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Engage-Disengage Game (for Reactivity) (Patreon)

Published:
2021-04-14 21:59:23
Imported:
2026-06
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Downloads

  • Engage Disengage Game.pdf
  • Engage Disengage Game.pdf

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Content

Posting this resource for a DoggyU member, but I thought everyone might want to see it (attached). This is an excellent info-graphic by Clickertraining.com and I'm not going to reinvent the wheel when they did such an awesome job creating it. 

That being said, if anyone's interested, my intention is to take some video of implementing this technique to help solve reactivity issues, so let me know if that would interest you! 

Comments

Amelia

If I were to go the verbal rather than clicker route, what verbal cue would be appropriate? "Look at me" or the dog's name? Look at me is a mouthful so maybe saying the dogs name would be easier but I could also see how that could be teaching a different command that may be problematic later? Would love your opinion. Thanks!

DOGGY•U
>>147758296

Hey Amelia - so there is no verbal cue here where you'd ask the dog to look at you. Instead you would use a marker cue (which technically is a cue to eat food, but I'm hoping I'm getting to the heart of your question). So you'd want to use a "yes" or tongue click. I will say that in practice, the noise of the clicker does seem to work better than verbal marker for this specific exercise, so using a tongue click might be a good alternative.

Timothy Larson

So my normal walks with Kenji (3 year old Pyrenees/Boxer/Multiple Shepherd mix) go south quickly whenever he gets within 50 yds or so of another dog that he does not know. He is "fine on walks", but many things distract him, and he does not listen well. This morning I packed hoping to do a decompression walk. So I had his breakfast kibble, some high value treats, and I looked at this Engage thing, but I thought, I probably would just walk him and hope I did not see anyone. Of course we immediately ran into a lab he does not know, and he started his "let me at him" bit, but it was far enough away I decided to try the Engage-Disengage game, and pulled out the normal treats, and was able to do phase one, pretty well. If he did not respond to clicker (happened 2x the whole walk), I moved the food next to his snout and he changed his attention to the food. We actually followed the distraction, I would wait a few minutes, and tell him to wait, and do the engage-disengage game. My wife had asked me when he would ever go to phase II (have to have read the pdf - it is harder for the dog). Well, I switched to a high-value treat (steak), and suddenly, he would look at the trigger, and the tastebuds would say, "I wonder if he has more steak?", and look back towards me making eye contact - awesome! Best walk in a long time. On the way back home, he would actually volunteer looks at me and walk behind me so he could catch my eye, and get rewarded. Best use of breakfast kibble ever!

DOGGY•U

Yay! This is awesome! And yes, it's typical for it to take several sessions to get to "phase two". Don't rush it. You want your pup to have a solid understanding of the game. You want to think of this game as changing his Conditioned Emotional Response (CER) to the trigger (dog). So what we're actually doing by pairing looking at you with food around the trigger is changing the dogs emotional response/feelings about the trigger over the long term so that dog doesn't feel the need to explode when seeing it. Plus, if you're going to feed your dog anyways, mineswell get better behavior for that food! :) Keep up the great work!! Yay team!

Rick Lees

this graphic is really great. I'd also be interested in seeing you demonstrate in a future video!

Rick Lees

This was HUGE! I did this with my foster today, and it helped us have a really good time when we otherwise wouldn't have, *and* I know he's building a foundation that'll help him later. It was time to go out for a bathroom break, and the neighbor's lawn had a mower and landscaping guys all over. I thought I ruined it by letting him see, bark, and pull, but we went to a quiet corner without line of sight, did some basic obedience to build some momentum, and then he was able to see the mower, come back to me, and stay in a low arousal kind of state! It was really empowering to, even when he had an unproductive behavior, to feel like I was doing something helpful and productive, instead of just running scared (me being scared lol) from the landscaper

DOGGY•U
>>59294485

Yay rick! This is awesome to hear! I do want to make a video of it. I have to find the right dog to do a video of it with but I have it on my list of things to do for sure!

The Dog Services

I am extremely interested in learning how to solve reactivity behaviors.. one of my biggest problems with one of my dogs. Thanks.

Lyne

Such a useful tool, one of my favorite.

Eli Bonilla

This is fantastic and I’d love to see it in action via video!

DOGGY•U
>>92535835

Hey Eli! If you search Patreon for "Engage/Disengage Example with a GSD" you'll find a real-life demo :)