In my last post, I shared how a cue like “sit” can pick up emotional baggage—especially when it’s repeatedly paired with something exciting, like a ball toss or the start of an agility run.
What starts as a clean, reliable behavior can get tangled up in anticipation and arousal. And suddenly, the cue doesn’t mean “put your butt on the ground” anymore… it means “get ready to explode.”
If you missed that post, you can read it HERE.
So now the big question: What can you do about it?
You can’t punish away Pavlovian interference.
You can’t reinforce your way out of it either.
But you can protect or INSULATE your behaviors from it.
Here are a few ways to insulate your cues – especially those that show up in emotionally charged moments, like the start of an agility run:
✅ Use varied reward placement
If every “sit” is immediately followed by a forward release and a chase reward, your dog will start to associate the cue with that surge of anticipation. Mix it up. Sometimes reward from behind. Sometimes break the pattern entirely.
✅ Don’t always release forward
If “sit” always = GO, then “sit” becomes part of the launch sequence. Build in sits that lead to nothing. Or to reinforcement that doesn’t involve motion. Let “sit” just mean sit again.
✅ Rethink what your cue predicts
If your cue always comes just before something thrilling, you’re not just cueing a behavior—you’re cueing an emotional state. Use neutral contexts to maintain the clean version of the behavior.
✅ Rehearse “sit” under different arousal levels
It’s not just helpful—it’s critical. Your dog won’t be in a low-arousal state when you cue a sit at the start line. That elevated arousal is part of the behavior context. So don’t just rehearse sits in calm conditions. Teach your dog how to perform the sit cleanly and confidently while amped up, so the behavior holds up when it matters most.
✅ Interrupt the launch sequence
If “sit” always cues the start of an exciting run, it can start to carry that emotional charge. One way to protect the behavior is to occasionally disrupt the pattern: after cuing a sit at the start line, ask for something else. A down. Back-up. Sit pretty. Then re-cue the sit. This kind of interruption creates flexibility and focus, and helps decouple “sit” from automatically predicting “GO.”
It’s not about reducing arousal—it’s about helping your dog stay responsive within it.
These strategies won’t erase emotional associations—but they can help keep your cues clean, responsive, and reliable, even when your dog’s fired up.
And that’s the goal: not to flatten excitement, but to contain it and allow you to focus and aim it productively!.
More soon,
—Daisy
P.S. This is part of an ongoing series on lessons I took away from the Kynology workshop. You can share, revisit, or read earlier posts here at the blog!
For those who aren’t Agility Challenge members already, but are curious about the training I offer, check out the free training available at The Agility Challenge Website!