by It is very common for dogs to become reactive to or bark at anything such as the sound of a doorbell, arrival of visitors, and the sight of other dogs. According to the video, other dogs become reactive or show fear to stimuli such as a weird hat, a cane, a walker, a big jacket, and strange movement. If your dog exhibits this kind of behavior upon the sighting of strangers, this video can help you.
There are training games that you can use to change your dog’s emotional response from fear or arousal to calm friendliness. This is achieved using counter-conditioning your dog to certain types of people that your dog can become reactive to.
You need to condition your dog to the things that trigger their fear. Collect these items and have a friend or family member pull them out. You can click or treat your dog for looking at these items or feed him for touching the items. This will condition your dog to love these items. You can first do this exercise inside the house then outside. Let your dog observe as one of his favorite persons put on and take off the items. This will show your dog that the items will not change their favorite person.
There is another way to condition your dog to the things that scare them. You can leave these scary items around the house for the dog to habituate and investigate. If your dog is fearful of a big jacket, wear it when you are around the house. You can also put on a different scary item before your put down your dog’s dinner bowl.
The second part of the video involves conditioning your dog to see their favorite person wearing the items that scare them during a walk. Make sure that your dog can see their favorite person putting on and removing the scary items before they go behind a barrier. If this is not done, your dog can be very fearful when he sees this new item appearing around the corner. When the person first appears around the corner, feed your dog for looking at the person. This conditions your dog to stand calmly next to you when weird things happen. You can also allow your dog’s favorite person to have a conversation with him as the person approaches the animal so he finds it easier to recognize the person. You can also let that person interact with your dog by petting him or feeding him.
The next step is conditioning your dog to see scary items on a person who is doing funny movements. This part should be done once your dog is succeeding greatly and being calm and happy with these items. This section steps up the criteria of the training by adding in strange movement along with the scary items.
If you notice your dog being reactive to his favorite person wearing the scary items; just simply say ‘let’s go’ to the canine. You can also let your dog approach the objects and check them out on the ground to find out that they are not dangerous.
Seek the help of an animal behaviorist before conducting this exercise with a very shy or reactive dog. If you fail to do this, your dog might bite the person with the scary objects.
The last part of the video applies the exercise in different situations. One of the situations presented is letting a dog’s favorite person enter a house then allowing that person to put a strange item that scares the dog once he comes through the door. Then, the person leaves in the hat and re-enter the door with another object that is feared by the dog.
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