On the Path: Changing Fear to Joy

Fear can be a tough nut to crack. Changing a dog's emotional response takes persistence, but is so well worth the time. The result is a dog who is more comfortable in the world.

I've been working with my Jack Russell Terrier Kenzie's fear of large animals including horses and very large dogs. Her fear came about in one very short moment, that I wish had never happened.

When Kenzie was a 12 week old puppy my brother in law scooped her up without asking and put her up on top of his horse, she was terrified. I asked him to get her down right away, but within a few seconds the damage was already done. As a young pup in her sensitive imprinting window, this was a very fearful experience that made a lasting impression.

Later that summer we drove to Idaho to a dog show and to visit a friend on her farm. My friend saw that Kenzie was afraid of her sheep and she said "I can fix that!" and as she said this she scooped up the young Kenzie and dropped her in the sheep pen without asking me first.  Kenzie again was terrified and the sheep were terrified as well, stampeding around the pen. I quickly climbed over the fence and rescued her, but again damage was already done. I was upset that she had been compromised. It made things much worse - she did not "just get over it".

Exposing a dog to something they fear without being able to  escape it is called "Flooding". We often see dogs becoming reactive because they have been flooded with the stimuli, usually with the bad experience of being attacked while on leash and unable to escape. I often hear people say about dogs "Just let them get over it!" or "Let them work it out" by exposing them to the things they are afraid of. The issue with this approach is that 1) it is cruel, 2) the dog may become overly sensitized, 3) the dogs may shut down and learn that being unresponsive is the way to get through it (learned helplessness), 4) and the dogs become even more fearful and reactive.

Ideally we would change the dog's emotions to happiness or even joy when they see the formerly scary thing! Through Counter Conditioning and Desensitizaiton we are able to pair scary things with good consequences like safety and food rewards and make it less scary for them.  Let me explain....

On our beach walks we have been running across a lot of large dogs, some well mannered and others not so much. Kenzie usually lowers her head, and begins to walk stiffly toward them, then will quiver her lip if they get close and then show a little bit of teeth. If the dog is big and lunges toward us, she will snap at them. I usually stop her by calling her name before her head goes down and give her an alternative job to keep her busy but wouldn't it be better if I could be more proactive and keep her from showing fear at all?

The most effective technique I have used to date has been "Look At That" (LAT). I learned about LAT from Leslie McDevitt's "Control Unleashed" book. Basically I taught her to look at inanimate things first and marked a quick glance with the word "yes!". KK knows that "Yes!" means she has done a good job and can come collect her paycheck (food reward) so she has to turn around and come to me. In her nine years she has not ever, not even once missed collecting her paycheck, imagine that!

After eight weeks of going to our local training group practice where there is a giant breed dog, and working on LAT it finally started working. Why did it take so long? Kenzie is usually very quick at catching on to things. She's been a star in Treibball, loves doing Agility, enthusiastic at Nosework, wonderful at Freestyle (what little we have done), she even tried Dock Diving and Flyball -- so what's the deal? Why didn't she learn to recover from her fears more quickly?

The Reverse Learning Curve
Two things....first, around large animals Kenzie did not feel safe and second, when dogs are uncomfortable or fearful it takes much longer for them to learn anything. Her learning curve usually goes steeply up ad then plateaus, but when she is afraid of something, it appears that the techniques that I am teaching her are not working, at least for a much longer time and then finally all of a sudden she demonstrates that she understands. The reverse learning curve for fear is the opposite of our usual training experiences. The reverse learning curve was first described by Dr Peter Borchelt, an animal behaviorist in New York City. She had created a neural pathway in her brain, which is a habitual response to a stimulus. A neural pathway is much like the erosion that creates a path for a river like the Grand Canyon is the pathway for the Rio Grande. Her response pathway was deep and well ingrained with practice. I had to "dig" a deeper pathway for a happy, relaxed response in order to change her emotions.
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I had to work on her feeling safe - that was accomplished by creating distance between us and the very large, gregarious dog. Food rewards alone did not make her feel safe. Second, I had to give her enough time and repetitions to learn - she'd been practicing her "growly bear" habits for a long time, too long for me to be able to change the underlying emotions overnight. She needed thousands of safe and happy exposures in many new places with many new dogs to start making a change to her habits and emotions.

Is Kenzie completely fixed? Probably not. What dogs learn first, they learn best. It takes a lot of work to change those early responses and dig those new neural pathways. I will continue to work to manage her environment and keep her safe and working on the conditioning to change her responses.

On Looking Back and Going Forward
I'd give anything to have those moments back in order to not have had this problem but it is a waste of creative energy to spend time worrying about the unchangeable past. Going forward into the future, I know now to protect my dogs, manage their environment and work on getting lots of happy experiences so we can ride through the bumpy times.

I've been able to use these experiences to benefit hundreds of puppies and family dogs as well as sport dogs and reactive dogs in our classes at Living with Dogs. I am grateful for my job and all of the wonderful things we can do to help dogs live better, happier lives in their homes and in our society.

Our beach walks are now very fun and Kenzie continues with her amazing abilities to learn new behaviors -- as long as she feels safe!

I wish you and your dogs many happy, fun and safe experiences!