Zooming. Most of us have heard the term. It describes a dog in a state of arousal running out of control. Usually zooming involves a dog running in big circles around his handler and often involves multiple helpers trying to catch the errant canine, which just builds the dog’s excitement for the game. All the while the handler feels helpless to stop or control the behavior. 

Having owned Boxers for 40 years and zooming being quite common in that breed, I learned early to manage the behavior. My first few Boxers learned not to zoom via the throw chain method. If they ran and wouldn’t come, I would toss a throw chain (extra slip collar) toward their rear end. The intent was not to hit the dog, but to show them that even though I am not as fast as they are, I can still “catch” them using the chain. That would break the behavior, at which point I could call them sweetly to me and everything would hunky-dorey. The dogs learned that I could take the fun out of zooming, so they stopped doing it. I worked to address this issue early, so none of my dogs ever zoomed in the competition ring. 

As years went by and clicker training came into vogue, new ideas were introduced on this topic. Gary Wilkes, who was an early associate of Karen Pryor, advocated using a “throw pillow” or “throw towel”. The principle of breaking the dog’s focus was the same, but he made it clear that the tools didn’t need to provide such a startle response. Shirley Chong was another clicker trainer whose seminar I attended. She had a different approach. When the dog started zooming she had the handler give the “no reward marker” (stop, don’t, uh-uh), then the handler would leave the vicinity and go out of sight of the dog, usually through a door. The handler was to count to 10 and come back in. This worked well and all of the dogs I saw handled in this manner learned fast that the handler leaving ruined the game. I don’t know how the method held up long-term, but at least the handler had a benign tool to regain control. 

A few dogs back I happened to get a Boxer that zoomed, not out of a state of arousal or to evade capture, but with pure joy of the run. She loved to run. Her motivation may have been different, but the result was the same – a dog that was not under my control. I came to revel in her joyous abandon and decided I didn’t want to take that joy away from her just to enforce control. In an effort to maintain her joy of life, I started thinking of ways to manage the behavior rather than eliminate it. I remembered methods used to control dogs that barked by putting the barking on cue, so I decided to see if I could do the same with zooming. First we worked heavily on random recalls. At any time, anywhere, while she was in a controlled frame of mind, I would call her to me for a high value treat. The faster she came to me, the more treats she got. I called it “rapid fire” rather than jackpot. I would feed her several treats, one after another, extending the reinforcement time. After that I set up “round robin” recalls. My husband (or a friend) and I would station ourselves on opposite ends of the yard with high value treats and call the dog back and forth to us. This sets up a strong response to the command to come. Through ALL of the recall work, when she came to me, I would reach out and touch the collar as I delivered her treat. This conditions the dog to allow you to reach for the collar without eliciting the “dodge away” response that so many handlers experience. 

The next step was to put zooming on cue. When she would start to run I would tell her to run and cheer her on. When I saw the glint in her eye that she was about to zoom, I would tell her to run. Once she would run pretty much on cue, I started adding the recall to the mix. I would call her out of the zoom for a high value treat, reach out and touch her collar, and immediately cue her to run again. This proceeded until she was tired. Gradually, I was able to not only control the zoom, but also to call her out of it and stop the behavior at will. The dog learning to regain composure and respond to a command during a state of arousal is a lesson in itself. As with all behaviors, once put on cue most dogs stop spontaneously offering a trained behavior, or at least offer it less often. In any case, it is under control. 

All of my dogs since then have learned to zoom on command by this method. My current Farmdog puppy is no exception. At this time she is 100% in her response to the recall command, and I have even been able to call her off of chasing a chicken at my friend’s house. So far – so good!