While trainers who teach group classes are anecdotally aware of the impact that excitability can have on a dog’s ability to learn, it is only recently that the specific effects of arousal on dogs’ cognitive ability has been studied by researchers. This work is highly relevant to trainers because understanding more about the contextual nature of how dogs learn can help us to more effectively structure our classes, inform our clients and train our own dogs.
Linda P. Case, “The Inhibited Dog (Its not what you think)”. The Science Dog (30 March 2016).
Linda discusses the following study which investigates the link between cognitive performance and a dog’s emotional reactivity: EE Bray, E. L. MacLean, and BA Hare. “Increasing Arousal Enhances Inhibitory Control in Calm but Not Excitable Dogs”. Animal Cognition (Nov. 2015). Full text is freely available here.
The more classes Martin takes with Shade, the more he learns about the importance of managing Bosco’s arousal levels.
