This is a foundational training exercise to help our dogs feel comfortable around their triggers!
Spot & Dismiss is a tried and true training game, utilized by trainers around the world – so there are a TON of different variations! This game is very similar to Engage-Disengage, Look At That, Popcorn & A Movie, and Tattle Training.
The basic underlying goal here is to teach your dog to calmly glance at their trigger then look at their handler. This game demystifies their trigger, shifts the source of reinforcement to the handler, and teaches them the functional de-escalation behavior of looking away1.
This game can be played anywhere – as long as our dog is under their threshold and is comfortable playing. With all things, start small and work your way up.
How To Play
- Start at a distance where your dog is unlikely to react to their trigger.
- When your dog sees their trigger, mark “Yes!” and feed.
- If they look to you for food after you mark, great!
- If they can’t look at you after you mark yes, place the treat directly in their mouth anyway.
- After a few reps, you may see your dog look at their trigger then back to you – this is what we want! Mark “Yes!” and feed them.
- As your dog gets over their trigger and no longer cares, you can reward them for ignoring their trigger.
At first, mark “Yes!” as soon as they look at their trigger. As they seem to get more comfortable and can stay relaxed while looking, you can wait longer before marking “Yes!”
Here’s some pictures of Leaf the Malinois playing Popcorn & A Movie when training in a hardware store!
Trigger Spotted
We are standing in a check-out line and somebody has just stepped up behind us. This is a mild trigger for Leaf – she doesn’t love people in her personal space, and will get up to make room if she is uncomfortable. Leaf turned to see who was behind us, and I marked “Yes!” and dropped a treat for her.
She easily looked away for her treat, and then ignored the new person behind her.
If Leaf kept glancing at her trigger, I would continue to mark and reward as long as she seemed to be calming down.
Trigger Dismissed
Look at her ears and her eyes:
Her ears are mostly upright and are pointed towards me, but are not rigid. This ear set tells me she is comfortable and attentive, not worried about anything else in the environment.
Her eyes are fully pointed towards me, and she’s not staring at anything out of the corner of her eye.
- In canine body language, looking away is a way of saying “I’m not interested” and de-escalating or re-directing away from an interaction. ↩︎
