Training Your Dog To Chase Squirrels
and why some dogs are so hard to train
If I asked you if your dog liked to chase squirrels, you’d probably say yes. It’s a pretty common dog thing, right? Even on leash, most dogs will go nuts trying to get a squirrel.
But did you ever ask yourself why this happens? Did you train your dog to chase squirrels? Did you reward them after the chase? Give them treats? Nope! That would be weird! So why does your dog do it?
Because it’s fun! Even though we aren’t rewarding them, they are being rewarded - with dopamine in the brain. The very act of chasing triggers dopamine, and a rush of feel-good chemicals follow suit. It makes the dog feel really good. The same way I get a rush of dopamine when I eat a slice of really good pizza… I don’t need a reward to want to eat pizza again — the very act of eating it is inherently rewarding. My brain will make its own rewards, thank you very much!
This is why certain breeds do certain things. Border collies stare and stalk because it’s inherently rewarding. It feels good. They don’t need to be rewarded by us - they ALREADY ARE rewarded, and with something far more powerful than a treat. Olive doesn’t need a reward to retrieve her ball — the simple act of doing it is powerfully rewarding. In fact, if I tried to give her a treat for bringing it back, she’d ignore it, annoyed that I’m slowing down the process.
INTERNAL AND EXTERNAL REWARDS
External rewards are rewards outside the dog.
treats
leash pressure stopping
the scary dog leaving
Internal rewards is when the rewards are all coming from the dog. It’s just fun. Things like chasing a ball, chasing a squirrel, digging a hole, herding cattle, barking, and chewing all tend to be internally rewarding. Now, where this gets tricky with training is that we do not control the reward - and the simple act itself is inherently rewarding. So let’s look at dog reactivity again. This time let’s look at my dog, Oak. Oak is dog reactive, but there is no external reward — he doesn’t want the other dog to leave. He just gets a big dopamine rush from having the outburst itself. The very act of barking and lunging feels good.
And these behaviors that are intrinsically motivating - like braking at dogs or chasing squirrels? They are difficult to train away with rewards. Because the very act I want to stop is a huge reward. Every single time Oak barks at another dog - it’s a huge setback in his training. He’s felt that sweet, sweet rush of dopamine and now he wants more - he needs more! Like an addict needs more. It’s why things like smoking, eating junk food, drugs and alcohol are so hard to stop —the very act is so pleasurable.
THE HARD-TO-TRAIN DOG
This is why some dogs are harder to train. An easy-to-train dog is highly motivated by things you have to offer (external rewards): food, play, affection and has a low motivation for those inherently-rewarding “bad” behaviors, like barking and lunging at other dogs or chasing squirrels.
My dog Sam was very easy to train. He was obsessed with food and didn’t care about other dogs. Squirrels were fun, but food was even more fun. If he were off leash and a squirrel appeared, I could recall him back because I held the all-powerful food, his main motivator.
Olive is harder. She likes food, but nothing compares to the dopamine of the chase. Training her to not chase squirrels will be hard, if not impossible, using food because chasing a squirrel is more rewarding than food.
Why am I talking about this? Because it can feel really frustrating to watch other dog owners sail through training quickly and easily while you’ve been struggling for months or years with your dog’s reactivity or their recall. And too many trainers will tell you that all dogs are easy to train with food - every dog needs to eat, right? But there are competing motivators that are better than food. There are dogs that are harder to train and need a different approach.
And if you’d like to learn more, check out my in-person and online training programs!