Time Is On Your Side: Resolving Canine Anxiety, Stress, and Fear

It takes time and patience to help a dog calm its fears. photo: AdobeStock

If our dogs are anxious, stressed, or fearful, it’s our job to actively resolve these problems as soon as possible. The dog is hurting yet every day must confront its biggest nightmare, whether that’s unfamiliar people, dogs, places, scenarios, or being left at home alone.

But trying to resolve these fears amid the distractions of daily life is rarely effective because there is usually just too much going on. For example, trying to classically condition your dog to improve their perception of other unfamiliar dogs rarely works if you are walking your dog at the same time. The environment changes with every step and your dog is continually blasted with myriad stimuli. Consequently, it is unclear to your dog whether your increasing praise, reassurance, and multiple food rewards are associated with another dog's approach, or with a passing person, bicycle, skateboard, car horn, squirrel, or McDonalds wrapper fluttering on the sidewalk.

To effectively calm your dog’s fears, you must set aside a lengthy, dedicated period and devote your full attention to troubleshooting the problem, alleviating the fear, and basically making their world a friendlier place. Here’s how.

Find a suitable spot some distance away from an area without a lot of dog traffic (e.g. not in a dog park), sit down for two to three hours, and let your dog habituate to the immediate environment. Then, as another dog approaches, praise from the heart, offer reassurance and guidance ("Sit" and "Shush"), and oodles of food rewards. As the other dog passes by and recedes into the distance, ignore your dog.

I usually dispense a couple of hundred food rewards per training session, but obviously not commercial treats, which would be expensive and contain far too many calories. Rather, I primarily use air-dried food from the dog's daily ration. Small bits of kibble would work, too.

I know some will ask, "But aren't you unintentionally reinforcing barking, growling, and fear?" No, not if you adhere to the binary principles of both Classical and Operant Conditioning. Under Classical Conditioning, always praise and offer reassurance and food rewards when a scary stimulus is present regardless of your dog's behavior, but ignore your dog when the stimulus is receding or absent. Under Operant Conditioning, you may reassure your dog when they are scared (even lunging, barking, or growling) as long as you praise and reward the dog more when they are not reacting.

The behavioral effects of the Covid shutdown on dogs surprised me. Not that they happened, which was totally predictable, but how a single lengthy rehabilitation session could have such a profound effect.

A case in point was actually a dog named Case, who I worked with in the middle of the pandemic. Case was deathly afraid of all people, even those he knew, and of his own shadow. To calm his fears, I sat on a bench six feet back from a busy cliff-top path with Case under the bench. Whenever anyone walked by, I praised him lavishly and dispensed a food reward (I probably used about three hundred very small pieces of air-dried food altogether). After a little over an hour of highly focused training time, Case had come out from under the bench and was sitting by my side. His barking and growling were history.

When we started our session, Case had even been scared of me. By the time we walked back to the hotel where I was staying, I was his new best friend. I had left with a scared dog, but I returned with a calmer and more confident Case, a dog with joy in his heart. The bottom line? Scared dogs need time and focus, which is best given in extended training sessions.

It should come as no surprise to any dog professional that puppies and dogs become increasingly shy, standoffish, wary, and fearful towards unfamiliar people, dogs, and scenarios as they grow older. The adolescent-onset increase in fear of the unfamiliar is a normal, natural, and necessary developmental process, which has had enormous evolutionary adaptive value. Cubs and pups naturally approach animals in their own dens (their families), but as they grow older and venture farther, naturally avoid unfamiliar animals. This is a survival skill in the wild.

While adolescent-onset fear of unfamiliar people and dogs is predictable, most owners don't see it coming because they are used to seeing their pup's friendliness and confidence around familiar people (human family and frequent visitors) and familiar dogs at home. Some even complain that their puppy is overly confident and overly friendly to people and dogs. But fear may start to manifest itself when the puppy begins to go for walks or attends a class in an unfamiliar place with unfamiliar people and unfamiliar dogs. This is especially likely if the puppy has had a best canine friend and bodyguard at home who isn’t with them on these outings.

Of course, it is easier, quicker, and more effective to prevent the development of temperament problems, such as fear of unfamiliar people, dog-dog reactivity, and separation anxiety, in puppyhood. An off-leash puppy class is the best place for a trainer to identify incipient signs of fear or aggression and immediately nip them in the bud (check out the recent videos on our Dunbar Academy and SIRIUS® Puppy Training FaceBook pages).

Additionally, basic confinement training with food-stuffed chew toys in the first few weeks for a new puppy or in the first week for a newly adopted adolescent/adult dog is the quickest way to teach the newcomer the rules of its new house and a routine. This will help dogs learn to eliminate on a verbal cue, to settle down promptly and calmly, and to enjoy the many extended alone-times when their people are not at home.

And what became of Case, my terrified mid-pandemic pal? Well, I met him and his human a couple of months ago at a fund-raiser for Next Step Service Dogs in a crowded brewery. Case greeted me like a long-lost friend, then resumed hanging out with all the other people at the party - fearful no more.