It is difficult to own a reactive dog and many people are familiar with the downward spiral of the reactivity increasing and increasing til you get to the frequent occurrence of a dog lunging uncontrollably on a walk whilst you the owner struggles to maintain hold let alone control.
This escalation occurs as the undesirable behaviour - lunging, growling, barking etc all reinforces the dog - the scary thing, another human, a dog, a bike goes away or the dog is moved away. However the stimulus is removed, to the dog that unwanted thing is now gone. In the brain when something triggers an action, there is a short term release of chemicals to support the learning process and a short term improvement in the motor skill - the lunging, barking etc. The more this occurs causes a physical alteration in the actual brain structure and as the dog continues to be “successful” at scaring away the bogey man it strengthens this change (it is reinforced) which is what is known as a neural pathway. This neural pathway of the undesirable behaviour is strengthened (reinforced) the more it occurs out on walks and so through this continued “practise” of reactivity, lunging etc becomes the dogs default.
Just like getting the dog bowls out for dinner your dog will suddenly appear - you probably haven’t taught that but for your dog it is a recognised stimulus that the dog reacts to with his case a positive behaviour of appearing in the kitchen.
However, the brain is adaptable, something called neuroplasticity - which means that you can form a new neural pathway in the brain that results in a behaviour that you do want instead of lunging.
“Middle” is a great behaviour to train and we use these chemical and physiological changes mentioned above to develop a new neural pathway for your dog that that can get more embedded and instinctive the more it is practised turning the old lunging behaviour into a dormant one and the new pathway the “middle” being the default.
The brain creates the behaviour of middle - and the practise of that “middle” changes the brain.
Start teaching a middle at home in low arousal areas only when you have the behaviour on cue - start teaching it outside.
When you start outside make sure there are no triggers so this behaviour can be reinforced before you put it to the test.
Slowly build up to having a trigger in a distance whilst you practice this behaviour.
You will find it useful to increase the value of the treats you use the closer you get to the trigger as you want the middle to be reinforced so choose your treats wisely. Really up the ante whilst you are training this new behaviour.
Keep repetitions few especially when you head into doing it around triggers - you want to keep your dog below threshold as increased stress can affect the ability to learn.
Slowly but surely is the way to approach this.
Always finish training sessions off with some play as this helps to solidify the learning.
For a video on how to teach a middle see