Desensitizing and Counter- Conditioning: Overcoming Your Dog’s Issues. Desensitizing and counter- conditioning (CC& D) is a wide spread behavior modification technique whose ultimate goal is to change the emotional response (which leads to an overall change in the dog’s approach to the subject) towards a given “trigger” that caused the dog to react in the first place. On this page you will find the details that you need in order to successfully create a rehabilitation plan. To start we can explain the desensitizing and counter- conditioning concepts; Systematic Desensitization. This type of behavior therapy was perfected by psychiatrist Joseph Wolpe and the goal was to change the fear and anxiety based responses to certain stimuli for his patients (humans). The same technique is used for dogs. The goal of this behavior therapy is to expose the subject to a low level trigger which evokes the unwanted response in certain scenarios, and then to decrease the distance and the amount of stimulus gradually to where the subject can “control” the situation emotionally. This is the opposite approach to the flooding in dog training technique which is based on exposing a subject to the highest level of stimulus, provoking in most cases, the highest level of response in order for a dog to “go through it” until he “realizes” that there is actually nothing dangerous in that particular situation. Counter- conditioning. Counter- conditioning is basically a classical conditioning in which we are pairing something that was producing an unpleasant response with something pleasant instead. In most cases treats are used, this is for a few reasons; The presence of food (treats) and eating releases a certain chemical cocktail in a dog’s brain that naturally helps the dog relax Since we use treats in various different exercises where there are no fear based situations, our dogs create a positive emotional response to the presence of treats which helps them, in this case, in “fighting” the fear/anxiety response Food is the best indicator to read the dog’s level of stress, fear and anxiety. If you go too fast (which will probably happen) through the levels of desensitizing, and your dog is not ready, he will stop taking treats if the level of stimulus (trigger) is too high for him. In this case, take a step or two back in your training. By pairing food with a trigger at a sub- threshold distance (a distance where a dog has little or mild to no response) we are getting the “looking forward to” instead of the fearful aggressive response. This process is also known as conditioned emotional response (CER) and the purpose is to change the complete emotional response towards something that was considered to be unpleasant to the dog before. How long does desensitizing and counter- conditioning take? This is, in most cases, a long term procedure that can vary anywhere from weeks to years. Exactly when you can consider yourself and your dog to be “done” with desensitizing and counter- conditioning therapy is difficult to say. It depends on the dog, the amount and strength of the stimulus, the handler, the environment, etc. What made the process of systematic desensitization a little easier was the fact that my son still enjoyed being in a stroller. NE METHOD that has been consistently proven to be effective in the treatment of anxiety and phobias is systematic desensitization. Just like any other behavior pattern in a dog’s life, fear and anxiety tends to grow and will “spill over” to parts of a dog’s life that never before exposed a fear. This is one of the reasons why it is so important to help your dog with these issues; otherwise they will progressively get worse for him. Where to start with desensitizing and counter- conditioning. Although every situation is unique, there are a few steps that we can use as a guide in getting started: 1) Locate the stressors (triggers)2) Make a training plan. Find a “safety distance”These should be enough to start, and I will repeat again as with any other behavior modification (or therapy, if you prefer) it is always advisable to contact a professional for advice and help. Locate the stressors. The first step in desensitizing and counter- conditioning is to locate the stressors (triggers) to which your dog reacts. These are unique for each dog and they may be related to certain environments, situations, objects, animals, humans, etc. Understanding what provokes the fear/anxiety responses in your dog is your starting point. Make a training plan. This is a very important step. The better your plan is, the fewer issues that you will encounter during the desensitizing and counter- conditioning process. Making a plan involves; a) Creating levels b) Organizing environments c) Creating situations a) Creating levels. Every plan will have to be broken down into levels. What is important about each level is the distance. For example, if you are dealing with your dog’s fearful aggressive response to other dogs, you may find yourself in a situation where you are passing near a parking lot and someone just took their dog out of the car right in front of you, or you are passing in front of a building and someone is just exiting the building and suddenly your dog is simply too close to that stimulus and his reaction is inevitable. Once this happens there is nothing much that you can do, no yelling, treats, praising or whatever you do will help or change his response, it is too late. When that moment happens, your dog gets under the influence of adrenalin and other body chemicals and his brain sort of “locks”.
The best thing that you can do, at these times, is to physically remove your dog from the scene (walk away) until you reach your safety distance, at which you can once again communicate with your dog. Once you have regained control over your dog, end the experience on a positive note, use treats while your dog is watching the other dog leaving or engage in a game of play, and then you can go back to the environment where it happened, do a few more treats and short playful interactions. The reason for this important step is that you are running the possibility of actually training your dog that the bigger the reaction that he creates; the faster that you will leave the potential unpleasant situation. This will be your toughest challenge as you need to create situations where your dog will be exposed to a stimulus at a certain distance for “x” number of repetitions before moving to the next level. This is a time consuming process that may require the help of other people, other dogs, etc. This can be difficult to organize and requires a lot of patience while going through the different levels, so many people mistakenly tend to try to rush things through. If you end up rushing, you will face problems which will require taking a step or a few steps back to the last previously successful level. TIP: There is no room for rushing in the desensitizing and counter- conditioning process; we can only follow our dog’s pace. How many repetitions are needed at each level? That depends on many, many factors some of which we mentioned above but mostly all dependent on the individual dog. It is not so easy to create situations and scenarios in which you can have control over a stimulus and your dog’s reaction to it. For example: if your dog reacts to another dog at a distance of 1. In this case, the dog is reacting to humans. In the middle of the picture there is a dog, the blue ring is the safety distance area. The red line represents the direction that the person in the left corner is moving. There are two points where this red line crosses the blue ring. The entrance point and the exit point. The gray area actually represents the level, the distance at which the trigger (in this case the person) penetrates the dog’s safe zone. As your dog becomes more comfortable, this gray area will expand. This is what desensitizing and counter- conditioning are all about. You don’t have to remain in one spot, and one environment, as long as you stick to the same principles. One criterion at a time. As with any other type of dog training, when working through the desensitizing and counter- conditioning process, you only raise and add one criterion at a time. It is pointless, for example, to try working on a dog’s fear of people in a place where the dog is already overwhelmed with stress from the unknown or uncomfortable environment. Working on two or more criteria at the same time is impossible as it would be overwhelming for the dog and may slow down the process even more. For example, your dog may react to a human presence in a familiar place at a distance of 1. Desensitizing and counter- conditioning is in a way, a type of dog training technique, and the same rule applies for every type of dog training; it is always best to start in a familiar environment and then move on from there. Calming signals. Too often we forget that we are part of a team with our dog and we are an equally important link in our dog’s behaviors. Dogs react to our energy and body signals more than we are even consciously aware of. How many times does it happen that an experienced handler and a superbly trained dog fail on the day of competition, just because of a glitch in their communication? Even though we all think that “down” means the down command, to our dog it is more in the way that the command is delivered than the word itself. Knowing this will help us through the desensitizing and counter- conditioning process when you are dealing with your dog’s behavior problems. The fact is that no one likes or feels comfortable when their dog starts to act up. Most people either react overwhelmed, emitting a lower type of energy, sending the “oh no, here we go again” attitude, or they get excited, frustrated and almost angry in the hopes of controlling or containing the situation, but it becomes impossible to stay focused and controlled. No one is immune, but how we react in those moments is what counts, as that is the message that you are sending to your dog. Staying calm is imperative at those times.
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January 2017
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