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Helping A Fearful Dog

Is your dog shy? Nervous? Anxious or Protective? Would you like your dog to behave calmly around people and other dogs? Are you looking for ways to help your dog learn to be happier and more confident?

A Guide To Living & Working With A Fearful Dog is an eBook containing training advice and activities compiled by Sunny's owner including games, how to begin when working with a fearful dog, how dogs learn and how to help any dog with fears. It is an informative resource for owners and rescuers.

Here's what readers have had to say:

"I am writing an all around general care guide for canines one of my sections is about shy/fearful canines..when I read your BRILLIANT article I was thinking it would be amazing to have that in the guide along with your website."

"Thanks for your wonderful website as it was recommended on the BC boards page. Have you collected all your pages into a book?"

"I visited your fearful dogs website & have bookmarked it in my
favorites."

"I find myself feeling a bit more hopeful after reading through your site. I am so grateful to have this information."

Don't be misled by training techniques that scare or hurt your dog. Be your dog's best friend and learn how to effectively change your dog's behavior by changing how he feels. You CAN help your dog!

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Incompatible Behaviors

By getting a dog to perform one these behaviors in a situation in which the dog is fearful, trainers can help them to begin to change their association with the thing or situation they fear.

The challenge of working with a fearful dog is to help them learn how to perceive the people, sounds, objects or situations that make them feel afraid, in a more positive way. One of the main techniques is to use classical conditioning to create new, positive associations with their ‘triggers’ (whatever scares them). Most often this is done using food rewards. Food is a powerful reinforcement, but a rehabber’s ‘bag of tricks’ can also take advantage of behaviors which are incompatible with fear. Most of these behaviors would be thought of as being typical of ‘normal’ dog behaviors. The list includes;

By getting a dog to perform one these behaviors in a situation in which the dog is fearful, trainers can help them to begin to change their association with the thing or situation they fear. For example, my fearful dog, when let outside, would run off as though being pursued. His fear was obvious by the backward glances at his potential pursuer (me, who never chased him). Fortunately he was also quite excited about chasing tennis balls. I began to throw the ball in the direction he was running when I let him out of the house asking him ‘get the ball.’ Each day his reaction to being let out of the house changed slightly. Initially he ran off just glancing at the ball. Soon he would run off, and after getting a safe distance away would go and get the ball. Eventually he began to look for the ball as he ran off the deck until my offer to go out no longer triggered his impulse to flee, but instead was an offer to play. Leaving the house stopped being a panicked dash, with or without a ball toss. Basically, he couldn’t be afraid and want to play with the ball at the same time, these are incompatible behaviors.

I have included ‘thinking & performing’ on the list for dogs which have learned to perform certain behaviors on command. Hand targeting is one behavior that when learned by a dog allows a trainer to initiate a chain of other behaviors. A dog trained to hand target can be recalled and or rewarded. This is a good exercise to use with a fearful dog.

sunny with ball

Sunny is happiest when he's playing. He can interact with people if he's chasing a ball or frisbee.