Restraining Canine Drives Drive Capping and Drive Neutralitywww.tarheelcanine.comSanford, North Carolina

Jerry BradshawTarheel Canine TrainingTraining Director since 1994Police Canine TrainingPatrol, detection, narcotics, explosives, cadaver, specialty detection, hard and variable surface tracking. Trainer’s SchoolSport Competition (PSA & IPO)Pet Training

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Modelling What we Observe

How we understand canine behavior, a very complex system, is based on a paradigm in the trainer’s mind

A paradigm is simply a way of thinking about or understanding a simplified version of that complex system – a scientific model.

For example, in economics, the labor market is a very complex system of social and economic interactions that are modelled by supply and demand.

A good model is one that is simple but has predictive power, and is robust to changes in variables that underlie the model as assumptions.

As you observe dog behavior you must have a way to organize and categorize what you see, and that is your paradigm.

Drive Model of Canine Behavior

Prey Drive – Trigger is movement Defense Drive – Trigger is Threat Social Drive – Trigger is infringement of social position Concepts of importance include triggers for these drives, intensity, endurance,

robustness, and channeling. (Genetic gifts and conditioned behavior). Channeling comes easier to some than others. Thinking about dogs within the drive model is not just for working dog trainers. Obedience v. Obedience in Drive (genetics and conditioned responses play a

role).

When you look at a dog …..

You see a combination of that dog’s inherent genetic make-up, previous interactions with its environment, previous training, previous conditioning, previous handling mistakes and previous successes.

Some of what you know about the dog is likely true, some of it untrue. Much of what that adult dog is, is a mystery, and will remain so until you interact

with it more and more, but the very interaction changes it…..new conditioned responses, building of social connection it may have lacked in the past, trust, expectations that are consistent. The dog is dynamic, adaptable being.

In choosing your paradigm, does it allow you to successfully train, improve, repair, deconstruct and reconstruct behavior and how that dog ultimately interacts with its owners, trainers and environment? If so it is a useful model.

Can a model be technically more “correct” but less useful? Yes!

Your Model

Maybe you focus on emotional states. What emotion is the dog experiencing right now? How does that play into my training?

Maybe you talk about dominance and submission, is that a good model? Its simplistic. Some argue there is no such thing. However, as a pedagogical tool its something we can use to get pet owners to understand rudimentary concepts on how to interact with their dogs.

After 25 years of working with high level working dogs, some of whom were pretty scary animals, aggressive and reactive pets, drive theory is a simple, robust, predictive way of organizing a “dog” into a system I can work with.

The Architect (Theory) and the Builder (Application) ……

Example: Behavioral Classifications of Canine Aggression

Displacement  Dominance  Fear-Elicited  Intra-Male  Intra-Species  Maternal 

Object Possessive Pain Elicited Predatory Territorial Idiopathic (my addition). From American Dog Trainer’s

Network website.

Model of Emotions (States of Being)

SEEKING RAGE FEAR PANIC LUST CARE PLAY What emotions are “good” and what are “bad” …. Is it bad to activate

certain “negative” emotions to achieve a life changing goal in training?

Out of Control Drive

Typically refers to prey drive but can apply to any drive where the arousal level gets unmanageable: Prey or Defense being the two most crucial.

Prey Drive that is unmanageable can be highly toy driven dogs or dogs that want to chase things like bikes and moving cars, triggered by movement or the object that moves (conditioned response), or even a place where the dog has experienced the expression of this instinct.

Defense Drive that is unmanageable can be active aggression or fearfulness that is triggered by perceived threats, usually by proximity of the perceived threat, and also by the thing, person or object that represents the threat to the dog.

A dog can “know” obedience commands, but dogs in drive often cannot keep sufficient composure in the face of trigger stimuli and thus wont perform them.

Drive Capping

Drive capping is a way to take the dog’s outward expression of his drive intensity and internalize it into an obedience command.

When we cap prey drive, we generally are capping speed, motivation, desire, and externalized energy into an obedience command that is performed quickly.

Compose yourself and be released into a reward. Start at low intensity and increase intensity as the dog learns to control his drive.

We vary the duration of the capped behavior. Pushing duration can lead to instability of the obedience command. The internalized energy wants to get out!

Over time we want to increase the intensity of the drive that we cap, to exert more and more control over the dog in drive.

Conflict

Conflict is a state where the dog is “in between” drives or in between drive expression and a command, and lacks clarity of purpose.

Therefore if the dog is in drive and I say “sit” and the dog is caught between obeying the command and the desire to chase and go forward to the toy, he is in conflict. The result is perhaps “freezing,” a trembling half sit, or a half ass attempt at a sit and then breaking and expressing his prey drive.

In drive capping we want to avoid the confusion of conflict, so we must communicate very clearly with the dog exactly what we want, and make sure it happens. The obedience commands we give are mandatory, thus often one key to successful drive capping is understanding how to apply proper and thoughtful compulsion, and time a proper mark and release into reward.

Conflict can also be expressed as drive bleeding out (creeping stays), stays where the ass rises up but the front stays down, or misinterpreting where safety is (in misapplied punishment induced safety seeking).

Reward and Compulsion

Temperament of the dog is key. This receives too little discussion in general now. Most discussions are method driven without any consideration given to the dog we are actually training.

Compulsion (force) can suppress and stress, it can also focus, and create precision, create clear boundaries, compliance and control if applied properly and thoughtfully.

Reward boosts motivation which is usually expression of drive, initiative, power and speed, sometimes though we don’t want that!

Good training toggles between reward and compulsion, taking the dog in a training session from high states of motivation to concentration and stability and back again as the situation dictates.

Premack Principle

Capped drive that is released into an inherently enjoyable activity. This is a staple of pet training, but is often used in competitive training as well.

Prey driven dogs love to run, jump, chase, tunnel, climb. These are expressive activities.

Many competition exercises have an expressive state follow a capped state. Ex. Stay before a recall, retrieve or jumping exercise.

This often leads to the dog bleeding off drive in the capped state as it anticipates the expressive state.

Poor trainers use too much compulsion on the stay, therefore when the dog is released into what is normally an expressive state, it is slow or shows conflict.

Proper capping keeps the dog in a clear capped and ready state without creeping, or breaking early, but retains the full expression of the expressive state.

Drive Neutrality

Creating drive neutrality is about reducing the dog’s arousal level to a controllable state for a period of time rather than cap the drive and suppress it temporarily.

The dog must learn to exchange a high value attraction for a somewhat lower value attraction you can provide to bleed off drive. ..

Drive neutrality is about systematically desensitizing the dog to stimuli over time. This requires control of the stimulus, and knowing the threshold at which you can get the behavior you want (heeling).

We desensitize the dog to the triggers, objects, sounds, behaviors on the part of the decoys that incite the prey arousal.

This requires systematic and constructive exposure to the attraction, if you go over threshold (decoys get too close) or too loud too quickly. This is marathon training.

Training Neutrality

The dog’s drive is channeled into something we allow (toy generally) Depending on exercises, heeling vs. stays, spatial proximity of the attraction may

have to be managed differently. Double handling, back-tie training, where we do not allow the dog to make key bad

decisions is critical. Systematically we do not desensitize the dog’s prey drive per se, but rather to the

triggers, objects, behaviors, on the part of the decoys that put the dog in a high state of arousal….trainer must pay attention to these details.

The dog/handler must constantly practice this neutrality training, and the dog must come to an understanding that all access to the decoys comes through the trainer, and making independent decisions about accessing these stimuli is not allowed.

Capping & Neutrality: Pet Training

Prey Aroused Dogs (restraint causes opposition reflex which exacerbates prey behavior thru frustration) & Defense Aroused Dogs.

In pet training we often have less direct control of the stimuli. We must notice and understand the triggers.

Training Mutually Exclusive behaviors (for example eye contact to avoid defensive arousal) in addition to systematic desensitization for example is a great way to deal with having less control over the stimuli that cause the dog to react.

In the beginning I might cap the impulse to look at another dog in a dog reactive pet, and channel that eye contact to the handler. I was teaching pet dogs with human and dog aggression/fear to attention heel back in mid 1990s after I got into IPO. Over time this practice creates neutrality. Obedience buys you threshold.

I was teaching prey and dominant aggressive pet dogs with no bite inhibition to channel their biting behavior into tugs and sleeves, create a game, and restrict that impulse to that construct. Basically creating equipment fixated aggression – the opposite of what we teach police dogs.

Behavior Modification: Pet Training

Systematic Desensitization requires the trainer to reward good behavior, and hold a standard of performance firmly correcting departures from trained behaviors.

Be careful not to introduce conflict with compulsion which can make matters worse. Sometimes you need to disengage and reevaluate especially when modifying defensive behaviors. Many times we move too fast.

However, with fearful and aggressive, dogs obedience can create a state where trust is absolute, “nothing bad will happen to you when you are under obedience command.” The state of being in obedience is comfortable and relaxed, and thus we can use the obedience to help generalize this safety around other stimuli that elicit threat. The dog is absolved of decision making, and therefore can experience neutrality.

In my opinion, don’t be afraid to set limits with compulsion when trust and training have progressed, even with the defensive dog.

Rewarding

Many times trainers reward a behavior but fail to recognize there is a better quality of that behavior that we should be rewarding.

If I have a fearful or dog reactive dog heeling with eye contact, I’m not just looking at his “behavior” I’m looking at his body, and reading from that as best I can his underlying state of being….as the behavior becomes reliable I up the reward criteria to rewarding relaxed eye cntact as we pass another dog.

This successive approximation is critical to moving beyond a basic solution where you have mitigated the dog’s reactivity by requiring eye contact which prevents a potential altercation to one where you are getting at the root of the dog’s state of being around other dogs.

Conclusion

A prey driven dog isn’t created by us, it just is. However the continual repetition of the stimulus – response - reinforcement loops

burn in the neural pathways create strong habits, quicker responses, and quicker firing of these neural pathways.

Early intervention is always preferable. Trainers need to recognize these things early on when changing behavior is a much easier task.

For dogs where these responses are strongly conditioned the techniques of drive capping and drive neutrality through the techniques discussed may help to manage and control unrestrained drive.

Competition training that requires control of drives can help you master these techniques, and bring you competitive success as well as success with your pet clients.