Background: Positive reinforcement, operant training principles are tailor made for rehabilitating fearful dogs, with behavior challenges that include extreme shyness or fear-based aggression. The reason is simple: The entire point of "operant conditioning" is that the animal interacts with, i.e., "operates on", its environment to get what it wants and needs. In training this way, we manage the dog's environment, such that we ensure that the dog can make conscious choices to behave in a way that we desire. We do not impose our wills upon the dogs or make them do what we want. Instead, we set up the environment so that the dogs can make their own choices and be reinforced for making the correct ones. For a fearful dog, this approach builds confidence--you can probably easily see why. The dog is under the impression that it controls its fate, and is not a victim--that is, there is no longer anything to fear. The success the dog has at getting the things it wants builds its sense of control over the environment. With the ability to control comes confidence, and the fear begins to diminish. In addition, the use of an event marker, such as a clicker, makes communication crystal clear between members of two species, humans and dogs, which have completely different biologies and modalities for communication. Normal dogs can figure humans out easily enough--for thousands of years, only those dogs able to read humans successfully have survived (the science is "in" on this topic!). Humans are amazingly poor however at reading dogs (their survival typically doesn't depend on it...). The clicker bridges that communication gap, with some pretty miraculous and amazing results. What you can do: To work with fearful dogs, therefore, you would follow these steps: Learn how to understand and read dogs. Two resources head the top of my list: Jean Donaldson's Culture Clash and Turid Rugaas's On Speaking Terms with Dogs--Calming Signals (her DVD is much, much more instructive that her book and well worth the purchase price. Manage your fearful dog's environment, so that all good things come directly from you, otherwise known as a "nothing in life is free" program. This approach can solve many types of behavior problems in dogs. Being extremely fearful is a behavior "problem" not only because the dog is so unhappy, but because the fear erodes any relationship it could have with its new human companions, upon whom this dog's very survival depends. Teach your fearful dog the meaning of the clicker and how to make choices that bring it good things. Get and read Click to Calm by Emma Parsons. A single, wonderful book combines the last two items. Parson's book outlines a specific steps you can take to overcome fearfulness, shyness, and fear-based aggression in dogs. Have patience and learn the meaning of truly unconditional love: It is very difficult for sensitive people, such as most dog lovers are, to endure the rejection of shy, fearful and fear-aggressive dogs. To be able to help your own dog, you must look deeply into your own emotions and motivations, and overcome your own needs that you strive to fulfill by having dogs in your life. This isn't about you--it's about helping your fearful dog. I can personally attest to how difficult this is, as I describe in an essay I wrote: What Babe Taught Me: The Most Important Lesson of All.
The Babe Chronicles: My own personal journey in working with extremely fearful dogs. I offer these reprinted articles with permission of their sources, in hopes of inspiring you to persevere and help your fearful dog. |
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