FE140: Engagement

Lecture #3:   Acclimation

What is Acclimation?

Acclimation is exactly what it sounds like - the time that we give a dog to adapt (acclimate) to the environment.  For competition dogs, developing a plan to acclimate your dog to new spaces AND to get work in those spaces is critical.  For this class, we will ALWAYS acclimate to any space that we work in.  As your dog becomes more advanced, you can introduce ways to acclimate that do not include walking through the actual working area; this class will allow your dog to explore the working area.

Why is Acclimation Important?

Like dogs, humans also need to acclimate.  If you think about it, the first thing you do when you go into a new building or place is “take it in.”  You quickly identify the feel of the place in terms of temperature, spaciousness, lighting, and most importantly, safety.  If you find yourself in a place where you feel uneasy or unsafe, then you will be unable to focus on much else until that discomfort either resolves or you leave.

Parents and teachers of children know they need to add in a bit of extra time when attempting to go somewhere new with a child. For example, if you wanted to read to your child, or have her read to you, in a meadow near a stream, acclimation time is not optional. You might be able to get that child to sit and look at you, but until you allow her to look at the flowers, dip her fingers in the water, or listen to the birds singing, you will not have her brain. And forcing a child to listen to you read when her mind is elsewhere is a waste of time.  Actually, it is worse than a waste of time, because soon that child will be scheming to get around you - to take quick, furtive looks around, or to reach for some leaves when you aren’t looking.  The more exciting the place, the longer the process of acclimation will take - quite possibly to the point that the child will exhaust herself in the process and have no interest in your book at all!

Dogs go through a similar process.  When they arrive somewhere new, they need a period of time to take it in.  A dog that is less mature, unusually sensitive, fearful, or simply inexperienced (young) is likely to need even more time to adapt to the new space.  Dogs were not bred to enter dog show environments, so they are understandably overwhelmed when they enter a room with possibly hundreds of strange dogs and people who may or may not be friendly! Your dog relies on his growing familiarity with new places, the process of settling in (acclimating), and you as a leader to develop comfort with each new place.

With children, we give them time to adapt to new places. We select suitable environments when we want them to learn.  We recognize they need to feel safe.  We also know that if the child asks us to read to her rather than the adult insisting that the child sits down and listen, that the child is much more likely to pay attention and stay engaged.

Let’s give our dogs the same courtesy.  Select your training environments so that your dog can learn and function!  Train engagement skills in your most familiar environment - your own training yard.  As you master a step of engagement in one place, then start looking around to practice those same skills in a new place.  But not just any new place - select an environment that is only mildly distracting, and then allow your dog to acclimate before even thinking about attempting your engagement skills.

When working through the Stages of Engagement, you might find that you are working in Stage 3 at home (dog must sustain some interaction before a classic reward) but maybe in a local park, you will be working at Stage 2.  That is absolutely fine - and handling this way will actually allow you to progress more quickly!

So how do you decide if you’ve selected the right environment?  How do you know if you’ve had enough acclimation?   How do you tell the dog that you’ve moved from acclimation and now you are available for work?

Selecting the Right Environment

We always want to select an environment that is fairly mild in terms of distractions. This allows your dog to acclimate well and then move on to work (in this case, engagement).

If you think about your dog’s senses (smell, hearing, sight and touch), and if you think about what your dog likes to do (always sniffing or always staring?), then you can begin to select an environment that is mild for your dog. Be careful not to confuse an environment that is mild by YOUR definition with one that is mild by your DOG’S definition.  Many dogs will find the front of the grocery store much milder than a park - if they are not distracted by visual sights, that is.

The dog will tell you if you’ve selected the right environment for his behavior. Terriers that live to sniff and chase squirrels are likely to give much better focus at the grocery store than at a park, but your sight and sound sensitive border collie might have a complete meltdown in such a crowded public space. Know your dog.  Think about what makes sense for your team.

Teaching Your Dog about Acclimation

Start by picking an area. You define what this area is; just because you are in a park does not mean that the entire park is your working area.  Mentally block off an area of maybe 20 square feet of space. Evaluate the potential of that space by thinking about the factors that will suck your dog in.  If your dog is fascinated by grass, trees, and squirrels, head for a more open area like a tennis court where there is less vegetation.  But if your dog is highly visually aware and tends to stare at movement, then maybe the tennis match going on next door would make that a poor choice!

Now that you have a place in mind for your acclimation - which should be about 20 or 30 feet square - give your dog up to 10 minutes of time to thoroughly explore that space.  Use a leash to prevent your dog from going too far, but do not attempt to use the leash to coerce attention.   Simply allow your dog to explore as much as he wants - sniffing, staring, and listening to his heart’s content.

If for any reason you want to work off leash, then you must work in a small and contained area, and you must continue to move with the dog without making eye contact.  It should feel to the dog like you are both on a stroll.  When the opportunity for engagement begins, stand still - wait for your dog to notice, and go from there.

Switching from Acclimation to Engagement

When your dog shows signs of boredom, such as lying down, whining, or looking at you, stand still - we are about to switch from acclimation to engagement training.  Please refer back to Lecture 2 on how to move through the steps of engagement.

More than likely, you will start at Stage 2. Remember that we are done with Stage 1 for the majority of the dogs. Although the technique in Stage 1 is helpful to introduce the idea of engagement to your dog, the risks of overwhelming potential fear or using excessive pressure to interaction are too great! Even “forcing” a dog to engage with a cookie can be overwhelming.  And the fact is, a dog who will not look at you when he understands that you will interact with him is a dog who is speaking volumes.  Be willing to listen.

The Skill of Acclimation Needs to be Generalized!

If you have worked through at least Stage 1 and Stage 2 engagement with success at home, then you may begin to add in new environments.  It’s okay (good, even!) if the areas become more challenging over time, but that challenge should increase at the rate that your dog can handle it.  For some of you, that may be a different room in your own house.  For others, it may be a little bit down the street.  Regardless, the change should be as mild as you can arrange. You want to learn to think in small increments!

Here Brito is acclimating in my front yard.  In Brito’s case, I know that he is about ready to work when he starts walking fast through the area without a lot of sniffing.  At 7 seconds, I stop walking - he recognizes that almost immediately and looks towards me at 9 seconds.  His attention and wagging tail tell me he is ready to work.  We move through Stage 3 (sustained engagement) and into Stage 4 (heeling) before he earns his first reward at the end.

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Factors that Affect the Challenge Level

There are several factors that combine to determine your success with engagement under more challenging circumstances.  We often call this kind of training “proofing.”  Proofing means adding measured challenges.  So how do we do that? Let’s consider a few relevant factors.

Let’s say the challenge we are adding is a change of environment.  Let’s use a number scale from 1 to 10 to discuss the value of that environment. If your dog is totally sucked in and fascinated by the environment, we’d call that a 10, and if your dog is oblivious, then we’d call that a 1.  Your house is probably a 1.  

Because familiarity reduces the novelty of something, acclimation, by definition, reduces the value of a place. When you first show up at a new park, your dog might be at an 8 in interest, but after 15 minutes exploring his 30-foot square, he has used up that interest and is down to a 3.  If you moved to a new place in that park, it probably wouldn’t be an 8 because he has already done some exploration with his eyes and ears of that new territory, but it’s going to be higher than a 3 because he has not thoroughly explored it.  So let’s say that might be a 5.

Now, let’s give another number to the dog’s emotional comfort.  If your dog is very stable and rarely flustered, then he might experience no nervousness in that park, so we’d call that a 1.  And if your dog was in the vet’s office where he had experienced major trauma in the past, we might call that a 10 in terms of anxiety.

Let’s add in a third consideration.  What is your value as a source of support to your dog?  If this is a dog that you don’t know at all, then maybe you have no value at all, or possibly, if you’ve consistently put the dog into uncomfortable situations, you might even have a negative value (yikes!).  But if you have a good relationship and your dog believes you are his advocate and protector, your value might be much higher. Therefore, the same trip to the vet might create an anxiety level of 10 with a stranger but only 5 with you.

Finally, what is the value of your motivator?  Play might be very valuable to your dog (10) or it might have no value at all (1).  How about your food and toys?  Your choices of which food or toys will also make a difference!

Each of these factors has a value, and all of them work together to set up an environment that is either appropriate or inappropriate for your dog’s training session. While you do not need to go through this valuation process at each new training location, you should be aware of the relative values of each of these considerations. If your session does not go well, consider each one.  What changes could you make to increase your dog’s chances of success with your next outing?

Fear and Engagement

Go ahead and use higher value motivators where your dog’s curiosity might be high.  It’s okay to overwhelm some curiosity with good motivators if the dog is stable.  But if your dog is nervous, be very careful.  Spend more time acclimating, work to lower the overall “anxiety” score, or pick easier environments rather than overwhelming fear with motivators.  If your dog’s fear is a 7 and the food/toy is a 10, it is true that your dog will engage.  But it is also true that your dog will learn to work in an anxious manner, and that is a habit (CER) that you do not want to see. Someday you will be asking your dog to work with no motivators present in competition, and suddenly the fear of the world can become overwhelming.  If your dog is fearful, reduce the fear - that is always your number one priority.  Acclimation and selecting training environments that generate a super low level of worry is the ticket.  

One of the BEST reasons to teach engagement with play is that most dogs will not play if they aren’t feeling comfortable, even if those same dogs might be willing to work for a cookie or a toy when they aren’t very happy.  If a dog is nervous in a new place and I cannot get a normal (for him) amount of play, then I have a clue that I need to make the environment easier, especially if he is also showing any classic signs of discomfort instead of curiosity.

Remember that fear is not a choice.  Solve your dog’s fear issues in new spaces by giving the dog more space from whatever is worrying him.  If your dog is feeling fearful then you cannot get engagement, and if you cannot get engagement then you cannot get truly voluntary work!   

Keep this order in mind:

1) deal with dog’s emotional well-being,

2) give your dog a choice in the matter to engage or not, and

3) move into work only when your dog is ready.

Now that you have a number system and a basic way to consider each factor, use that when you are in a new place and you are trying to decide if this is a scenario that is likely to create success.  If you know that your dog thinks a piece of kibble is a five out of ten and sightseeing horses is an eight out of ten, then you cannot win.  Either increase the acclimation time (which decreases the value of horses through familiarity), or increase the value of your motivator, or go somewhere else!

Here is a video of Brito acclimating in a new area where he has not been before.  He is not a fearful dog in general, so I think his fear is very low - not above a 2 for sure.  He IS a curious dog and he is very interested in sniffing and looking around, but it’s not insane.  Let’s call his curiosity a 5. I have treats that are probably about a 6 and a ball which is about an 8.  

I need to add that Brito is hot and tired; this is the middle of the day and he never works particularly well at this time, so I have to factor that into his attitude when we begin working. I will allow slightly less engagement than I might at a more favorable time of day.  What I mean is that he doesn’t have to be as intense about asking me to work.    

Note my behavior - I am very casual and I do not LOOK like a person who is about to walk a dog - he can read that easily.   You will not see a dramatic change when I switch from acclimating to waiting for engagement because he is well along in his engagement training and he simply does not need it.  He knows that we are walking around a small area so that he can become comfortable, so I allow a more fluid transition to engagement.  If that is not comfortable for you, then make your transition more distinct.  Just remember - training is an art and a science. Knowing your dog and what seems to be working is probably a better idea than getting too hung up on the rules.  Here’s Brito’s engagement - it took about 3 minutes before we start work.  

and if I still haven't made my point, go ahead and read a blog that I wrote on this topic:

http://denisefenzi.com/2015/08/10/acclimation/