Driven to Distraction, Part 1

It’s hard to find a puppy who isn’t distracted by something. At first, the whole world is distracting to them. “Hey, what’s that smell, oh look! a dragonfly, there’s an acorn, SQUIRREL!” This is to be expected as they explore their environment and learn the rules. However, as the puppy matures, he should learn to control himself in the presence of distractions. This will be critical when he starts guide work.

When we talk about distractions in our dogs, we mean something that takes the dog’s attention off of his work for more than a few seconds. This can be anything from squirrels or cats (small animal distraction) to other dogs to scents. The more effort it takes to refocus his attention, the stronger the distraction is. You can understand why the dog needs to focus on his job and not all the superfluous activity going on around him. I recently worked a dog that was so intent at staring at a cat across the street that he walked HIMSELF into a pole. Not great for a guide dog.

Any strong distraction that can’t be controlled can mean career change for an IFT dog. In some dogs, the attraction to cats or lizards or whatever is just so strong that nothing will diminish it. But usually these distractions are just a habit developed by the dog – a behavior that the dog found pleasing and productive enough to want to repeat over and over. These are the dogs that benefit most from early intervention. And who is in charge of early intervention? Why, that’s you, of course! The puppy raiser.

Sometimes, depending on the distraction, it becomes a trigger for instinct behavior – where the thinking brain shuts off and the “cavedog” mentality comes out. Cat = prey = chase. When the cavedog brain takes over, forget it. You’ve lost him. You have to preempt this shift in the dog’s brain and teach the dog how to control himself and make the right choice (to ignore the cat.)

With something like dog distraction, if the pup is “rewarded” for his attention to other dogs by being allowed to interact with the dog on his terms, then it becomes a habituated behavior that the mere sight of another dog will trigger. So if your pup pulls you towards other dogs or barks and carries on until he is allowed to greet the dog, under whose terms did the meeting take place? Not yours, for sure.

So, what’s a puppy raiser to do? I’ll cover that tomorrow in the next post.