, but if you display your hand for a treat, he loses his mind.

Yeah.

There's some context that we have that we've been building over the last couple months with that dog that, um, we're starting to get a better understanding of that and, you know, fix it, I guess, for lack of better terms. One dog that I— one dog that I like with the reactivity issues, Mika, when it comes to that reactivity, man, cats Squirrels, rabbits.

Yeah, I remember watching her. She ate my arm off for a rabbit.

And you know, that's something that I can— that we mentioned earlier, that is progress, or you have to continue to work on. She's been that way since I got her, and it's something that I've gotten— I've made progress on. But I can guarantee if I walk around the corner with her in a kennel and there's a cat, she will chase it. There's not anything under the boat about it. Yeah, I, it— I don't know, I guess. I don't know what the reactivity to people is though. She's such a sweet dog. We talked about confidence, calm, being able to walk into a room, own the room, not have an issue with outside factors, um, not folding under pressure. I think that that's the biggest key takeaway when it comes to a confident dog. Starting with early puppy development, making those environmental outside factors as neutral as possible, um, and then exposing your dog to anything and everything that you possibly can. Which isn't something that— when we talked about it, but we didn't really talk about it too much— was expose your dog to everything that you think that dog could be exposed to in the real world, because One thing that we see, and we see it quite a bit, is dogs get into an environment they've never been inside or been in, and they don't react the way that we want them to.

Yeah.

And that comes from a lack of exposure. And that's if you set up your training to expose your canine to every possible thing that you could we can identify those problems in training because you'd much rather identify them in training than you would out on the street.

Well, that's why you make training as varied and as realistic as possible.

Hey, there we go! Um, so another aspect of that is handlers need to create clarity and consistency in their training, varied and realistic. I love that you brought that up because you can't overdo that. Yeah, that is, you know, being as clear and as consistent as possible is going to be your best friend.

Yeah, if you don't do it in training and see in the real world your dog fails, well, you probably just failed your dog.

Well, and exactly, it's not the dog's failing, it's the handler's failing. Damn, Kaylee's dropping fucking bombs. He's in his t-shirts.

Yeah, starting with— that's just that drive on me.

I want a sticker of that and a t-shirt. Um, I think that another aspect of building confidence is exposing your dog to as much as you possibly can, realistic and varied, but also putting your dog in uncomfortable situations.

Yeah, just like people.

Just like people, right? People— I don't want to say thrive, but typically when you put a person in an uncomfortable situation, they come out better on the other end.

Typically, well, they're going to do two things: either fail or they come out better, right? Um, obviously the goal is for them to come out.

Yeah, exactly.

And I think push a person to become better, then they're never going to come become better. It's going to be the same.

Exactly. You're just on it today. Um, reactivity is not a drive.

Yeah, it is sometimes.

Sometimes I, I, I agree sometimes that, you know, like we were saying with the cats, like it's crazy.

I think it's the biggest one.

It is.

And then I think the dog reactivity might just be the lack of socialization.

Yep, 100%.

So maybe your dog didn't get exposed to other dogs when they were growing up, so they don't know how to socialize with them.

And people too. And I, and I have had this conversation with somebody in the past. COVID dogs, dogs that were born during COVID have a lot of— they lack human exposure because nobody was doing anything. And so, you know, that kind of hindered a lot of people's opportunities to build on.

Yeah.

Thank you for joining us today on The Source Podcast, all things working dogs. If you're not already, please like, subscribe, comment, Those things help us bring views to the working dog community. Every Tuesday we're going to post a short set. Typically it's a 5-10 minute video that just kind of gives you a little bit of insight on what we do here. Have a good day. It's all about that drive, homie.

All about that drive, homie. Great job.