Bridging the Gap: Training Your Reactive Dog at Home vs. on Walks

Do you have a reactive dog who is a perfect angel at home, but seems to lose all sense of hearing or ability to pay attention to you, as soon as you step out the front door? This is a common problem when training reactive dogs on walks. How can you increase difficulty and make progress when it’s easy for your reactive dog to respond to cues indoors, but impossible out on a walk? 

This fall we discussed our 3-part video training series on “Find it!” for reactive dogs in our Facebook group.  Discussing training videos with the group gives us a chance to give more details and answer questions about, among other things, how to train your reactive dog outside, without completely losing their attention. 

If you train a behavior like “Find it!” with your reactive dog indoors at home, and then try to train that same behavior outside on a walk, there’s a good chance that your dog won’t be able to make that jump, and the behavior will fall apart. But what can you do that is more difficult than indoors, but easier than outside the front door? 

We discuss these details and more in this Facebook live discussion. If you’re interested in getting more guidance about how to start training your reactive dog to “Find it!” outside, and around other dogs or other things they react to, our online Scent Work classes might be a good option for you.

Have you ever been stuck in your training because you didn’t know how to increase difficulty? What worked for you to get “unstuck”?  Comment below, or join us in our Facebook group!