Proofing

[tigger000]

Hey guys,

So my dog was doing his assisstance and scent detection skills quite well at home. I live next door to a park, so i took him there to add a few more distractions. There is usually only 1 or 2 dogs walking around at the park when i go, so i thought this would be a good way to start proofing the skills.

After he was doing both skills well here i decided to take him to a more unfamiliar environment. I took him to a park that he has been to numerous times before (he hasnt been there in a while though)...and he completely freaked out.

They have two ovals there (separated only by a small dirt road) and the first one i took him to there were about 3 dogs wandering around...there is a road in the background which is relatively busy...and the whole time he stood there with his tail between his legs. I decided to just do the assisstance skill as the dog enjoys that activity. So i went right back to step 1 with the piece of rubbish right next to the bin. It took him a good 5-10 minutes but he eventually started dong the skill (i didnt move the rubbish any further away)...although he was still quite scared.

I thought maybe if i took him to the other oval he may be a bit better. So i took him there and there were about 5-7 dogs running around. Again, it took him a while to get going, but he eventually started doing the skill (he seemed to be doing the skill better here)

Im not sure what was freaking him out...maybe the cars?, maybe the other dogs were distracting him too much? And im not sure how to go about getting him to perform the skill when he appears to be so scared/distracted?

[corvus]

Figure out what had him so worried and counter-condition him to it. Sometimes we just go a little too far too fast. If he isn't up to practising trained skills, you need to work on just getting him confident in the environment. I would start with just rewarding for his attention and basically teaching him that in this environment you are still the surest bet for rewards. Increase your reward rate so you're giving him something every second he's focused on you, but then release after a few seconds so he doesn't get distracted before you're done with him. Then just build it up from there.