What the heck is protected contact?
Simply put, protected contact is a barrier between a learner and a trainer that allows both contact between the two and protection for both. Contact occurs in the form of the ability to give treats, toys, or petting, all-important for reinforcement in the early stages of training. Protection is offered by a physical barrier that cannot be easily breached by trainer or learner. Basically, protected contact could be a pen, cage, or even a separate room with an accessible door.
Protected contact is essential for zoo animals!
Trainers of zoo animals use protected contact on a regular basis, for obvious reasons. These wild animals can be dangerous. Though they may be somewhat tame, they are not domesticated, even if they were born in captivity. Humans may be common stimuli for them and they may even be conditioned to expect good things when humans are around. But these animals are often very large and/or have defense techniques available to them that can greatly endanger human trainers. We’re talking about not just lions, tigers, and bears (Oh my!) but elephants, Komodo dragons, Gila monsters, and more! For the most part, wild animals in captivity are always trained with protected contact.
Horses can be dangerous when they’re scared
Horse trainers also use protected contact. I learned the most about it from Alexandra Kurland, a wonderful horse trainer who taught me that the smallest details of training are the ones that matter the most. No, a real horse trainer doesn’t jump on a wild horse and let it buck until it gives up. Horse trainers who want quick and lasting results use behavior science to build desirable behaviors, piece by piece, just like I always write about here.
A horse that is fearful of humans is not safe to train at liberty. A trainer can use protected contact to build a training relationship with the horse that is based on voluntary interaction and safety. When the horse learns to engage in training, that good things happen through training, and that the trainer’s behavior is predictable, the two can work together at liberty, meaning there is no more barrier between them.
WHY use protected contact with dogs and cats?
Ten years in a large, open-intake shelter taught me about using protected contact for training dogs and cats. In shelter work, the benefits include temporal efficiency in addition to physical and behavioral safety. A day in the shelter has so few hours and requires so much animal care that every interaction matters a lot. Interactions while the animals are in their kennels or cages can produce valuable behavior modification.
With your own pet dog or cat, protected contact can be very helpful in terms of preventing behaviors you don’t want, like jumping up on people, running out the front door, being too mouthy or scratching you when taking treats or playing with you, and more.
Protected contact for training birds
My husband is a parrot guy. I like parrots, and we have had birds in the past who liked me a lot. But the one we have now, Jane the African Grey, works best for me while she’s in her cage. Her training sessions with me involve protected contact, while she and Derek do training at liberty. That’s OK with me.
Benefits of protected contact
Physical safety for animal and trainer
With protected contact, not only does everyone feel safer, they are safer. The trainer can’t get bitten, scratched, or kicked. Feeling secure, the trainer is not in a position to over-react to any sudden movements out of fear, which would probably scare the animal and create a cascade of negative events.
The animal learner
The animal learner may have a history of being threatened by humans. Part of a trainer’s responsibility is to make sure a learner feels safe. This is not only the humane thing to do but having a learner in a calm emotional state allows training to progress quickly and efficiently. With protected contact, the learner can choose to approach the barrier or not, because the trainer can’t get so close that the learner feels threatened.
The human trainer
When stressed or frightened, animals and humans defend themselves. Survival is a biological drive. Animals bite or kick. Humans hit, push, or swing items. Keeping learner and trainer in safe conditions prevents the emotional states that may lead to defense, as well as the physical contact. You would never intend to hurt an animal but feeling threatened drives your defensive response. Protected contact helps prevent you from being in a position where you feel threatened.
Behavioral safety
Barriers prevent behaviors you don’t want, sometimes the very behaviors you are working to change. When training dogs, protected contact can help prevent jumping up, grabbing food, mouthing, crowding the trainer’s personal space, and even running out the front door. A major training guideline is, “Prevent what you don’t want, reinforce what you do want.” Protected contact gives you the opportunity to do both.
How to use protected contact for behavioral safety
Imagine you are working to change a dog’s behavior of jumping up on people. When your canine learner is behind a barrier, he won’t be jumping up on you because he can’t reach you to do so. All four feet are on the floor and you can immediately reinforce a behavior you are already looking for – the opposite of jumping up. This is a common exercise used in some animal shelters. Reinforcing “4 on the Floor” creates calmer, more relaxed dogs who don’t jump up on people.
Protected contact gives the learner a choice
Choice is a critical component of training. Your learner should be volunteering to work with you. Given protected contact, you can easily observe whether he is. Did he approach the barrier when you arrived? If not, your first training goal has presented itself!
The animal’s comfort
How comfortable is the learner with your presence? You can learn a lot about him behind that protective barrier. Are humans a problem for him in general? Or do your movements startle him? Is he OK with your presence but afraid of the leash you’re holding? You can use all this information to plan your training, reinforcing behaviors you want and associating lots of different stimuli with good things.
Being aware of your own behavior is a huge opportunity in training. What did you do that resulted in your learner moving away from the barrier? Did you approach too quickly? Threaten him with a direct gaze? Move your hands too much? Learning these things now, with a protective barrier in place, can prevent mistakes that hold your training back.
The human’s comfort
Perhaps you are new to dogs, or you are training a new species for the first time. A guinea pig, cat, bird, reptile, horse, or goat may be new to you. Of course, you’ll want to familiarize yourself with the needs of this species and how they interact with the world. But you may also want to spend time training with protected contact until you understand the learner’s body language and can easily predict what is going to happen next with this species that you don’t know very well. I told you about our parrot, Jane, who I will probably always train with protected contact. That’s a “me” problem, not a “her” problem!
Survival
Some animals require such extreme environmental conditions that a barrier comes with the territory! For instance, if you are training a fish, an octopus, or another kind of aquatic creature, you may not be able to enter the environment that they require to live.
Surreptitious training
Protected contact can allow you to train your neighbor’s dog, the one that barks all the time, for your own benefit and theirs! No one even has to know what you’re doing. You can toss treats over or through the fence to reinforce quiet and other alternative behaviors, while the dog and owner remain at their own home, unaware of the behavior changes you’re making. Everyone can win.
HOW to put protected contact in place
Crates or carriers
Protected contact comes in many forms, some of which are ones that the animal is already comfortable with. Fearful animals may already feel secure within a crate or carrier, so that’s a great place to start your training. Don’t make them come out, work toward getting them to want to come out! Many rescue dogs and cats are fearful and the crate they came in is one of their few sources of security.
Fences
Jumpy, mouthy adolescent dogs are great options for training through fences. It would have been better if these near-adults were taught good manners before they reached this age, but now you have to do it! Putting your energetic adolescent in the yard and conducting training sessions through the fence helps prevent the jumping and mouthing you don’t want. Dogs can enjoy outdoor time on a nice day and learn better behavior at the same time.
Baby gates
Baby gates come in many sizes and styles. They are so helpful with a dog in your home! Using them to teach new behaviors also helps dogs learn to be calm and comfortable behind them, rather than challenging them by pushing through or jumping over them. Exercise pens require the same conditioning as baby gates and can also be helpful for training.
WHAT to do with protected contact training
Initial behavior assessment
Adopting a new rescue dog or cat can be fraught with unknowns. You can get to know a lot about your new pet while he’s still in his carrier. Planning your training should begin immediately, and observing his body language and movements inside the carrier helps you prepare. You can also find out if he is willing to take a treat or is too stressed, before you open the door. Make some predictions about what is likely to happen when you do open the door. Is he going to come to you or run away from you? Will he even come out of the carrier? Plan accordingly.
Ongoing behavior assessments
Assess how your dog is behaving when you return home after being gone. Even if he’s not in a confinement area, you don’t have to throw the door open and march inside. You can open the door just a crack first. Does your dog’s nose push right out when you do? Toss a treat inside, behind him, to counteract the behavior of running out, which is likely to follow. The same technique will help if your dog is likely to jump up on you when you enter.
If you add a baby gate or other barrier a little way back from the door you use to come in, you’ll have even more opportunity to create the well-mannered greeting you want.
Teaching alternate behaviors
Behaviors that contribute to your pet’s calm, friendly emotional state can be developed using protected contact. You can reinforce the simple act of perking ears up, other confident body postures, or a step forward. The best training begins with the details and protected contact allows you to focus on meaningful observations of your learner’s actions without having to be concerned about whether he’s about to knock you down. All the while, he is learning to associate good feelings with the activity of working with you, with your presence, and it all contributes to a calmer, more relaxed animal who is getting better at living in the human world with you.
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