dog‘s signs of stress, modifies their dog‘s environment until anything but mild stressors have been removed. Some trainers call this process cocooning the dog, but it always results in stressors being significantly reduced to the point of where the dog feels safe. Control Unleashed calls this program a cortisol vacation because high cortisol levels positively correlate with stress. Common recommendations for cortisol vacations inOverview of the Program I had been using Control Unleashed based training at my clude: temporarily stopping walks, stopping exposures to the school for a year when I decided to use it on my own dog for feared stimuli: strangers, strange dogs or whatever stimuli have been identified in the initial stages. the problem described above. (Continued from page 12)
The goal of the training is to expand the sub-threshold zone. This goal can often be attained if the training plan is consistently compliant and if the dog is not being flooded. Any use of flooding will cause the program to fail.
For one month Zoomie did not go to a competition, or any place that caused the identified signs of stress. Zoomie was exercised and engaged in training as is normal. Zoomie was protected from experiencing his stressors of dogs within three feet of his face or tail area. Zoomie did not see the vet or Below is a graph that describes the goal of training in the groomer during this baseline time period. happy zone, and the concept of the dog being trained subthreshold at all times during the training process. For Zoomie, Relax sub-threshold was if dogs Relaxation prompts bemaintained a distance of haviors that are inconsisthree or more feet away from tent and incompatible his face or tail area, if a dog with being reactive or was less than three feet more aggr es s i ve. C ontr ol than two feet from his face or Unleashed advocates tail area he would start prompting relaxation and breath-holding and getting a then putting the behavior little stiff and finally if a dog on cue, hen working to was less than two feet from generalize the cue to difhis face or tail area he would ferent environments it is air snap. When Zoomie important to gradually — would snap at another dog through tiny steps increthis was the result of stress. mentally — increase the We knew this because he level of difficulty until you would begin to display stress reach the most problembehaviors the moment he atic environment. exited the vehicle that transported him to the trial. Teaching an aggressive dog to relax is a very selfThe vertical side of the graph reinforcing process. All shows the variable of stress human trainers must increasing. At zero there is no stress, a dog could be sleeping, themselves be relaxed in order for the training to be successful. or is entirely relaxed. As stress increases it positively correlates Zoomie had already learned the relax game prior to entering with the increase of frequency and severity of the display of the program; however training did now require for him to relax behaviors related to stress. These ―signs of stress‖ are individ- in several new areas of the house. There was no problem reual, but will increase in either frequency or severity until the garding stimulus control thus it seems the cue had been previdog reaches threshold. Once a dog goes over threshold the ously well generalized. following operants are triggered: growling, barking, lunging or even biting. A dog that is truly relaxed looks to have heavy limbs. It is important to actually achieve this state which in some cases can The entire the training process is sub-threshold. Any failures take months of time. I had started Zoomie on the relax game must lead to the modification of the training regimen to prevent at 7 weeks of age and it became self future failures. In Zoomie‘s case there were no failures since Zoomie Relaxed his trainer handled him proactively and because he rapidly progressed through the training program. The Control Unleashed program makes use of games to teach alternate behaviors, this article will analyze the program which is comprised of games, specific counter conditioning strategies and a means of assessing stress in dogs.
Intervention Stage 1 Stage one of Zoomie‘s intervention consisted of establishing a baseline (Cortisol Vacation) for one month.
Cortisol Vacation Cortisol vacation is what the Control Unleashed program refers to as the baseline. In order to establish a baseline, the trainer is armed with the concept of threshold and the knowledge of their
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