©Scott Sheaffer, CDBC, CBCC-KA, CPDT-KA, USA Dog Behavior, LLC

“Just like with humans, things that dogs find boring do not scare them.”

There are a number of key concepts that are extremely important when working with dogs that have behavior issues. I’ve included three of the most important of these below. While the things I detail below seem rather simple, they really aren’t in practice. These axioms are hard to implement when we are frustrated with our dog; furthermore, they can also feel counterintuitive.

What are these three concepts?
The short answer: Tranquility, Monotony and Separation.
Let me explain these more fully below.

Tranquility

People who are not calm and measured around dogs typically don’t have much success in working with them. How can we be calm with our dogs?

Our words with our dogs need to be relatively soft and the amount of words we use need to be minimal (remember, they don’t understand human spoken language). Harsh words and a steady stream of cues (i.e., commands) can cause stress in dogs. For more information see Should you give your dog a command only one time?

Another way to calm your dog is for your body movements to be relaxed and not jerky. This is called having a “soft body”.

Individuals who micromanage their dog’s leash cause additional stress for their dog. It is important to use pressure on the leash only when needed and never jerk the leash in order to avoid stressing your dog.

Finally, to create a calm environment for a dog, it’s important for the handler (i.e., person with the leash) to move intentionally and deliberately. Notice I did not say abruptly, harshly or quickly. A handler who is confident with his or her leash skills sends the message to the dog on the other end of the leash that the handler is confident and has things under control. Dogs like this.

Monotony

Most people understand the concept of tranquility above; it makes common sense. However, monotony is less obvious. Dogs with behavior issues commonly need behavior modification that includes desensitization and counterconditioning. Desensitization is the process of slowly exposing dogs to things they fear in an effort to reduce a dog’s anxiety around the trigger that is causing the anxiety.

When dogs with fear issues just see a trigger it can start a fear response before they fully process what they are looking at. This is learned over time and is called a conditioned response. The goal of counterconditioning is to change dogs’ association with things they fear to a more positive one and decrease this conditioned response.

When conducting desensitization and counterconditioning exercises with dogs, it is important that these exercises are positive, completely uneventful and downright boring. If these exercises go well, they will absolutely be monotonous and boring to the dog and to the handler. The dog starts to become bored with the trigger.

Think about it; the objective is to reduce fear with this type of behavior modification. Just like with humans, things that dogs find boring do not scare them. Monotony is a good thing sometimes.

Separation

A survey was taken of 2,500 dogs and it was virtually unanimous; separation from scary things makes them less fearful of the scary thing. The survey is fictional since we can’t actually survey dogs, but the part about separation is absolutely true. Dogs’ answer to things they fear is distance. The farther away they are from things that scare them, the more comfortable they feel. In fact, you can quite accurately measure how fearful dogs are of something by how much distance is required in order to keep them calm when they are around it.

Dogs achieve this distance by using aggression to move the scary thing back or they use avoidance by moving away from the trigger. In each case, both of these behaviors increase the dog’s distance from the scary thing. These behaviors are collectively known as distance increasing behaviors. For more information see Why is my Sweet Dog so Aggressive to People Outside of Our Family?

Separation, or distance, is an important tool to use when dogs encounter things that make them nervous. Separation is one of the most important tools in the behavior consultant’s toolbox to slowly desensitize a dog to a trigger. It allows us to slowly increase dogs’ exposure to a trigger over time at a rate they can tolerate by incrementally decreasing the distance.

Tranquility, Monotony and Separation.

Using these three concepts can go a long way in helping dogs overcome their behavior issues. Not using these tools can make behavior modification difficult, if not impossible.