DOG TRAINING THEORY AND PRACTICE: What to do when dog is afraid?

Fear is dog´s normal self-protective response to potentially injurious stimulation, it´s natural. It is expressed in three broad ways: freeze, flight and fight. Fear-elicited fighting occurs in situations involving intense fearful arousal and where flight is blocked. Outward signs of fear include a variety of body postures, facial expressions and physiological indicators. Dogs will freeze, attempt to escape or attack, depending on the fear-eliciting situation. Physiological changes in dog are among other things raised pulse, increased panting, thick salivatio, raised blood pressure, shivering and trembing, pupillary dilation, and lose bowel and bladder control. A fearful dog will often lower its head and avert eye contact, fasten its ears back and tuck the tail tightly between the legs. Fearful dogs may also scramble frantically to escape or evade a feared object while loudly whining, yelping or shrieking.

When a dog is frightened, for example sudden loud noise, it reacts instinctively. So fear is an adaptive emotional response to threats and danger. It is a basic survival mechanism. In brain fear is processed by thalamus. There are two routes, auditory cerebral cortex (slow route, processes the information and gives directives) and amygdala (fast route, subliminal). After the information has moved on, nucleus either stimulates or turns off the autonomic nervous system. Fear has its "own" region of the brain and severe fright develops a memory of the stimulus and also memory of the action and its efectiviness.

Phylogenic sources of fear include such triggers as pain, rapid stimulus change, sudden movements, heights, isolation, loud noises, strangers, fire, water, and unfamiliar enviromental and social situtations. Whereas ontogenic sources of fear are mostly the result of learning and experience. Pathogenic fear (generalized anxiety and phobia) occurs when the fearful arousal cannot be avoided or escaped. Dogs that are pathologically anxious or phobic, are unable adaptively to escape or avoid fearful arousal. So these dogs labor futilely under the influence of escalating fear and anxiety.

Systematic desensitization (classical conditioning) is a safe way to treat fear related problems. It refers to a careful manipulation of the intensity of the fear-evoking thing, so that it doesn´t generate a fear response. Desensitization requires patience and careful planning from the dog trainer. Counterconditioning (classical conditioning) is ussually used together with desensitization. It essentially involves opposing one response by the elicitation of another. To be controlled, fear must be countered by the elicitation of an even stronger and incompatible emotional response. So right after much less frightening stimulus is presented to the dog, a pleasant thing - the conterconditioning stimulus - is presented, to build a new association. This may be a favorite toy, game or tasty food, but it must be extremely potent. Systematic desensitization and counterconditioning requires a great deal of repetitions, and only after that we can start to build substitutive action to replace the fear reaction. The final goal is that the stimulus (that triggered fear) becomes a clue to do something (for example "sit", "look" etc.) that is incompatible for fear (operant conditioning).

It is important to check dog´s heath (exercise, nutrition, activivation etc.) first and sort out fear-eliciting situations and events. We must carefully identify the stimuli that evoke fear and the situations in which fearful behavior is likely to occur. For example, counterconditioning can be carried out to a wrong stimulus, if we don´t know exactly what triggers the fear in dog. Animal behaviorism also knows a method called flooding in reducing fear. Flooding is a desensitization process with direct exposure to the fear-evoking stimulus until fear subsides. A precaution needs to be carefully observed: if dog is fearful when the flooding exposure is terminated, its fearfulness might be made worse. Flooding is a problematic method because it is hard to accomplish in practice, it involves risks and it evokes stress in dog.

We can use operant conditioning also (with classical conditioning) in fear-evoking situations. In that case we reinforce dog´s calm state of mind by withdrawing the fear-evoking stimulus (negative reinforcement). So dog learns to regulate the frightening situation with its own behavior. This technique is problematic because we have to know exactly what is/are the fear-evoking stimulus and remove it/them just the right time.

Dog´s owner has also a very important role when reducing fear in the dog. Dog´s social dependency (social learning) makes it keenly aware of the behavior of others (also owner´s behavior). So its good to remember it as a assistance when redusing fear in dogs. Medication can also be one cure and assistance to fear problems.

DOG TRAINING THEORY: What is a dog behavior problem?

It is not easy to define which dog´s behavior is normal and which is abnormal. And if behavior wouldnt be truly a behavior problem so abnormal behavior to the species, it still could be problematic. Identifying a behavior pattern as a problem involves a cluster of cultural and personal preferences and normative judgements. These judgements reflect owner´s attitudes and expectations assosiated with the dog´s behavior. Every owner/family has different kind of expectations, some want their dog to sleep in their bed and some dont. Dog behavior problem can be defined as a tendency or pattern of behavior that sufficiently deviates from the dog owner´s expecations or society´s norms that efforts are prompted to change it in to a more acceptable form. Dog behavior that fits our (or dog owner´s) norms and expectations is considered normal and acceptable, whereas dogs behavior that deviates too far from them is deemed abnormal or unacceptable.

Dog behavior problems develop under the influence of a complex web of experiential and biological influences. Dogs learn all the time and some behavioral problems could be just inadvertently strengthened manners (operant conditioning). Often something that dog has simply learned becomes a problematic to the dog´s owner. For example, a puppy that is allowed to jump at people doesnt understand why it can not do it anymore when he/she is grown-up (big dog--> bigger problem). Both human and environment teaches dogs.

Basis to the dog behavioral problems is that do they originate purely from what dog has learned in the past, from special and breed associated features or from individual´s genes. We can affect what puppy learns but cant impact on dog´s genes. Genome determinates long way dog´s behavior and its vulnerability to certain behavior patterns. Many behavior patterns that are natural to certain breed, are problematic in our society. For example, excessive barking when dog detectes some movement (many hunting dogs). It is important to explore dog breeds and select the right breed (need for motive or activation, home range) for you and your family. If dog´s natural need for motive can´t be content, some behavioral problems may occur.

When we discuss on dog behavioral problems, it is important to check dog´s health first. Many behavioral problem is associated with dog´s pain.

DOG TRAINING THEORY AND PRACTICE: Classical conditioning

Russian psychologist, Ivan Pavlov, discovered Classical, or in the terminology of behavior analysis respondent conditioning, in 1920s. It seems that classical conditioning was discovered by chance. Pavlov was investigating dog´s digestion when he noticed that the most experienced dogs that he had been testing began to salivate before the samples of food were presented to them. He started to investigate this systematically. Throughout Pavlov´s experiment, dogs were exposed to a wide variety of arbitrary stimuli (example bell and light) presented contiguously with food. Pavlov has a special laboratory constructed in wich the experimenter and a dog were separated from each other in soundproof rooms. Discovery was that conditioned stimulus (bell) began to trigger the same reactiong (salivate) in dogs that unconditioned stimulus (food) did. The associative bond between the conditioned stimulus (CS) and the unconditioned stimulus (US) is strengthened when the CS consistenly occurs just before the representation of the US and is weakened when the CS and US occur indepently of each other. So classical conditioning is unintentional and subconscious reaction to a certain stimuli.

It is important to understand how classical conditioning works and hopefully a few everyday examples will do that. Most dogs respond readily to sound of doorbell ringing and after several repetitions, in which the bell signals the arrival of someone at the door, the dog may begin to example bark. The dog has learned to correlate a previosly insignifant event (doorbell) with a significant on (visitor) and now when the doorbell rings the dog dances with excitement anticipating the visitor´s entry and greetings. But what starts to happen if dogs owner doesn´t open the door when doorbell rings? After several sessions of nonreinforced exposures to the bell, the dog will gradually inhibit its anticipatory reactions and finally ignore the sound altogether. We can say that the conditioned effect has been extinguished.

Classical conditioning has also an important role in the development of anxiety and fears. For instance, dogs easily develope fears associated with the veterinary clinic, expecially if they have undergone painfull procedures there. It may help to prevent negative associations to the veterinary clinic when we provide dogs or puppies treats and other pleasurable experiences while being examined. But what if dog doesnt it eat in that situtation? Its probably too stressed (or not hungry) and you have to start giving food to the dog earlier (example in the hospital parking lot). Lifelong phobic reactions can also occur as the result of a single traumatic event and dogs suffer a broad spectrum of phobic fears, most of which are established and reversed through classical conditioning.

But does Pavlov have anything really good information for us to use in dog training? You may have heard about clicker training. When we examine clicker training through classical contioning, clicker is conditioned stimulus (CS) and food (or some else reinforcement) is unconditioned stimulus (US). Clicker is a mechanical device that makes a short, distinct "click" sound which tells the animal exactly when they're doing the right thing and its combined with positive reinforcement. You can also use something else than clicker, example light, whistle or some other sound. Other important information of Pavlovian conditioning is counterconditioning. It plays avital role in the learning and unlearning of emotial reactions. So in dog training, resolving fears and other problems (example phobias, separation anxiety and aggressiviness), classical conditioning may be required. Classically conditioned responses are largely autonomous and independent of central control, unlike instrumental behavior. Dogs dont choose to feel fearfull or anxious. To be controlled, an aversive emotion like angre or fear, must be countered by the elicitation of an ever stronger and incompatible emotional response.