The BEST FIX for REACTIVE, Nervous & DISTRACTED Dogs! (Engage/Disengage)

do you the dog that struggles to pay attention to you when there's new things in the environment what about a frustrated greeter who tends to bark lunge or pull towards other dogs or people when you're out on a walk do you simply want to build confidence and engagement from your young dog even around distractions what if I told you that with one simple game you could train your dog to immediately look at you without being asked as soon as they saw one of these big distractions in the environment it'd be pretty awesome right well then this is the training video for you this game is all about results so that you can go from a dog that's disconnected to a dog that can ignore people dogs and more and actually sees these distractions as a trigger to look at and engage with you hi I'm Laura from Dogg euu and I'm a certified guide dog mobility instructor service dog trainer and trick trainer and today I'm going to show you my favorite game to resolve issues with reactivity and frustration and help you build your dog confidence and engagement even around tough distractions the engage disengage game that we're going to be talking about today uses reinforcement and safe distances to allow the dog to learn about their world under threshold without becoming reactive or overwhelmed it can build confidence in a dog as they see changes in the environment or previous triggers as opportunities to engage with you for reinforcement what I love about the engaged disengage game is that it's an easy protocol to follow for most dog handlers I learned about this game many years ago and it's easily one of my most used games in my training toolbox Alice Tong of choose Positive Dog Training made this amazing easy to follow infographic that you can use as a reference I've actually linked it down below for you to download so today I'm going to show you how to play the engaged disengaged game with your dog so you can take what you learn here and help your dog become more confident and comfortable out in previously challenging environments before before we start the game I want to point you down to the description if your dog doesn't have a lot of experience with offered attention I have a few games to play first in your home to teach your dog to offer eye contact to you and help your dog grasp this game much more quickly I also really like to use clickers for this game as clickers have a very unique and Salient sound in any environment the dogs can easily pick out I have a video on teaching you and your dog how to use a clicker that I'm going to put down below so go ahead and pause the video now and check those out first okay so let's get to the game here's how we play there's two different levels to the game the first part of the game is simple it's looking at the thing now some people want to teach their dog to look at them and to never look at the thing but if you're nervous or anxious about something it can be really hard to look away at first this is especially true of younger dogs who have less experience out in the world so a similar human analogy is have have you ever been told by a friend to don't look over there what is the first absolute thing that you do it's you look of course you look you need to know what's going on and of course if they're saying that it might be something you're nervous about or anxious about or it might be super exciting so you're going to look so in this first part of the game with your dog we're going to let him look and while this game was originally developed for fearful reactive or nervous dogs I find that I use this game with most dogs because it teaches confidence and it also teaches the dog that new things in the environment are positive things and reasons for them to engage with you so to start we want to know the length of time that we're going to be playing and that's for one to 5 minutes before giving the dog a break we can always put them in the car or put them away for a few minutes give them a mental break and then come out and practice again we're going to start with level one we're going to start at a safe distance away from the trigger where your dog is not reacting you're going to be quiet and still so your dog notices the trigger on his own at the precise moment that your dog engages or looks at that trigger you're going to click when your dog turns his head towards you after the click you're going to feed a treat I recommend using high value food reinforcers like chicken or steak or anything else that your dog finds really valuable now if your dog doesn't immediately turn to you as soon as you click you're too close you're going to want to back up away from the trigger to start so that your dog can be successful our goal is to do at least three to five successful repetitions before moving on to level two at that same distance a successful rep is when your dog immediately turns back to you right after the click once your dog is immediately turning to you after you click for their engagement with the trigger it's time to move on to level two which is the disengage part don't rush it we want to make sure they're doing really well in level one before we move on to level two and if you found this video helpful so far head on down and Boop that like button doing so is so helpful for the channel and it lets me know you want more of these videos we're going to start by letting the dog notice the trigger again but now we're going to wait 1 to 5 Seconds to see if the dog will look away on his own if your dog isn't looking away and is instead fixating on the trigger go back to level one now as soon as the dog looks away from the trigger or disengages we want to click right away they don't need to be staring at you yet we just want them to dis engage from the trigger staring at you will come really quickly now at the precise moment that the dog looks away or disengages from the trigger we want to click after you click you're going to feed one of those high value reinforcers here's an example of going from level one to level two so that was about five in a row so we're going to wait for look and look back now if you want to see the entire training session with with this little golden puppy you can check that out over on patreon nice that little head flick was good now if your dog reacts and isn't able to turn back to you after the click go ahead and create some more distance so that they can be successful now our goal here is to do three to five successful reps in a row before moving one to five steps closer to the trigger a successful rep is when your dog comfortably disengages from the trigger on his own within 1 to 5 Seconds of looking at that trigger as you get closer to that trigger you can keep playing at level two if that trigger isn't moving or changing intensity but if you get closer and you're using an object or a person that might be moving back and forth you're going to want to go back to level one at that closer distance and then move to level two once your dog is ready what I love about this game is that you can apply it to so many situations from dogs to people to Wildlife to farm animals and once your dog understands the game seeing these previously intense triggers or novel items will cause your dog to start engaging with you without you even asking with consistency and patience you'll be training a more confident and engaged dog and who doesn't want that and hey if you want to see more of the engage disengage in action with full training sessions definitely head on over to patreon.com where you're going to get not only that but also more deep dives into things things like training the retrieve or training neutrality and calmness along with that you'll get 150 more videos for as little as $3 a month it's also where all the cool kids are hanging out like Julian K and Allison M all right everyone if you liked that video the algorithm says that you're going to love this video too so you should click on it now you all have an awesome day and happy training

Channel: DOGGY•U

Views: 46,215

Keywords: dogs, dog training

Id: M5OANGG342Y

Length: 7min 52sec (472 seconds)

Published: Fri Jan 19 2024