Protocol for Relaxation by Dr. Karen L. Overall, 1997
This program is the Karen Overall's foundation for all her other behavior modification programs. Its purpose is to teach the dog to sit and stay while relaxing in a variety of circumstances. The circumstances change from very reassuring ones with you present to potentially more stressful ones when you are absent. The purpose of the program is not to teach the dog to sit; sitting (or lying down, if the dog is more comfortable) is only a tool. The goals of the program are to teach the dog to relax, to defer to you, to enjoy earning a salary for an appropriate, desirable behavior, and to develop, as a foundation, a pattern of behaviors that allow the dog to cooperate with future behavior modification (generally desensitization and counter conditioning). This protocol acts as a foundation for teaching the dog context-specific appropriate behavior. The focus is to teach the dog to rely on you for all the cues as to the appropriateness of its behavior so that it can then learn not to react inappropriately.
About Food Treats
This program uses food treats. Remember, the treats are used as a salary or reward-not as a bribe. If you bribe a problem dog, you are defeated before you start. First, find a food that the dog likes and that it does not usually experience. Suggestions include boiled, slivered chicken or tiny pieces of cheese. Boiled, shredded chicken can be frozen in small portions and defrosted as needed. Individually wrapped slices of cheese can be divided into tiny pieces suitable for behavior modification while still wrapped in plastic, minimizing waste and mess. Consider the following guidelines in choosing a food reward:
Foods that are high in protein may help induce changes in brain chemistry that help the dog relax
Dogs should not have chocolate because it can be toxic to them
Some dogs do not do well with treats that contain artificial colors or preservatives
Dogs with food allergies or those taking monoamine oxidase inhibitor (MAOI) drugs may have food restrictions (cheese, for dogs taking MAOIs [deprenyl])
Dog biscuits generally are not sufficient motivation, but some foods are so desirable that the dog is too stimulated by them to relax - something between these two extremes is preferred
Treats should be tiny (less than half the size of a thumbnail) so that the dog does not get full, fat, or bored
If the dog stops responding for one kind of treat, try another
Do not let treats make up the bulk of the dog's diet; the dog needs its normal, well-balanced ration
The Reward Process
Rewarding dogs with food treats is an art. Learning to do so correctly helps the dog focus on the exercises and keeps everyone safe. To prevent the dog from lunging for the food, keep the already prepared treats in a little cup or plastic bag behind your back and keep one treat in the hand used to reward the dog. That hand can then either be kept behind your back so that the dog does not stare at the food or can be moved to your eye so that you can teach the dog to look happy and make eye contact with you. The food treat must be small so that the focus of the dog's attention is not a slab of food but rather your cues. A treat of the correct size can be closed in the palm of the hand by folding the fingers and will not be apparent when held between the thumb and forefingers. When presenting the dog with the treat, bring the hand, with a lightly closed fist, up quickly to the dog (do not startle the dog) and turn your wrist to open your hand.
When starting the program, let the dog smell and taste the reward so that it knows the anticipated reward for the work. If the dog is too terrified to approach, you can place a small amount of the treat on the floor. Then ask the dog to "sit"; if the dog sits instantly, say "Good girl (boy)!" and instantly open your hand to give the dog the treat instantly while saying "stay."
Do not wave your hands or the treat around in front of the dog. This acts as a distraction and confuses the dog. Part of the point of this program is to make the dog calmer and less confused. Excitable behavior on your part or unclear signals can make your dog more anxious. This does not help.
It is important to be calm. Your dog will make mistakes. This does not reflect on you. Problem dogs and new puppies require a lot of patience. The people who have had the most success with these protocols have been those who work the hardest and most consistently.
The Protocol
The protocol is a program that was designed so that your dog could learn from it without becoming stressed and without learning to ignore the tasks because they were too predictable. The protocol intersperses long activities with short ones. You may have to adjust some activities to your particular needs. The pattern is actually spelled out in the program. It is preferable to reward the dog only for performing each task perfectly. If this is not possible for your dog, you can use a "shaping" procedure in which you first reward the dog for a behavior that approaches that indicated in the task. The next time you do the task, the behavior must be closer to perfect to be rewarded. If the program is done correctly, your dog will perform the task perfectly within a short time.
The protocol is a foundation for desensitizing and counterconditioning your dog to situations in which it reacts inappropriately. The pages can be used as one day's tasks, or you may proceed at the dog's pace (which may be faster or slower). Some exercises are weird (asking you to run in circles or talk to people who do not exist), but these can be very helpful in getting dogs to learn to relax in a variety of circumstances. Before you start the actual exercises, you must practice with the dog so that it can sit perfectly for 15 seconds without moving. Do this with food treats as described previously. Once your dog can sit this way and look happy and as if it worshipped the ground you walk on, you are ready for the more challenging stuff.
Remember that the keys to success are consistency and appropriate rewards. This means that, although we want you to work 15 to 20 minutes once or twice per day, you should work only for as long as both you and the dog are enjoying and benefiting from the program. If this means that you use six 5- minute intervals to accomplish three or four of the tasks that is fine. Please do not end on a bad note. If the dog's behavior is deteriorating or its attention is dissipating, do one final, fun, easy exercise and stop. By pushing the dog past its limits, you induce anxiety, and the dog backslides.
When the dog is able to perform all of the tasks and exercises both on- and off-lead in one location (the living room), repeat them all in other rooms and circumstances (the backyard or the park-use a lead here). When the dog performs all the tasks perfectly in all places with all household members, you are ready for Tier 2 of the protocols, which focuses on your dog's specific problems.
If at any point you cannot get past one task, try breaking that task into two or three component parts. If this still does not help, get in touch with your APDT trainer. He or she will be able to help you determine the root of the problem. Please do not just continue accepting suboptimal responses. The goal is to improve your dog's behavior. Videotaping while you work with the dog can help. Not only can you show the trainer what you are doing, but also you can be a more objective critic of your approach if you are not also an active participant.
Finally, remember that the dog will give you lots of cues about how it feels. We are rewarding the physical changes associated with relaxation and happiness and so will also reward the underlying physiological states associated with this (parasympathetic part of the autonomic nervous system). This means that if the dog is relaxed, its body is not stiff, the jaws hang relaxed and are not tense, the ears are alert or cocked but not rigid, its head is held gently at an angle, and the eyes are calm and adoring, you will be rewarding the nervous system responses that help your dog learn. If you mistakenly reward fear, tension, aggression, or avoidance, you will not make as much progress. If it is easier for you and the dog to be relaxed if the dog is lying down, do that.
Good luck, and do not get discouraged. Many dogs go through a period of 3 to 7 days when their behavior gets worse before it improves. For the first time in their life the dogs have a rule structure they must follow, and they get frustrated while learning it. As they discover they are rewarded for being relaxed and happy, their behavior will improve. These programs are more difficult for the people, in many ways, than they are for the dogs. Stick with it!
PROTOCOL TASK SHEETS
The task is listed on the left. To the right is a space for your comments about the degree of difficulty of the task for the dog, how many times it had to be repeated, or other questionable behaviors that appeared during the task. You should discuss these with your trainer at the reexamination appointment.
Remember after each task to verbally praise the dog and reward it with a treat for perfect performance before going on to the next task. Each set of exercises is designed for a day or a block of time. Warm- up and cool-down periods are provided.
At the first sign of any anxiety /lips retracted, pupils dilated, head lowered, ears pulled down and back, trembling, scanning/, return to an exercise with which the dog is more comfortable or break down the exercise that produced these behaviors into smaller steps.