Last month, I discussed how dogs become fearful, leading to aggression with people, children and other dogs.This month, we explore ways to help the dog to overcome the fear.As with any dog problem involving aggression, please consult a trained and certified behavior specialist before trying any methods yourself.Dogs show fear in various ways.Like people, each dog has a unique personality and will show fear differently.Some will bark, growl, lunge or bite the object of their fear, while others will cower and try to run away.Nevertheless, when dogs show fear of someone (a stranger, a child, another dog), their reaction is ‘conditioned’.In other words, they have learned that when they are fearful of someone, if they react in a certain way, it causes the object of their fear to go away.As an example, a dog is afraid of a person approaching him.If he growls and lunges causing the person to go away, the dog has learned that his behavior gets the person to go away and he will repeat this behavior – conditioned behavior.The same is true for a dog who cowers in fear.More than likely, his owner will comfort him and tell him “it’s okay.”The dog gets rewarded for this behavior by the owner’s actions and the dog has now learned that he gets comforted when he acts that way.Another conditioned behavior.
Old-style dog trainers encourage the owner to break the dog of the fearful reaction by yelling “No,” popping the leash using a choke chain or prong collar, rolling the dog on his back or even smacking the dog.Incredibly, there is a franchise dog training group (Hint, it begins with a B!) that recently has become popular in many areas who use punishment techniques to stop the dog from fearful aggressive reactions.These dog trainers throw a chain on the floor near the dog to startle the dog and stop the behavior.All of these techniques are misguided.Why?Because these techniques are not teaching the dogs to get over their fears, and most importantly, punishment squelches the dogs’ natural warning system of barking or growling or cowering.Dogs trained to stop aggression using fear techniques will immediately go for the bite.All this type of training does is eliminate the dogs’ warning. Studies have shown that punishment techniques increase aggression.Punishing a dog for fear just confirms the dogs’ fears. “Yes, I see someone who scares me and I get punished and feel even more scared,” the dogs think.
Positive dog training methods have shown that ‘counter-conditioning’ a fearful dog is much more effective than punishment.The object of working with a fearful dog is to ‘counter-condition’ that ‘conditioned’ reaction, that is, teach the dog a new way to react.In other words, the dog now feels fear.Counter-conditioning teaches the dog a different feeling.Counter-conditioning is required for the dog AND for the dog’s owner.As the dog reacts now, he sees a person (child, dog) and feels fear.Counter-conditioning teaches the dog a different reaction.The idea is to teach the dog that ‘good things happen” instead.And counter-conditioning teaches their owners a different reaction as well.Let’s use a few examples to show you how this works: 1)Fluffy is afraid of other dogs and will growl, bark and lunge at them when out for a walk.Her owner now yells at Fluffy to stop, and yanks on the leash.Fluffy’s whole experience is negative when she sees another dog (getting yelled at and getting choked) and it reinforces her feelings that other dogs make her feel bad.The approach of counter-conditioning Fluffy’s reaction to dogs is to first show her owner that yelling and yanking are only making things worse.Then we need to get Fluffy to begin to think that good things happen when she sees other dogs.The use of high value treats when Fluffy encounters other dogs will begin to show Fluffy that seeing other dogs brings on good things. 2)Fido sees a child and dives under the bed in fear.The child really wants to hug Fido and chases him, trying to pet him.Fido feels trapped and his only means of protecting himself is to give a warning growl.His owner witnesses this event and scolds Fido.In Fido’s mind, he feels trapped, gets yelled at – all in the presence of a child.His worst fears about children are confirmed.Children make bad things happen.In this case, the owner needs coaching in three areas:show the child how to behave around dogs, understand that scolding the dog only makes the problem worse, and finally, counter-condition the dog to see that good things happen when the child is near him and acting appropriately.Just as in the example above, Fido must learn to associate good things with being around children.
I’ve just given you a very broad overview of how to counter-condition fear responses in dogs.Learning how to apply this information is complicated and requires more information and demonstration.