I think identifying threshold is probably one of the hardest and the most important aspects in reactivity training. I often see owners having trouble understanding threshold and finding the “sweet spot” in training. It takes a lot of practice, failures, and experience and I definitely made a lot of mistakes along the way. So I thought to write it up and hopefully it’s helpful to you.
- What is threshold and why it is important?
When I explain threshold to new clients, I like to use the beach/sand analog picture drawn by Lili Chin. Dog’s emotion is like walking on the beach. When they are over-threshold, it’s like drowning in the water–they can’t think and everything they do is instinct. It doesn’t matter if this over-threshold is caused by excitement, fear, or aggression. Even the reactivity is caused purely by frustration and excitement to meet another dog (which is not common; most dogs have mixed feelings towards their triggers), it’s never good to meet another dog or person when your dog is over-threshold, because they can’t think clearly in that state.
A dog can’t learn when they are over-threshold. All we can do when the dog is over-threshold is to manage–to disengage from the situation and to increase distance as fast as we can. We can do some training after we increase the distance to help the dog to calm down.
2. Different levels in under-threshold state and their training methods
As you can see from Lili Chin’s drawing, there are several levels when a dog getting close to the threshold. A dog can learn the best in the Blue to yellow state.
Blue state: I prefer a dog in blue state in training when s/he can easily make the right choice and I reward the right choice.
When a dog in the blue state, I let the dog notice the trigger, wait for the dog to look away from the trigger or look at me (make the decision on his own), and then reward by treats or adding distance.
Yellow state: yellow state may be more common if you just start training or live in a urban neighborhood and hard to have the distance to keep the dog in the blue zone.
When a dog in this state, I reduce the difficulty of training. For example, I don’t wait for the dog to look away from the trigger, and increase my ratio and frequency of treats.
Orange state: this is pretty close to going over threshold. Any change in the environment, for example, another dog looks at your direction, can cause your dog to go over threshold.
When a dog is in orange state, I usually switch from training to management, or end the session and take a break.
3. Other signs to identify emotion states besides the body languages listed in the drawing
Besides the body language listed in the figure, e.g. ear, tail, body stiffness, responsiveness to cues, there are some other signs I take into consideration when I decide if my dog’s emotional states.
- Hard mouth. If your dog starts to bite harder on the treats, means his muscle starts to tighten up and getting close to threshold.
- How long the stare is. It doesn’t have to be 2 seconds as the drawing says. Some dogs naturally stare longer than others. But it’s good to know how long your dog looks at something that doesn’t stress them in the environment, and how long they stares at the trigger.
- In CC/DS, no matter you say “Yes” when your dog is still looking at the trigger (early step in CC/DS), or you wait for your dog to look back at you and then say Yes, when your are feeding, you should break the eye contact. So how fast your dog turns his head to look at trigger again after eating is another important factor. Ideally, your dog turns his head calmly and slowly to look back at the trigger again.
4. Difficulty and duration
Difficulty is associated with distance to trigger (threshold), and what kind of exercise you are doing. In my experience, CC/DS can be quit stressful for the dog (especially if the dog is in yellow and not blue zone) and using functional reinforcer, like distance can be a great alternative. CC/DS should be low stress, but it’s constant stress on the dog. By using functional reinforcer, like adding distance, we are taking some stress off the dog.
Another factor that is often over-looked is how long your session runs. Again, if the session is difficult with the exercise or distance, I make the session shorter.
5. Last but not the least, threshold is not a set parameter. It’s dynamic. I often hear people say that their dog can be 15ft from other dogs so that’s where they start training. Threshold can change on different days. For example, your dog may have stress stacking from some noise early that day then his threshold will increase. Don’t care too much about the distance. I think distance is actually not a great way to characterize your success. I have found when you have a great foundation in behavior modification and the training starts to stick with the dog, decreasing distance can be easy.
Dogtor Linlin 