Reward-based training 💯13/02/2025
When thinking about ‘reactive’ dogs and tolerance thresholds, looking at neurobiology can offer some important insights. 🧠
Think about the phrase “practice makes permanent.”
This applies both to behaviours that we like and actively train, but also to behaviours that we don’t like, including reacting to other dogs (or people) by barking, growling or lunging.
Neurons and Behaviour : The neurons that are involved in picking up and transmitting sensory stimuli to different parts of the brain, are firing together to then make a behaviour happen.
And neurons that fire together, wire together.
This means that the more practice your dog has at barking, lunging and growling, the better he will get at it, AND the more likely he will be to do it again.
Behaviour can actually cause changes in the brain – physically and chemically.
Why Management Matters ⚙️
This is why it is so important to use management to make sure that these undesirable behaviours are not practiced, therefore allowing those neural pathways associated with the behaviour to undergo Long Term Depression (LTD), which means that they will fade away with lack of use.
Teaching Alternative Behaviours: For behaviour modification to be effective, it is critical that we teach our dogs a different, alternative behaviour to perform when presented with the same stimuli (e.g. other dogs).
So instead of barking, lunging and growling, we can form new neural pathways where seeing another dog means to look at the human and eat some treats.
In the same way as above, the more that this behaviour is practiced, the stronger the neural pathway will be, causing physical and chemical change in the brain, and the more likely it will be to be repeated. We call this Long Term Potentiation (LTP) and it means that those neurons will fire and communicate more easily, meaning that this behaviour will be preferenced over the undesirable one.
Neuroplasticity Explained 🌱
Think of this like making a brand new path through a field of long grass. At first it isn’t very clear, but after time and continuous use, the path widens and becomes the chosen route of many. It offers the quickest way through with the fewest obstacles.
This process of change, including LTP and LTD, is called neuroplasticity.
A Quick Word About Stress 😰
Learning and memory are supported by the BDNF (Brain - Derived Neurotrophic Factor) hormone. This hormone is less present when the stress hormone, cortisol, is raised. So your dog’s ability to learn new behaviours when they are feeling stressed by the presence of another dog/person/car is reduced.
Putting It All Together
This is why we suggest training new behaviours in a distraction free environment first, and using management to avoid those stressful situations.
