Enrichment has been trending in the dog training for quite some time now, but do you know WHY it's actually so important? It's not just about providing your dog with puzzles and distractions to drain their energy. Environmental enrichment that provides breed-specific biological fulfillment actually changes your dog's brain! It makes your dog's brain more flexible and open to learning.
This is ESPECIALLY important for behavior modification because we need your dog's brain to grow new neural pathways so they can learn and actively choose new behaviors. So while it may make sense for a short time to shrink your dog's world so they see less triggers, thus starting to balance stress hormones, you cannot rely on this forever. As your dog's world shrinks, so does their brain! They then become locked in behavior patterns much like you have them locked in the house!
It may take some effort at first, to get your dog to areas where they won't see too many intense triggers at close range. Sniffspots are perfect for this! If you don’t have to access a Sniffspot, try setting up some nosework games in an empty parking lot or abandoned field. Once you start providing appropriate environmental enrichment, your dog's brain will start to rewire and be better prepared for success in your training plan.
Rewiring your dog's brain isn't about avoiding triggers forever. While it is tempting to keep your dog "under threshold" at all times, so you don't have to deal with their big emotions, this will never solve the underlying problem. Memories which have been encoded in the dog's brain can only start to be changed when they are triggered! When the old memory is reactivated, new information can be added and the memory is then updated and re-consolidated. This is how we slowly re-write the program of reactivity.