Q&A with ‘The Paw Man’ (725) – Just Like An Actor Following A Script Alannah Prow Hi Paw Man, Last year I adopted a 1 year old dog from my local rescue group. She is quite a large dog and has had some behavioural problems that Ive worked hard at correcting, and in the last year, it has seen her successfully settle into a well trained dog, and shes quite well adjusted. The issue Im having is that she developed a fear of men before I adopted her, and its something that Im struggling to correct. She has improved, but I am unsure of how to teach her that not all men (and strangers) will hurt her. Paw Man The first thing to realise is that her fear may have been valid for her previous environment. She has generalised the fear to all men and that too is normal over time. Alannah When crossing paths with an unknown male, she is nervous, backs away, barks and tries to pull out of her harness. I try not to baby her with its okay, because I dont want to her to think that her behaviour is acceptable, so I ignore her bad behaviour and try to encourage her to not run away and sit quietly. Paw Man As fearful behavior is self-reinforcing (Every male that your dog avoids never hurts it) then the trick is to not allow the dog to go through that phase and to let her know by other means that this male is not going to hurt her. Alannah I also instruct the person to ignore her and just continue talking to me as normal. I feel like this isnt working very well. Paw Man Well you’re half way there. Get the dog used to wearing a reliable basket muzzle and every time you ‘cross paths with an unknown male’ then hand them her leash and tell them to pull her in close and to ignore her. This will take her out of her fearful comfort zone and force her to offer up different behaviors. Think of her fearful behavior at meeting strange men as being a well-rehearsed script where she knows every line/action off by heart and it always ends the same way….. with her showing fear and avoiding being hurt. But now you tear up that script and force her to improvise….. and she still doesn’t get hurt We have a new outcome to an old situation that used to be traumatic and is now enjoyable as the person who is holding the dog close will wait for the dog to calm and very slowly they will allow their hand within range of the dogs head and whenever they feel the dog sniff or lick their hand they are to casually and calmly stroke the dog. I have done two of these in the last week and both have gone wonderfully and surprisingly quickly. The dog must however not be given a chance to go back to its old script for about 2 weeks, and by that time the new behavior is firmly habituated. Alannah Do you have any suggestions to help me teach my dog to be more calm around men and strangers and not be so nervous? Thanks, Alannah Paw Man The above solution is one I have had great success with but it is counter intuitive to some dog owners who do not realise that they were actually facilitating the dogs fear by allowing it to continue following the fearful script.
Posted on: Sun, 28 Dec 2014 01:15:53 +0000
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