The Key to Effective Counterconditioning to Help Fearful Dogs

One of the most important techniques available to us, particularly when working with fearful and reactive dogs is counterconditioning. Doing it correctly means the dog’s response to the thing that is worrying them changes from a negative reaction to a positive one. Doing it incorrectly will either not improve the situation or could even make the situation more complicated.  

How then do we know if we are carrying out counterconditioning correctly? Let’s start out by taking a closer look at counterconditioning.  

Not All Counterconditioning is the Same

I’ll often see people describe carrying out counterconditioning by having the dog look at the trigger of their stress and then back to the handler, and then supplying the tasty treat. While yes, this is counterconditioning, it is in fact more like an operant form of counterconditioning. The dog must take an action in order for the good stuff to occur, so we call this rewarding or reinforcing that action, because we want the dog to repeat that action.

Don’t get me wrong, this is a fantastic technique we can use during the process of helping the dog to feel better about their world. I’m a huge fan of using Look at That (LAT) where the dog is asked to look at the trigger calmly and then back to the handler for their reward. It is great for working on decreasing the distance once that initial emotional association has changed from negative to postive, especially when we pick the places we work with our reactive dogs carefully, but this is not going to work as the first step of the process.  

The First Step for Effective Counterconditioning

What we’re looking to do is to change the dog’s emotional reaction to the stimulus. Working with emotions means we are looking at classical conditioning, working with instinctive and innate processes. Think about the most famous classical conditioning exercise of all time – Pavlov’s infamous drooling dogs. The drooling was a completely instinctual reaction, with no deliberate decision or action on the part of the dog. Emotional responses like reactive behaviour displays are no different. The dog is not making an active choice to feel fear and stress.  

This means the first stage of counterconditioning needs basing in classical conditioning, in instinctive responses, to counter the original conditioning that created the fearful association. We need to change the dog's emotional response to the stimulus. How do we do this using classical conditioning? By changing the mental and emotional association the dog has with the stimulus. As soon as the dog has noticed the trigger but you’re at a distance where they don’t feel they have to react, start feeding the tastiest treats they could ever imagine. We don’t ask the dog to do anything other than know that the stimulus is there. As soon as the trigger goes away, so does the super tasty stuff – it only comes out for this purpose. This way the presence of the trigger becomes a predictor of the delicious food.

It would be a very good idea to keep an eye on this dog's body language 

Timing is Important

The timing of starting feeding is really central to the effectiveness of counterconditioning. It can feel at first as if there is no time at all between the dog spotting the trigger and reacting. Sometimes reactive dogs need a LOT of distance, so the trigger can appear like a speck in the distance. A distance will exist at which we can start the process, although spotting it can appear tricky to begin with.

What if we start to feed treats in anticipation of the stimulus arriving? Won’t the dog make the association in the same way? After all, it’s still the tasty treats and triggering stimulus happening at the same time!

This doesn’t work and could in fact increase the problem. We know that dogs make associations and that these associations can form quickly and be long lasting – anyone who has unfortunately seen their dog have a scary experience that leads to an ongoing fear has seen this happen. If the food starts arriving and then the scary thing happens, to the dog the food can become a prediction that the scary thing is about to appear. When food becomes a signal to the dog that scary stuff is about to happen not only does their emotional reaction not change, but the food is no longer something positive to the dog either and the presence of the food can cause anxiety as the dog starts looking for the scary thing to appear.

Counterconditioning is an amazing method to help our fearful, anxious, sensitive, and complex dogs have a better relationship with the world around them. It is so important to understand how the process works so that we can ensure we are helping the dog start to feel safer and more confident in their world.

A happy and relaxed blue merle boy in one of his favourite places