Because my clients are mostly rescue dogs, I get a lot of dogs with high prey drives, meaning the dog likes to chase down anything that moves, especially cats. It's a pretty basic instinct to chase things that move (greyhound races and fetch) just as it is basic instinct for dogs to pull on leash (Iditarod). The problem with working the prey drive is that it's fueled by a desire for food, a much stronger instinct than pulling on leash. When working on specifically cat chasing with these rescue dogs, I'm often times working against years of this dog trying to chase down cats for food. Telling a dog to stop chasing the cat is like telling him he can't eat. Even if you know your dog isn't going to eat the cat (which you can't really ever know), it's still telling him not to eat.
How does this relate to proofing? I'm going to go over the steps I use to diminish prey drive. The whole process is really taking what the dog already knows and making it work around cats.
What's hard about writing a how to is that I cannot possibly cover every single scenario for my readers. I can really only provide a generalized sense of how to approach proofing and hope that the reader understands how to fill in the gaps from there. I am available on Facebook and by email to try and fill the gaps between what I write and you're specific situation. Just let me know!
Now, I'm going to narrate this story in my experience with Polo, a pit mix that I've worked very hard on for a long time now.
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| Polo doing what he does best |
The first thing I had to do was isolate the cats and Polo. A traditional way of dealing with this behavior would be to collar correct or shock collar, but as you know by now I'm force-free and don't like doing those things to my dogs. A traditional way of stopping prey drive behavior would stop his desire to chase cats in front of me. I turn my back and he'd be right out. I've just taught my dog to resent my presence.
The main reason I isolate the cats away from Polo, other than safety, is that if I put Polo in a position in which he can perform the behavior I don't like, he is rewarded. What this means is that when a dog performs an instinctual behavior, just simply doing it is reinforcing. I want Polo to be successful all the time and very rarely experience failure. AS big of a pain as it is to always have Polo away or the cat away, it's worth it to me. If it isn't worth it to you and you have cats, then I would really suggest trying to adjust your priorities towards creating peace in your house.
"But Michael, we're still not even discussing proofing yet!" I know, and it really sets up my next point nicely. In order to proof a behavior, your dog must first know it. Sounds silly to say, but if your dog doesn't know stay and you try to get him to stay at the dog park you're setting your dog up for failure.
Obedience work is the core of all dog training. Scales are the core for music. Knife skills are the core for cooking. Form is the core for weight lifting.
For a long while, I never even worked on the cat situation with Polo. I wasn't ignoring it, I was just putting it to the side for the moment. How am I supposed to teach a 60lb pit to behave himself around cats when he still jumps on people at the door? This is how criteria setting works.
What can I expect my dog to do? This is a judgment call. I unfortunately can't write what to expect and when to expect it for each dog. I'm trying to demonstrate to you how to have that judgment for yourself. Again, I'm always available for questions.
Once I had Polo's obedience in order, I chose to proof his sit-stay around the cats. I can't proof all his commands at once, so I picked the easiest one of them all. I also picked sit-stay because it is an incompatible behavior. He cannot sit-stay and chase cats at the same.
My first step was to figure out his threshold of success. Where is Polo going to fail? Once I figure this out, I can work backwards into a place in which he will be successful. As I learned, he can't even handle the little bell one of the cats has on her neck. He hears it and dive bombs the crack between the door and the floor.
Working backwards from there, I went to the end of the hall to see if he was still reactive to the cat's bell. At the end of the 15' hallway all he did was perk his ears forward and tilt his head. I'm not teaching Polo to avoid being curious. I'm teaching him to sit-stay under all conditions. I got him in a sit-stay and now I have another set of criteria to worry about.
Polo will sit-stay for 3 minutes without moving. What can I expect him to do here? We're moving backward 20 steps to eventually move forward 50, so I dropped my criteria to a 10 second stay at 15' away from the door with the cat and bells. I'm going to work my criteria all the way up to 3 minutes again then take one giant step towards the door.
Rinse and repeat until you're at the door.
Then I get to just open the door for a second, then a minute, and so on.
As we can see, proofing is all about proper criteria setting. I don't really want to get into every tiny minutia because the point is to set reasonable goals and work slow.
Today, Polo will sit-stay for 1 minute with cats in the same room. We've been working for 6 months. I have a ton of patience, which is what proofing requires.
It's okay not to proof behaviors. Just don't get mad at your dog when they don't listen to something you've never trained.
If you have any questions, find me on Facebook or shoot me an email at Michael@concentricdog.com
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