Distraction = Zero Sum

Distraction for a working dog can come in many forms and reveal its self in wide variety of environments. The most commonly spoke about distraction is that of the environment. This distraction is often referred to as environmental instability. Pending the reason; this environmental distraction can be completely crippling to the work potential of the dog. The nature / nurture debate is heavily at play in many forums when discussing environmental distraction. As with most all aspects of working dog potential, in most cases both are involved. Dogs stability may also be spoken of in terms of nervousness.

The consideration of distraction is significant. It informs all phases of dog testing and training. It is the foundation to which the rest of the dog is built. During assessment and training, you must always be vigilant to determine if the distraction is trainable or not. The common lingo may be, if the distraction is “genetic”. However we have no real way of knowing the cause of a dogs distraction when you buy and test a 18 month old dog. What is critical is to look for recovery. Given limited exposure to a distraction; can the dog work past the distraction and work for an attraction.

There will always be a a slide between attraction and distraction, with neutrality being the ultimate desirable state. We must continually assess the ability of the attraction of the task to out weigh any potential distraction. The dog must show that the work attraction will outweigh any environmental distraction.

Distraction for the handler, officer or operator working with the K9 team also must not be present. Canine teams must ensure that they offer real operational advantages to a situation. They must not be a liability. There are far too many working dog teams that have not put the work into foundational skills to be able to manage stability and distraction in operational environments. It is important to think of handler / k9 team foundational skills like other operational mechanical skills where they should be over learned to a degree of automaticity. For example drawing a pistol from the holster. If an officer has not overlearned this mechanical skill, and require attentional resources to conduct, they are not fully seeing what they need to in the environment. If a K9 handler is worrying about or redirecting attention from the operational environment to management of their K9; they greatly risk losing SA and missing critical environmental cues. Having a dog that reliably lies down and it quiet on command is not about passing a certification on a field, it is about ensuring you can attend to what is critical in an operational environment; better enabling the handler to not consume attentional focus on the dog. Foundational foundational skills must be reliable. This distraction of the handler is not acceptable for operational work.

Distraction of support officers due to K9 instability is also not acceptable. If in training or operations, support officers / tactical officers are accidentally bitten by a police dog, the damage is significant. Having officers who are distracted by the dogs presence, makes the dogs presence a liability. Once support officers are in a situation where part of their attention is tuned to the dog; they are not attending to what matters in the environment. Humans can only attend to one thing at a time. There are already many competing draws for attention in a complex operating environment. Expert performance partially comes from comes from the education of this limited attention. Having a working dog draw on this attention is a liability. Ensure training and operational techniques support the importance of not adding to competing environmental distractions.

DISTRACTION IS A ZERO SUM GAME