Elsie Isn’t Afraid of Matt Anymore

Helping families with dogs who are extremely fearful is one of my passions. I am always up-front with these clients, describing what realistic/hopeful results may look like for their unique situation. We can’t just snap our fingers and BAM… the dog is confident in all situations! These clients always understand that, but still want to do their very best to help their dog as much as possible.

DISTINGUISHING BETWEEN “COMMON FEAR” vs. “DEBILITATING FEAR”:

I also want to take a moment here to distinguish between fear vs. what I would describe as “debilitating fear.” Both of these are often contextual. Even extremely fearful dogs can still show signs of enjoyment and interest in certain contexts, activities, or spaces.

“COMMON FEAR”:

Many dogs, even very confident dogs, have contextual fears where they show short-lived and sometimes even somewhat patterned fear responses in daily life. A couple of simple examples that come to mind:

• a dog who is afraid of getting a bath, but eventually, with some food rewards, a lickmat, or other encouragement, is able to get it done and feel clean even without much intentional scaffolded training… but really just by pure desensitization and developing normalcy.
• dogs with quick, skittish, escape-like responses when something falls down somewhat near them or makes a loud noise near them… YET they can pretty quickly, even with some skepticism/hesitation, bounce back from it, accepting encouragement, treats, praise, and possibly checking in with their owner in a very focused way, etc.
• a dog who has never walked on a dock before, has nervous and hesitant body language/stress signals, but with a little bit of guidance/treats/encouragement, the dog is happily on the dock with their family, etc.

“DEBILITATING FEAR”:

Debilitating fear, as I observe it, is also often contextual as well… but it is a fear that creates huge barriers in their lives for everyday well-being. Elsie and some other dogs I have worked with fall into this category. It’s important to note here, again, that Elsie, even before training, still had contexts where she showed much more confidence and joy (with the children, with Taylor, in the backyard, chasing prey, etc.), but the things she was afraid of really did affect her well-being and overall movement forward. Some examples of debilitating fear might be:

• frozenness/ongoing trembling/body shutting down in certain contexts
• panicked responses/ongoing escape-like behaviors/erratic pacing
• not being able to regularly eat food or take water due to the fear being so profound
• not being able to use the bathroom
• not being able to get to a vet office (for well-being reasons) due to overwhelming fear of getting into a car, etc.

Some memorable moments from Elsie’s program were when they would send me pictures or videos of big moments of progress for Elsie (Elsie taking food out of Matt’s hand, Matt being able to patiently help Elsie go onto a raised dog bed, the first time Elsie chose to stay near Matt on the couch even after Taylor left the room, etc… simple things that many people would see as normal, but for this family they were big moments to celebrate!). One of my favorite moments was being on the first long-line walk with Matt and Elsie, and we noticed 5–10 minutes into the walk that she was finally starting to truly activate her nose around Matt, around the trees, around me, etc. Whenever a dog’s nose is activated, that means their brain is open to receiving new information… which is exactly what we needed Elsie to begin doing!

Some challenges from this program that I remember were making sure we scaffolded properly to maintain about an 80% success rate with Matt being present. Scaffolding involves really carefully thinking about adding certain movements, approach angles, sounds, speed, tonality, spacing, etc. These are details that, for a dog like Elsie, we need her to see and learn… but there were a few times where I reflected and thought I needed to scaffold differently to keep her success rate higher!

Something else I want to mention here as a defense for these dogs: there are trainers who will see a case like Elsie’s simply from an obedience standpoint and will default to using high leash pressure or an e-collar to basically make her stay in the room when Matt’s present, or make her walk slowly instead of erratically, etc. All this does is make a dog like Elsie “mask” their fears and just go along with it because it’s “obedience.” Have your guard up for this kind of approach… this is never a good approach, as it sacrifices trust and reliability of the relationship you have with your dog. If you or someone you know has a dog with “debilitating fears,” you should always go the longer, more patient route of providing safety and security first… then working on de-escalation and journeying, then building bridges in their world from there.

That’s what we did with Elsie, and I’ll continue to support them as time goes on during their long-term support phase and beyond!