Episode #126 Fearful Behavior with Barbara Cannon

Baxter & Bella trainer, Barbara Cannon, joins Amy to discuss fearful behavior in dogs. Learn how to recognize it, how to handle it and help your dog move past it. 

Transcript

Amy: 0:00

This is the puppy training podcast episode 126 Fearful behavior. This podcast designed to help you on your journey of becoming best friends through love and learning as you train your own dog from home, and I'm here to help you every step of the way. This is the puppy training podcast. And I'm your host, Amy Jensen. Hello, everybody. Welcome to the puppy training Podcast. I'm so glad you're here. Today, we are talking about fearful behavior in puppies and dogs. What it looks like what it is, how do we help them with it. And I have Barbara cannon here. She's one of the trainers here at Baxter & Bella, to discuss it with us. So welcome, Barbara. Thanks for coming.

Barbara Cannon: 0:45

Thanks, Amy. It's nice to be here.

Amy: 0:47

It's good to see you again. I guess we see each other often. But I'm excited that my clients get to hear a little more from you today. So let's start off with just how fear develops in dogs. What have you learned about that?

Barbara Cannon: 0:59

Well, I've done some research about it. Because I've been training, I've trained a couple of fearful dogs in the past. And there is some evidence that there's a genetic component with some dogs. So I think for our clients, it's important to always do your research, when you're looking for a puppy, try to meet the parents if you can. I think that's an important part of it. There's also recent evidence that sometimes fear can happen in the prenatal state. We don't have any control over that though, the thing we do have control over. And I think the thing that's the most important is socialization. And really can impact a dog's development along the way. And you talk a lot about it on the website about that critical period of socialization that starts at about three weeks, and goes to 16 weeks. And I want to say to people keep going with it, it doesn't end at 16 weeks, it goes on for another, you know, while forever, really but you know, the first two years of a dog's life are very informative for them. And the more experiences they can have through socialization, the more important it is. And we also talked about fear periods during a dog's development, and that we sometimes see it at the eight week to 10 week stage. And then again, I have seen it in in adolescence, where a dog is with heightened emotions and is in that developmental stage. So sometimes those things pop up at those critical periods. And it's important to know how to handle that when you see it. I always think I like to think of a dog's development very much like a child. So a baby, a one year old, they're open to every experience, and you want to take advantage of that, you know, everything is new, nothing is scary, everything is new. But as they get older, they start to learn from different experiences. And if they're negative experiences, they're going to develop fear from that experience. If it's a positive experience, they're going to be more positively motivated towards certain things. So as as a child, and as a dog gets older, their window for being innocent, let's say it gets smaller. And you know, they as they get more experienced in the world. So we always want to try and make those experiences as positive as possible.

Amy: 3:21

Yeah, I love that. So I actually have a story that relates to this today, because Baxter is he's about a year and a half. And we've been going into the high school to do some therapy work. And he saw a coat tree for the first time. So it was a had maybe four or five coats hanging off of it. And it threw him for a loop. And you know, we've done our socialization, and we've worked really hard to get him to experience lots of new things. But I definitely saw a fear reaction in him. And so this can happen, like you said, at any stage of life, it can just come along. And maybe it's just some random thing that all of a sudden, we notice, oh, our dog has an issue with that, and then we can help them work on that. So as we move into that direction of topic, I guess, let's talk about counter conditioning, and explain maybe what it is, and describe an example of how we would use it.

Barbara Cannon: 4:11

Sure. Counter conditioning is actually a technique that I use a lot. It's basically changing your dog's perception of something negative into something positive. So you always want to approach something that a dog has had a negative association with. Usually from a distance, we're going to talk about threshold training, so but I find that they go hand in hand nine times out of 10. We're going to do counter conditioning, along with threshold training, but usually from a distance and having a new experience a better experience with something that the dog has had a negative experience with it which is why we call it counter conditioning. An example that I can use as I was training a really lovely Golden Retriever named Melton. and mountain had a little anxiety he was a little bit of an anxious dog. And we were walking on a bike path when somebody on a bike came swooping in on us and like cut us off and freaked him out. So I had to go all the way back to a bike parked and walking up to that bike from a distance. And getting him calm, was seeing the bike parked, and rewarding him when he was calm, it's important to only reward in counter conditioning, when the dog is calm, we don't want to use any kind of rewards to lure them to something, we want them to make a choice about whether they're going to approach something. So when mountain made a choice to approach the bike calmly, I would reward him for that. Once he got up to the bike and was was good with the bike parked, then we started working again, from a distance with bikes on the street from a distance, same thing, then started working towards getting him closer and closer and closer. Counter conditioning can take some time, but it does work if you stick with it.

Amy: 6:06

Yeah, we already have a coat tree ordered, it's on its way to my house, we can start counter conditioning to the coat three. already funny, but yeah, thank you. That's a good point. And I think like you mentioned that distance is so important. You also mentioned threshold training, you want to explain that what it is, and maybe helps a little bit different.

Barbara Cannon: 6:27

So it's a little different, because with threshold training, we're talking about the dogs threshold, which I usually defined to people as the distance the dog can be comfortable at from a trigger, whatever that trigger is, if it's a person, a dog, a co tree, you know, let's you know, you name it, a dog might be fearful of it, there's a distance that where they can be calm, where they can accept it and watch it and look at it. And we want to figure out that distance when we're doing threshold training, and work beyond that distance. Some people say above below, I get confused about that part. But I always let's say it's 20 feet, you know, let's say it's 20 feet away that your dog can be comfortable looking at a code tree, I'm going to stick with that example. Then start at 22 feet. If he's calm at 22 feet, reward him for that and then start moving closer and closer. If he starts to get reactive at 15 feet, you're going to fast step back and take more time. So you're slowly getting him closer and closer to the trigger, while making it a positive experience for him.

Amy: 7:38

Yeah, I find myself explaining to people a lot, you know, when the dog is too close, their brain can't learn. They're not in a learning mode. They're just in a reactive mode, I just need to deal with this stressor. That's all I can think about. And you know, it's clear if your dog is too close that they won't take food from you. They can't make eye contact with you. You know, they're really intently focused on that. But I think that helps us find the threshold.

Barbara Cannon: 8:02

Absolutely, absolutely. All right. I

Amy: 8:05

know another term that we tossed around when it talks when we talk about fearful behavior dogs is desensitization, you explain that and maybe giving us an example of that?

Barbara Cannon: 8:13

Yeah, I think of desensitization is really just exposure, you know, taking a dog in, you know, basically what we're doing when we are socializing a dog is we're desensitizing them, we're taking them into situations where they can experience something, hopefully in a positive way, you know, but they're experiencing that thing. And getting used to the idea of here it is, you know, and again, sometimes threshold training goes in hand in hand, with the sensitization a dog might be more comfortable with an object, you know, from, you know, 20 feet away, or 10 feet away. But we do want to kind of repeatedly expose them to that item in a safe distance. I think the differences with the sensitization is you may or may not reward them. What you probably want to do in a situation though, is if you're desensitizing them to sound, for instance, and we do have in unit 1.2, we do have a desensitization video that people can use. But if it's sound, for instance, then maybe what you want to do is put the sound on while you're training or while you're playing and rewarding the dog for that activity. That's a positive activity while something is going on in the background, like car horns or traffic or something like that. So sound desensitization is sometimes a hard word to say.

Amy: 9:37

I get tongue twisted all the time with it.

Barbara Cannon: 9:40

Right? is the most common thing that we use that for the sensitization, but we also use it for visual things as well. So just exposure to that to that item or trigger or, you know, code tree.

Amy: 9:56

Yeah, exactly. One of the things that we're also working on at our House, knocking on the door. So you know knocking on the wall knocking on this door knocking on that door. And the dogs are getting used to hearing the knocking that is not necessarily associated with there's this really exciting person at the front door, they're just hearing the sound and you know, no longer reacting to it. I think play is so powerful. I'm glad that you mentioned that. If we can get a dog playing and having a good time, you see their stress levels decrease. And then a lot of times, like you said, with the desensitization, they're experiencing things that maybe were stressors to them. But they're no longer focused on them. They're focused on the play, and now they're in the same space, but having a good time, which helps them feel good about the things around them. One other thought I had on that was we want to be careful not to flood our dogs don't explain flooding.

Barbara Cannon: 10:48

Yeah, flooding refers to the fact that there, there's too much sensory stimuli coming in, and they can't really focus on anything, because they're just flooded with all this stimuli, which is sort of similar to what you were talking about earlier is, you know, if if your dog has too many triggers, if you're it's too close, they just can't focus on that anymore. Their brain kind of short circuits, and they just really can't focus on that anymore. So yeah, we want to be careful about doing doing too much exposure at a time. You know, I think that that's important in any kind of any either counter conditioning, threshold training or desensitization, that's important.

Amy: 11:29

Yeah, I think the analogy I like to give with the flooding just to help people understand what this is like, I don't love spiders. And if you put me in a room full of spiders thinking that will help me like if you just flood me with spiders, and think, oh, this will help her overcome her fear of spiders, I guarantee that will not help me feel any better about this spider, I would much rather you put the spider at a distance. And let me get comfortable with that one spider from a distance.

Barbara Cannon: 11:53

It's a good example, I want to also give an example and to mention that I was also training another dog who, when she hits seven or eight months, she has developed some fearful behavior. And one thing I noticed and I actually talked to this, about people who say, suddenly, their dog outside at night is not cool. They don't like it. Sound changes at night, it becomes more echoey and bounces off the walls and things like that. So if suddenly your dog is reactive to that, especially at this age, it could be that, you know, she or he has developed a fear of that sound or not knowing where it's coming from. So with this particular dog, she started shot, I lived in an apartment building, and she started showing fear at night. And so I would just take her out there, and we would just stand there, and she could just listen, and listen and listen, you know, then I might do a look try to do a little training with her. That wasn't related to the sound the sensitization, but she got over it, you know, it took a couple sessions of doing that, but she got over it.

Amy: 12:58

Yeah, letting them acclimate to where they are, and what's happening not being in such a rush, right to go on with this task, you know, let's leash Walker, let's go do A, B or C, I mean, just letting them be in that place and just experience it with out the stress of other things added to it. I like that.

Barbara Cannon: 13:15

Yeah, and I would add to that, I always say this to people do not force a dog that's afraid of something to experience it, it's similar to what you just mentioned about the spiders, it's not going to help your dog to force them into a situation that they're not comfortable with. Take your cue from them. If they're trying to experience it, try to encourage them. If not walk away and come back the next day, your dog isn't ready for that experience yet.

Amy: 13:41

And you can very clearly see it in their body language. I think it's really important as a dog owner to understand your dog's body language and what they're trying to tell you. So that you can recognize when they are feeling fearful or afraid of something and then we can help identify what's triggering it, like you said, and we can help them with it. I think it's also helpful to just for anybody out there who maybe has this experience with their dogs or maybe pops up one day, just get out a notebook or a paper and a pen and just start writing down little details. This is what happened today with this and you'll start to be able to identify, you know, like you said, Oh, it's only at night that this dog is fearful, not during the day. So you can really start to brainstorm and analyze, you know, what is it that's the issue here, and you can get to the bottom of it better.

Barbara Cannon: 14:32

That's a really good idea, Amy.

Amy: 14:35

Well, thank you, Barbara, for being here today and talking about this. I know, this is a very helpful topic for a lot of dog owners. So I appreciate you being here and taking the time out of your schedule to do

Barbara Cannon: 14:43

it. I'm happy to do it. Thanks so much for inviting me. All right,

Amy: 14:47

you guys have a wonderful rest of your week. Good luck with the upcoming holidays. And we're here to help if you need us. You can get one on one coaching, either a phone call or video call with our team of trainers. You can send us email questions is our program is a do it yourself, get in and go through the modules yourself. But we also are here to help you along the way as much as you need us. So, thanks for listening to the podcast. We hope you check out our online school soon and have a wonderful rest of your week. Happy training. If you have a question about anything you heard on this podcast or any other Puppy Training question, visit my site Baxter & bella.com to contact me