The impact of distraction training on dogs’ learning and task performance – Presented by Carla Hart

Distractions that interfere with working dogs’ performance pose a serious risk to the safety of the dog, its handler, and others. For this reason, many training programs incorporate distractors similar to those the dog will likely encounter in their working environment. However, it is unclear whether distraction training impacts dogs’ learning and task performance. To investigate this, we assessed dogs’ ability to learn a spatial task in the presence of an acoustic distractor and found that dogs learned the task less effectively compared to a silent environment. We then tested dogs’ performance with a novel acoustic or visual distractor and observed that whilst dogs trained with an auditory distractor habituated faster to the novel acoustic distractor, the trend was not statistically significant. Based on these findings, it is recommended that the initial stages of training be conducted in a distraction-free environment to enhance learning speed.

Coming soon.