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Utilizing set ups with an assistant and a helper dog, rather than relying on dogs from the general public, can be a critical component for many reactive dogs and their progress.

In this episode I discuss:

• What set ups are
• What you need to execute a set up successfully
• 5 common mistakes to avoid when executing set ups
• How to know when a dog is ready to move beyond set ups and into real life applications
• Q&A from listeners

Resources:

The 3 Ds in dog training articles:

Blog by Susan Garrett

Blog by Nicole Wiebusch

For Pet Professionals:

The Reactivity, Refined course and mentorship is designed to transform the way you work with reactive dogs, and help you connect the dots with your reactivity cases to help your clients reach their fullest potential. Registration for the September cohort opens July 15th, sign up to join the waitlist and be the first in line to register. With only 15 spots available, they go quickly!

For Pet Parents:

Struggling with your reactive dog? I guide pet parents toward real, lasting solutions by asking the right questions and addressing what’s often overlooked. Ge the help you need today.

Transcript

Welcome to my first solo episode. Today I’m going to talk about setups and how to avoid common mistakes. I want to start by saying that today’s episode relates a bit more to dog professionals, but I’m going to do my best to have this be digestible for pet parents as well.

In today’s episode, I am specifically referring to setups for dogs that are reactive on leash, and where there is an extra handler and a helper dog brought in. I want to acknowledge that there are many different types of setups, including ones that you can do as a solo team when you’re out with your dog, such as practicing around a dog park or a vet clinic, and I want to touch on those variations in some future episodes.

I want to first define what a setup is.

Now, to my knowledge, there isn’t. A [00:01:00] dictionary definition of setups, but what I like to define them is as strategic exposure for reactive dogs. And essentially what we’re doing with this exposure is we are replicating a scenario that you are going to come across with a reactive dog, but in a way that is contrived.

So it’s contrived because we have a helper dog and. A person handling that dog, and they are there to help us create these scenarios.

When you have your training goals in mind and you’re trying to build your dog skillset out in the world, it can be really difficult to do that when we don’t have as much control over the environment. We all know this. You go out in the world with your reactive dog, you have no idea who you’re gonna come across, how close other dogs are going to come towards you, and maybe you go out and perhaps there’s actually nobody out for you to practice with. [00:02:00] So that makes it challenging. The big benefit of setups is that we’re able to really hone in on a very specific environment that is going to set your dog up for success and help them learn in the most efficient way possible.

Let’s talk about what you need. To create a setup. First I’m going to suggest that you do this in a quieter environment than what the dog is normally used to. Preferably with fewer distractions, because I really want this dog to be able to focus on the task at hand and not be overwhelmed with lots of other things that are also going on in the environment at the same time.

And you’re going to need an assistant and a helper dog. We also need to have a general game plan in mind. What exactly are you trying to teach? The reactive [00:03:00] dog.

Are there specific behaviors that you had in mind that you wanted to build and. If so, where are you currently at with these behaviors, with this dog, and where do you wanna go? What types of improvements are you looking to make? Having a general idea of what behaviors you are wanting to enhance during the setup is really important, and it helps give you a focus on what to be executing during this time.

So mistake number one is you’re not doing them. If you’re trying to implement your training plan and you’re taking a reactive dog out in the real world and simply hoping for the best, I am going to argue that this is not the most efficient way to modify your dog’s behavior.

When you do setups, you take the guesswork out of your training and it allows you to build confidence with both the handler and [00:04:00] the dog, and by practicing in a more controlled environment, this sets this team up to be able to handle the real life scenarios that they are going to encounter as they are ready.

The reason why this is so effective is because we are essentially controlling the intensity of the other dog and person that you are practicing around with your reactive dog. It allows us to keep the reactive dog under a threshold that is needed for optimal learning. And it also allows us to hone in on really specific scenarios.

We can change things such as the position or the movement of the other dog. We can even change the appearance of the other dog, such as choosing a dog that might be larger in size, smaller in size, or perhaps a particular breed of dog that the reactive dog finds extra challenging. When we’re [00:05:00] implementing setups, it allows us to be more effective with things such as systematic desensitization because we have control over how close you get to that other dog and how intense the other dog appears.

Now you might be thinking, okay, well this sounds great in theory, but where the heck am I going to find a person and another dog that I can practice around?

And I’m gonna be totally honest with you. You are going to need to do a little bit of legwork to make this happen, and let me give you some ideas of how to do so.

First, we need to find a trusted handler that is going to be able to handle the dog in the presence of your dog. And. I want to acknowledge that depending on where you live and depending on what sorts of resources you have, this might be something that is pretty easy to find, or this could be something that is more difficult to find.

Here are some things that I tend to lean on when [00:06:00] I need to bring in an assistant with another dog. Sometimes I will ask another dog professional, so this could be a dog walker. It could also be a vet tech from my local clinic. I might also ask a neighbor, I. Or a friend or family member when you are asking these people to come in and help you, we want to make it worth their time.

So perhaps this is a scenario where you might be able to trade some sort of service. Maybe there’s a favor that they can do for you, which is helping you with your dog, and perhaps there’s a favor that you can do for them in exchange for that. Maybe you compensate them. That’s what I do for my assistance is they receive compensation for their time because I want to make it worth it to them to help me.

And let’s make sure that we’re talking about the dog that is going to be ideal for helper dog work. This is a dog that needs to be fairly neutral towards other dogs. They don’t need to [00:07:00] be neutral in the sense of interacting with your dog because when we are doing setups, our goal is to be doing some skill building, not necessarily having the dogs interact.

And I do wanna make sure that is clear because my approach for. Introducing two dogs is probably gonna be far different than it is by doing this specific type of setup. So with that being said, this does not have to be a dog that’s comfortable interacting with your dog. In fact, all we need is this dog to be neutral in the sense that they’re not doing any sort of excessive staring towards your dog or pulling towards your dog.

This should be a dog that can essentially just ignore you. And focus on their handler and mull about while they’re out in public as you practice around them. I would also say that before you go into this training session, that you have a conversation with the other person so that you are both in agreement of what you [00:08:00] guys are doing, where you guys are going to be positioned, and how you guys are gonna be able to communicate with one another.

For some of my assistants, I will do some hand signals because we’re close enough together where I might just be able to wave or do a couple of basic hand signals. That means, you know, come closer or move farther away. Depending on how much distance your dog needs to stay under threshold, you might need to.

Send them a text message or hop on the phone and call them. I know some trainers who also use walkie-talkies in these scenarios, that way you have a way to communicate with the assistant without needing to shout all the way down the street to let them know what you would like them to do.

Mistake number two, the helper dog is too muted, and what I mean by that is the helper dog is not in motion enough or not obvious enough to the reactive dog. [00:09:00] This might be because the helper dog is laying down or simply not moving at all. And I wanna share a little story about how I learned this lesson and how it really blew up in my face.

So that way when you do a setup, you can not repeat the same mistakes that I made oh, years ago. When I first started working with reactive dogs, I thought I was doing everything right. I had a helper dog and an assistant come in and they were laying down in the grass. The dog was, the human was standing, and I had my client and their reactive dog, and I was practicing all sorts of things, some leash walking, going back and forth, and eventually getting closer and closer and closer.

And my client’s dog was doing fabulous. I had never seen the dog do so well in the presence of another dog, and I probably got to about 15 [00:10:00] feet from the helper dog when the helper dog decided. Well, I’m kind of tired of laying around here in the grass, so I’m gonna stand up. And you know what happened? My client’s dog exploded.

Now looking back, this is very, very obvious to me, but I was a baby trainer at the time. I did not know any better and I didn’t think about how relevant it would be for the movement of the helper dog to the reactive dog that I was working with. So moral of the story is that it is really important that.

The reactive dog sees the helper dog standing and moving to ensure that you’re able to measure what their response is to that first before you begin to get closer.

And. While having a dog be in those really kind of quiet [00:11:00] positions, I do think that that could be really helpful for some dogs, but we want to make sure that we’re not getting too stuck with keeping that dog’s movements too muted for too long, specifically if you start to decide to decrease distance. And this leads me into mistake number three, which is decreasing distance too soon.

I know that most people with reactive dogs have a goal of wanting to get closer to other dogs. Believe me, I know that. I know that is your goal. However, I. When you are doing setups or even when you’re just practicing out in the world with your dog, in general, I am going to argue that you do not focus on decreasing distance.

I am going to argue that you should be focusing more on the level of distraction and level of difficulty that you are asking your [00:12:00] dog to respond to. In the dog training world, we have something called the three Ds, which stands for distance, duration, and distraction, and there’s sometimes a fourth D, which is called difficulty.

Depending on where you find your information from, sometimes this doesn’t include the difficulty part. I don’t wanna dive too much into the three Ds in this particular episode, but I am going to throw some links with some helpful articles on what exactly those are in the show notes, so be sure to check that part out.

Before I decide to decrease distance. I am going to adjust. Many of the other variables First.

And if we were going to think about this. Through the lens of the three Ds, with the level of distraction being one component that we are using to build this dog’s behavior, I am going to [00:13:00] adjust the level of distraction with the helper dog before I adjust distance. And this could look like many different things.

Maybe this looks like the helper dog staying engaged with the handler and not necessarily facing me and the reactive dog that I’m working with.

When that part looks good, then I’m gonna think about making that more distracting for the reactive dog. By asking the handler to change positions, could they start having their dog facing the reactive dog that I’m working with, so that way I can start to build the dog’s comfortability with that particular variable.

I might also add other things such as how quickly the helper dog is moving around. Initially, when I talk about the helper dog being too muted, that might mean really slow movements, [00:14:00] and if I’m trying to increase the level of distraction, I might start having the helper dog be moving more quickly or be more animated with its movements.

And all of this is going to help. Build the level of distraction that I’m asking the reactive dog to perceive and work around. We might also describe this as the level of intensity, so I’m making the helper dog more intense for the reactive dog with the goal of teaching it, how to be aware that that’s happening in the environment and how to feel comfortable with it.

Let’s touch on the level of difficulty of the behaviors that you are asking the reactive dog to do.

You should be asking for some behaviors that the reactive dog knows well, something that’s easy for them to do. And this eases them into the process rather than setting [00:15:00] your criteria too high and your reactive dog not being able to meet that criteria and perhaps feeling frustrated or not getting enough information about what it is that you want them to be doing in that moment.

So I like to start with the level of difficulty in terms of the behaviors that I’m choosing to be on the low end. I like to build to more difficult behaviors as the dog’s comfortability increases around the helper dog. And this is another variable that I like to play around with before I decrease distance.

I’m gonna give an example here. Let’s say you’ve got your reactive dog and they are rehearsing some version of Look at that, or the engage part of Engage Disengage, which is essentially when the dog notices another dog and you mark and feed for them. Just noticing that is going to be. [00:16:00] Pretty easy for a lot of reactive dogs, especially when the helper dog is far enough away and they are well under threshold.

What could be more difficult would be for the dog to notice the other dog and then do something different. It could be orienting away from the helper dog. It could be orienting away from the helper dog and checking in with you. I think if we were going to put each of those behaviors on a level of difficulty, most people would agree.

You know, looking at another dog and getting reinforcement for that is easier for the dog to do than for the dog to notice that other dog and then be able to orient away. So before I close. Distance. I make sure that my reactive dog has the ability to notice that other dog and orient away, especially if this is something that I have already rehearsed with this dog.

So it’s a familiar behavior for them.

The reason [00:17:00] why I adjust distance last is because I don’t wanna run to a scenario where I wasn’t able to gauge the dog’s comfortability with another variable, and it causes a reaction from the dog. Just like the story that I told you about where I made the helper dog inadvertently too muted for the reactive dog that I was working with, and I got this false sense of security thinking the dog was okay, when really it was only okay under very specific conditions, which was the helper dog staying in a down position.

In my experience, I tend to get a more robust set of responses from my reactive dog clients when I am asking them to be around another dog in a whole variety of circumstances at a distance, and then start to decrease [00:18:00] proximity. Because proximity is the most straightforward variable to adjust. I like to save that one for last.

Mistake number four, changing one variable and not testing it out with enough repetitions.

Lemme give an example of a variable that you can change and how it might backfire. If you don’t do enough repetitions to essentially test out the reactive dog’s comfortability with this change, let’s say. You have your helper dog begin to walk towards you. They’re not gonna come too, too close, but they’re certainly starting to walk in your direction.

And then they turn around and they go back the other way, and then they turn around and they walk towards you again. So you’re essentially practicing with another dog walking towards you for a short period of time before they turn around. And this is a [00:19:00] great way to help the reactive dog become more tolerant towards another dog, approaching them, and it gives you an opportunity to practice this very common scenario that you’ll come across with a reactive dog when you’re out and about in public.

So let’s say. You have the helper dog, they’re walking towards you, and then they’re supposed to turn around at a certain distance, and the very first time that you change this particular variable, the dog that you’re working with, which is the reactive one, does just fine. Their response is great, and you think, gosh, this is great.

And you decide after only doing one repetition, Hey, I’m gonna have my assistant. Bring their helper dog even closer now since I saw some success with the reactive dog. And then they start to come a little bit closer, and at that point, the reactive dog that you’re working with starts to become really uncomfortable and starts to bark and lunch.

So even though [00:20:00] they appeared to be comfortable with the helper dog, if you only do one repetition, I tend to find that it doesn’t give us enough data to really. Confirm that the reactive dog is indeed comfortable with what we’re exposing them to.

So I’m a big fan of doing the three times rule, and what this is, is you repeat the same change in variation three times in a row. Nothing else changes. You are asking the same thing from the reactive dog. The helper dog is doing the same thing. You do three in a row and you’re looking that the reactive dog’s responsiveness stays the exact same.

I. And what I mean by that is we’re looking to see that they don’t become more intense or more uncomfortable the more that they are exposed to this. If they do not display that, and you [00:21:00] start to notice that, gosh, by the third repetition, the reactive dog is actually starting to stare even more or become more tense with their body language.

That’s telling you that repeated exposure is actually not helping the reactive dog, that there’s something about what you’re doing. That is making them more and more uncomfortable. And initially they were able to handle that a couple times, but the more they’re exposed to it, the less comfortable they become.

If that happens, it’s just information. It’s not a big deal. Just simply go back to what you were doing before or change something else about what you’re doing to make sure that you’re setting the reactive dog up for success. The way that I can tell that I’m on the right track is that by repetition number three, I actually tend to see that the dog becomes more comfortable.

With the scenario, they might be faster to ignore the other dog. They might [00:22:00] show more relaxed body language the more that they’re exposed to it, and that’s what I’m looking for. I’m wanting to repeat the same repetitions until I get a more relaxed response from the reactive dog. And then I might decide to change another variable after that.

But until I get to that point, I’m keeping. Everything the same. The criteria that I’m setting for the behavior for the reactive dog I’m working with, what the position of the helper dog is, what I’m having them do. Everything stays the same until I can gauge the dog’s response to just one change at a time.

This leads to mistake number five, not creating enough variation, making it look too different from real life. Now, this might sound a little contradictory because I was just sharing how important it is to be aware of changing only one variable at a time. But you know what else is really [00:23:00] important is making sure that your overall long-term goal with these setups is to have it replicate something that looks like the reactive dog is going to encounter in real life. In my experience, reactive dogs tend to catch on to setups fairly quickly.

They understand, hey, this actually looks a little different from other dogs that they encounter. On walks. They start to realize that, Hey, you know what? The helper dog just seems to be going back and forth on the same section of this block, and therefore becomes really easy for the reactive dog to cope with.

And while that can be really helpful for them learning and building your skillset and making sure that the reactive dog is staying under threshold, all of that’s great. But if we get stuck and not vary it enough for the reactive dog, then that transition from setups to real [00:24:00] life is going to have too many gaps in it.

Some of the things that I’d like to do when I have run through many different variables and I have started to decrease the proximity between me and the helper dog, when I get to that point, I then start to change where that helper dog is located. Instead of having them be in the same section of that environment, I will often move away with the reactive dog and come back out into that environment and have the helper dog be positioned somewhere else.

I want to add this variation because it lends to helping the reactive dog learn to cope with seeing other dogs in a variety of different contexts in their environment. In addition to changing where that helper dog is located, I’ll also mix in a variety of setups. So sometimes I’m in motion and I’m going past the helper dog.

Sometimes I’m stationary and the helper dog’s going past me. Sometimes I might have the helper dog go outta sight [00:25:00] and then pop insight. Sometimes I might take the reactive dog at a site, round a corner and then pop into sight of the helper dog down the way. I like to add in a lot of variation of what this reactive dog is going to encounter in real life.

I will also change the environment completely. This is done typically on a couple of different training sessions, but I would also change the environment to perhaps a different part of the neighborhood, or maybe we’re meeting at a park, but essentially somewhere that’s totally new for the reactive dog.

Depending on how sensitive a reactive dog could be to those types of changes, I do find it to be really helpful for those environmentally sensitive dogs to practice around the same helper dog in a new environment. So I ask the same handler and the same helper dog to come back. So that way there’s some familiarity for the reactive dog as they are [00:26:00] navigating this new environment, but they are practicing around a dog that they feel safe with.

You might be wondering, okay, well the setups sound great and all. I can see how they’re really useful for skill building, but how am I supposed to know when I can go beyond setups and just start practicing in real life? And my answer to that is it’s going to be different for every single dog. I will do setups for a reactive dog who copes pretty well out in the world, but it’s just something really specific that they struggle with.

Maybe it’s something like when another dog suddenly appears they have a very difficult time. Coping with that particular scenario, but they’re pretty darn good at coping with other scenarios. Then I might just take that dog out in the real world as I am working with them, but then do some specific setups to really address the pop outs.

This could also be a scenario where if I’m working with a client’s. [00:27:00] Dog who has a very difficult time staying under threshold. I might need to do several sessions with setups and really build in this dog skillset before I feel like they’re ready to go out in the real world and practice around dogs that they are less familiar with.

If your reactive dog has a solid skillset under their belt and you as their handler feel like the vast majority of time you are able to be successful with your reactive dog, then setups are probably not necessary at that point.

But if you find that there is a specific scenario that your dog consistently struggles with and you have not even done one setup. To help your dog really understand how to do something different in that situation, then that could be the missing piece to your training that we need to scale it back for your dog, help build their skillset more, and then head back out into the real [00:28:00] world.

I wanna thank some listeners for sending in their questions regarding setups, and I wanna take some time to answer a few of those. I. First question is from Hannah. She asks, the most challenging piece is often when someone interrupts the setup, maybe a person approaches or another dog. Can you talk about some strategies to kindly guide these people away so that it doesn’t disrupt your client dog?

That’s a great question, Hannah, and I hear you on this. It’s not easy to do setups specifically if you’re doing them out in public. And what makes this challenging is that if you’re working in a public space, we don’t really have ownership over who gets to come and go out of that environment. And even though we might try to do this at a quieter time of the day, inevitably someone’s probably going to walk through this environment or appear in this [00:29:00] environment.

I usually approach this a couple of different ways. I make sure that my assistant. It keeps their eyes out for people and or other dogs that happen to be coming my way, and I ask them to do this because I’m often so engrossed in coaching my client or handling their reactive dog. I don’t have the bandwidth to also be scanning and trying to see if anyone else is coming on the scene.

So I will have a very specific alert that my assistant will give me if another dog is coming. That way I can remove my client’s dog from that environment or move at a far enough distance to where I can keep them under threshold and make sure that they don’t have a reaction.

If someone happens to come right in the middle of the training session and I feel comfortable leaving my client and their dog, a lot of times I like to approach this person and I. Do it in a way that’s [00:30:00] really disarming. What I usually do is walk up and introduce myself. Hi, I’m Jessica. Gosh, your dog is adorable.

What is their name? And I start a little mini conversation with this person just to make sure that they feel comfortable with me and that I’m not coming across as being rude because. This person’s doing nothing wrong. They’re walking in a public space, and then I will give them a little bit of a rundown of what I’m doing.

Hey, so I’m a dog trainer and this is my client. They’re, they’re way back there. You can’t see them, and we’re working really hard on their training around other dogs, and this is my assistant over there with their dog that we’re practicing around and it’s really hard for my client’s dog to see multiple dogs at once.

So we’re gonna kind of hang out back there and wait for you to move on through, just to make sure that my client’s dog doesn’t get too overwhelmed. If you were gonna stay in the space, let me know. ’cause then maybe we could move. So I’d like to give some options because [00:31:00] I don’t think it’s entirely fair for me to just ask the person to leave. I do tend to find that.

Complimenting them on how cute their dog is. Everybody likes to hear that. So that’s always a really great way to come across as just a, a friendly member of society and would probably make them more willing to wanna work with us than if we come over and start to demanding or asking things that might be too big of an ask to ask somebody from the general public.

So really at the end of the day try to ask really nicely, explain a little bit about what’s going on. Most people are very understanding. If they’re not understanding, don’t make a big deal about it. Just move and let them know where you’re going to be in the hopes that they don’t continue to walk over and ruin your training session.

Okay, and next we have a question from Natalie.

She asks. How do you suggest working on reactivity when [00:32:00] the weather outside is too hot or cold? I feel like during the summer I’m limited in what I can do because of our hot temperatures. Oh, that is a tough one, Natalie. I have a couple of different thoughts on what could be some viable solutions here. Of course, when the weather is too hot or too cold, it. Does make it difficult to practice outside, and most trainers that I know don’t have indoor training facilities. So this means that we kind of have to be outside and hope that the weather is going to be suitable for us to practice out there.

And that’s not always the case. That means that we have to get a little bit creative about where we could practice with our clients’ dogs, especially if you happen to live in an area where the weather simply does not permit working outside for a period of weeks or for some of you months at a time.

I will say. [00:33:00] If your reactive dog caseload is fairly high, it would be well worth it for you to invest in finding some sort of indoor climate controlled space that you can rent. This might be a dog daycare, it could be another type of warehouse facility. Maybe that’s not even related to dogs whatsoever, but something where it’s an indoor space that you have access to. Now, a note on the indoor spaces They tend to be really sterile and that does not always lend itself really well for reactive dogs.

I like to practice setups in a rich environment, meaning I want there to be things for the reactive dogs to explore. I love having different scents around so that way when they’re in this environment, they are busy looking at other things and engaging in other things that are not necessarily to do with the other dog that’s present in the room [00:34:00] with them.

If you’re doing this in an indoor facility, this might also mean that you need to have some physical barriers in place as well, because the reactive dog might not be able to handle the site of the helper dog given the size of the building itself.

Another solution would be to find a private. Fenced space that has pretty good lighting that you might be able to use either first thing in the morning or after dark.

Personally, I have used a lot of sniff spots for my clients and when I’m a repeat customer at a specific sniff spot, a lot of times I get to know the owner and I might send them messages. Hey. Your spot is really, really helpful for my reactive dog clients. I’d love to use it more regularly.

Is that something that you would be open to working with me on? And I have found that many of the owners are super open to that idea, and this has been something that’s been really helpful [00:35:00] for me because I know that I have a safe. Fenced area that I have access to, that I’m able to practice in.

Now, of course, if you’re doing this after hours, excuse me, if you’re doing this after dark, you do need to make sure that there’s some degree of sufficient lighting around, but I think that that is a very viable option. That is also fairly low cost. Of course, you’re gonna need to build in. The cost of renting a space and or renting a sniff spot with the cost of your lessons.

So as trainers, make sure that you’re building this cost into your overall service fees. But I think when it comes down to living in an environment where the weather might be too intense to be practicing. Side. We do need to think a little bit outside of the box of, okay, well if I can’t do it at certain times of the day, is there an indoor place that’s gonna suffice for my needs?

Or is it possible that I need to do a little bit of legwork [00:36:00] and find an outdoor space that could also fit my needs?

I hope this helps and for any other listeners, don’t forget, you can send me your questions for me to answer on the solo episodes of the show.

You can send me a voicemail or you can send me an email. Be sure to check the show notes on how to do so. Thanks for being here, and I’ll see you next time.