4 Ways to Help Your Fearful Dog

Cases of dogs suffering from fearful, nervous or anxious behaviour are far too common today with way too many owners having to suffer alongside their dogs. Seeing our dogs cower, yelp, runaway, or in some cases even bark and lunge can be heart-breaking. Given how confusing it can be to understand these emotions in our dogs, many owners have no idea where to start when it comes to solving these fear-based issues and in a lot of cases, if the problem is ignored then the behaviour gets worse. If you’re wondering where to start or just need some extra guidance then have a quick look at these tips that you can start using right now.

Advocate for their safety

Our dogs need to be able to trust us, especially when they find themselves dealing with a situation that’s making them stressed, anxious or fearful. If we are constantly pushing our dogs, either knowingly or unknowingly, into situations that they don’t like without any *real* guidance from us then all we are doing is removing that form of safety net that they need when they can’t fully deal with the situation yet. Some dogs are very capable of handling scary situations all on their own but if your dog has a history of anxious/nervous behaviour then the chances of them handling stuff like this on their own is much lower. It’s important to remember that every time your fearful dog gets into a scary situation that they can’t handle, it only makes their fear worse and continues to slowly chip away at the small wall of trust it’s taken you so long to build. How do we stop this? We build trust and avoid scary situations (temporarily) by advocating for their safety. A stranger coming to pet your nervous dog? Tell the stranger she’s nervous and you’d rather they ignore your dog. An energetic dog about to cross paths with you on your daily walk? Cross the street. It might not seem like a lot...but to your dog you’ve just saved them from a possibly life or death situation. If you make a habit out of scanning the environment for possible triggers and doing the best to avoid them, your dog will notice and silently thank you for recognising their problem. Now you’re building trust again. Although this step might only be temporary whilst you’re doing more training, it can be still long term so practise it any time there’s a possibility of a trigger arising and always remind your dog that you have their best interest at heart.

Building Confidence

Too often, we find ourselves deciding to “shelter” our scared dogs because we don’t want to overwhelm them with the outside world. Maybe we think taking our dog out will make their problem worse. Maybe we think keeping them “safe” is what’s best for them. Well actually it’s the opposite that’s true. When we get our dogs to try new stuff and they succeed, we build their confidence. By introducing new experiences we are expanding their scope of the world and inspiring them to feel comfortable in it. Don’t be scared to introduce your dog to new sounds, sights and smells and make sure to set them up for success by making it all a positive, upbeat and fun adventure. Encourage them to physically interact with the environment; sniff the tress, climb a rock, run through some tall grass, etc. Teaching some solid obedience and basic tricks is a good way of showing them that they can look to you for guidance when they’re unsure about what you’re expecting and that you’ll help them figure it out. They’ll quickly learn that moving their body into different, unusual positions in a confident manner is a sure-fire way of being rewarded. Reinforcing the behaviours you want in your dog is the very foundation of dog training and goes a long way to creating a happy, self-assured, and confident dog.

Patience

This is the most important tool you need. Rushing your process to get your dog over their fear can backfire and make their fear even worse. Taking your time is absolutely critical and you need to remember this at all times during your training. To us, their fear may be trivial but remember that our dogs are much simpler creatures who build complex associations with seemingly random things. They won’t be immediately ready to move past this fear and they’ll need the right amount of motivation and confidence to do so. Work closer to their pace and always watch to see how they react. If they do react...then learn from it and realise you’ve probably pushed them a little too much and next time you’ll need to be even more patient. Working with a fearful dog is never easy but you can make the entire process smoother by implementing more time and focus than you would with any other type of dog.

Overcoming Their Fear/Phobias

For dogs that suffer from serious fear issues that could even develop into full-blown phobias, it’s important to implement all the things I’ve went over here but to use them with a dedicated training plan. For most cases of fear around a certain trigger it would be best to work on a process of what’s called desensitisation and counter-conditioning. Explaining how it works and how best to use it could be a full blog post on it’s own here (and probably will be at some point) but the general idea is to work at a distance from the trigger (dog, car, skateboard, etc.) where the dog isn’t going to have a full reaction and stay there until they’re not necessarily focusing on the trigger any more (desensitisation). With the dog not being bothered by the trigger, the next step is to start making the experience of being near the trigger a positive one, instead of a negative one which is what they’re used to (counter-conditioning). It can be a long process and the time it takes to achieve a full recovery from their fear/phobia is totally dependent on the individual dog, the severity of their reaction to the trigger, the trigger itself, as well as the amount of time the owner/handler is willing to put into the training. Like I said I’m not going to go into the full process here because it’s too much to explain without making you fall asleep looking at your phone but hopefully you’re starting to understand the basic idea behind it.

If we’re willing to put time and commitment into helping our fearful dogs as well as creating new experiences and avoiding the bad ones and, if need be, creating a careful training plan based around overcoming their triggers then we will start to see some real change in their behaviour for the better. It might take a bit of adjusting on your end and time out of your day but once you see the relaxed, happy, and carefree dog you’ll know that it was all worth it in the end.