Chapter 15. Behavior Therapy

Often, we don't know why dogs behave the way they do. But, fortunately, we can treat troublesome behaviors successfully, without knowing their cause. Behavior therapy, if required, can be done at the same time as other course work.

In many instances, gentle training and extensive rewarding of behavior, as used in this course, has a restorative effect on dog temperaments and behaviors that have gone wrong. The gentle game-playing approach to training, by itself, may be sufficient to remove an undesirable behavior or emotion. But, this is often a slow process—dog owners usually want faster results.

In addition to using gentle training techniques, the process can be accelerated by borrowing from the field of Behavior Therapy. In this course, you will become familiar with the following Behavior-Therapy techniques: Game-playing, Relaxation, Desensitization, Counter-Conditioning, flooding, and Reward-Punishment. They are not difficult to learn and use. This chapter gives you an overview of these techniques, along with some examples of treatment of real-life behavior problems.

Relaxation

Relaxation benefits your dog in these ways: (1) It helps to keep your dog free of emotional distress much of the time. (2) It quickly relieves the dog of an unwelcome emotion whenever one comes on. Relaxation is meant to work on such induced emotions as: fright that comes from a loud, sudden noise; hostility that's expressed by your dog toward some persons and other dogs; anxiety and fear that might arise in some situations and settings; an uneasiness that might follow mistakes made by the dog during a training session; apprehension and tension to a negative emotion that you are experiencing, such as anger, fear or anxiety. (3) When used with some treatments, such as the counter-conditioning of stressful events (a simple procedure that you can be shown how to do, if needed), relaxation accelerates the effect of the treatment.

Clearly, muscle tension is actively associated with fear, apprehension, restlessness, and anger. Supposedly, these emotional responses become markedly reduced or are absent when the muscles are relaxed. That is, a dog that is in a relaxed state, is less apt to be anxious, fearful...

Studies with human subjects have shown that Relaxation, when used alone, can ease stress, tension, emotional upset, as well as some physical ills. Also, some human Behavior-therapy treatments can be made more effective when the Relaxation technique is part of the broader treatment.

The Relaxation Procedure

The Behavior Therapist who works with human patients is able to describe and demonstrate the Relaxation procedure to the patient—ways that are not available to the worker with animals. In the human context, the patient is first asked to be as comfortable as possible in an upright sitting position with eyes closed, and to take deep breaths and let them out slowly. Then, the patient is taught how to systematically relax different muscle groups. When the patient is fully relaxed, and the breathing becomes deep, without effort, the Therapist then can begin the main treatment, such as Systematic Desensitization.

Though, we can't communicate with the dog in that way, we can, nevertheless, do things that are likely to elicit calmness and relaxation in the dog.

Some calming that you can do are: speaking to the dog in a soft, slow tone of voice; softly stroking the dog about the ears, head, neck and shoulders, or wherever it gives the dog pleasure; an occasional brief simple, comforting, light touch of the dog's head or shoulder; a slow, light scratching of the dog's back; lightly hugging the dog.

You can do one thing more: The dog can be told when to relax. The word, RELAX, can be used to do that. For instance, just after the dog had been through a scare, or looks befuddled and stops working while being taught an obedience task, repeat the word, RELAX, in a soft, slow tone of voice, then begin the gentling procedure, and continue it for a minute or more. By having the gentling procedure follow the voiced sound a number of times, the sound itself should begin to calm the dog.

The first two weeks in this course

Try the Relaxation procedure on your dog, whether he has an emotional problem or not. After two weeks, he should appear happier and more contented than he's ever been, and be less apt to be affected by stressful events.

Perform the Relaxation procedure for about 2 minutes, or until you see the dog enter a relaxed state. Relaxation, used in this way, helps to keep the dog free of emotional distress much of the time. Also, do the procedure whenever something has happened to distress the dog. Do it even when your dog is angry, but be careful how you how you try to relax him.

For the angry dog. As soon as the dog is seen to be in emotional distress or has become hostile, remove him from the emotion-eliciting situation, or remove the agitating event. Then, begin safe relaxation routines: Say RELAX in a calming voice. If the angry dog looks like he will accept simple touches, then lightly touch the dog's shoulders and the top of his head.

The gentling procedure is effective for giving the dog temporary relief from emotional episodes, whenever they happen. Also, Relaxation, by itself, sometimes provides longer-term benefits. That is, it may put an unwelcome emotional reaction into remission. But, to get the latter benefit, other therapy techniques are normally used.

Counter-conditioning

By this technique, you will be able to change the way the dog reacts to a stimulus event that's causing your dog's problem-behavior. That is, fear, anxiety or anger-eliciting stimuli can be altered to become events that give pleasure. For example, a dog that is apprehensive or fearful in the presence of certain persons or dogs, can become friendly and be happy to see them with this technique.

The technique involves the Stimulus-association Principle. Usually it's the pairing of two stimulus events (this principle is the foundation for many of the procedures that you are presently using in normal training of your dog. Simply put, the principle says that when a stimulus event appears consistently just prior to another event in a setting, then the first appearing event will take on some of the values of the one that follows. As a result of the "pairing," a change comes about in how the dog perceives the first-appearing event. The dog's perception of the second event in the "pairing" procedure, however, remains unchanged.

For example, a gun-shy dog can be rehabilitated by having each low-level sound of a gun be consistently followed by a tasty tidbit or other attractive event. In the pairing procedure, the fear stimulus, a gunshot sound, is programmed to appear first; an attractive event is then made to follow. In time, the dog should be waiting in happy anticipation of the gunfire, because of the pleasures that follow.

The same can be done with dogs that are fearful of some dogs, persons or places. With the Stimulus-association procedure, the fear event will change to become an attractive one, because every time the dog comes in contact with these feared individuals or places, something nice is made to happen. The procedure also works when a dog's reaction to others is anger and aggression. However, in this latter case, you may be competing with pleasures that the dog already gets from picking on other dogs or small animals, or by scaring people. In which case, punishment, either nonphysical or physical, may also be used as part of the therapy regimen. Typically, the therapist suppresses the unsocial behavior, before attempting rewarding techniques to correct the problem.

Desensitization

Desensitization is an adaptation procedure. The dog loses his irrational fear of a stimulus event if he stays in contact with the stimulus and nothing bad happens, and perhaps, something good may happen. The Desensitization work should begin with a low-level intensity of the fear event, then a gradual increase in intensity as adaptation progresses. Whenever a particular level of the event brings on an adverse reaction, the intensity of the stimulus is lowered for awhile. For example, if your dog begins to show fear when another dog approaches, then either dog should be moved to a "safer" distance, until your dog recovers, then brought closer a short time later. The desensitization process can be accelerated if the dog can be made to relax at every step of the desensitization work. Relaxation is done with soothing talk, soft touching and hugging.

Dogs that have not been socialized properly, may be apprehensive and insecure in the presence of persons and dogs in a dog-training class setting. If you have such a dog, then do the following when you go to your next class:

Choose a place for you and your dog to sit. Make it near a friendly dog, and yet far enough away so that your dog does not become particularly "bothered" by the other dog's presence. There are two things you can do then: Employ the Relaxation techniques, and make the setting a pleasant place to be in by feeding the dog tasty tidbits on a somewhat random schedule.

To do the latter, say GOOD, at 30 to 60 second intervals. Say it with a soothing tone of voice. And, each time, follow with a tasty tidbit. Otherwise ignore the dog between tidbit feedings. Don't do anything that will upset your dog. However, you may hold a conversation with another person during class idle time. At another session, you can try to bring your dog closer to the other dog.

Plan to take daily walks with others. Your dog will usually be having too much fun on these strolls, to be anxious, afraid or angry. In addition, you can combine the pleasure of the stroll with occasional GOOD sounds and tasty tidbits—the latter, again, done on a random schedule.

Reward and Punishment

With this technique, the dog learns to repress some types of undesirable behaviors. Whining and excited barking are good candidates for this procedure. In this example, "quiet" is strongly rewarded and "noise" is substantially punished. Physical punishment, however, should be avoided because it may add to any existing stress and anxiety of the dog. The punishment procedures that work well singly or in combination are "delay of reward," "loss of a chance to earn rewards," "penalty work" and "removal to a less attractive setting"—a cage, for instance.

If your dog has a problem behavior undergoing correction with the Reward-punishment procedure, it may not be convenient or appropriate to be using the treatment in some social situations. For example, some dogs sound off persistently during the class period, and thus bother others. As a makeshift remedy in that situation, get the dog to do something that's incompatible with making noise: Give him a rawhide bone to chew on; You may also do tidbit feeding and relaxation of the dog, as was described above. These routine efforts will have at least a temporary, if not a longer, remedial effect. If the dog is noisy because of stress, then you may also remove him to a less stressful place in the classroom for the time being. Or, if your dog just plain likes to bark, then you can do what is pretty much a harassment technique: Ignore him when he is not barking. When he barks, say HUSH, then wrap your hand around his snout (do not harm him or interfere with his breathing with your hold). Remove your hold when he shows a little agitation. Proceed to ignore him again.

Grave aggressive play with a new pet in the household. If you fear that your dog may cause the "newcomer" serious injury, drastic action is required. First, you will do what you can to suppress your dog's undesirable behavior. Then you will work to get him to behave well toward your other pet.

Let's say that you just brought home a kitten, and your dog soon tries some serious aggressive play with her. Here is what you can do to correct the situation: The family gathers in the playroom or other convenient place to watch TV, read and play with the kitten. The dog is allowed to walk freely about the room. If the dog shows a curious interest in the kitten, accept it. If the dog shows aggression, even the play kind, say, NO, in a throaty tone of voice, then hurry to him and swat him across his behind with a rolled up newspaper. Go back to your normal activity. Be sure that you preface the swat with the guttural NO sound, which clearly tells him that he earned a punishment—this way you are not likely to affect him emotionally.

The punishment action should suppress the troublesome behavior long enough for you to strengthen a more amiable disposition toward the kitten. When you see that your dog is no longer bothering her, say GOOD, then give him a tasty tidbit. You can repeat these rewarding actions at various intervals. When he merely shows a curious interest in the kitten, say, being nose-to-nose with her, say OUT, then go to the refrigerator to find something that's specially tasty for him. Continue this rewarding activity as long and as often as you want. When the family is away, keep the kitten safe in a cage or in a closed room.

Use discretion in the choice of other kinds of physical punishment that you might consider using. Here's another—if you can trust your dog not to bite you: Following the NO sound, go to him, grasp him by his cheeks (do it without shaking him), and give him a face-to-face angry scold for several seconds—it should produce distress without pain. Then release him and begin rewarding techniques, as described in the previous paragraph.

Flooding

When other therapies fail to quickly rid dogs of anxiety, discomfort and fear of a particular aversive event, trainers sometimes turn to "flooding" the dog with the event that induces the emotional impairment. If the dog fears gunfire, a trainer might anchor the dog close to a firing range; if a rancher's dog fears horses, he may put his dog in a horse stable yard for a week. Sometimes the treatment works, but quite often it does not—and when it does not, a dog may turn into an emotional wreck.

About a decade ago, I had a bird dog that was afraid to go into water. She could not be persuaded to moisten more than her ankles. On one particular hot afternoon, I prepared her for a total wetting. I attached a long line to her collar. Then, I carried her to the end of a fishing pier. Without further adieu, I threw her into the water. I towed her to shore with the line. She seemed none the worse for the experience. A couple of days later—it was another hot day—the performance was repeated. The next day, instead of carrying the dog, I led her with the leash. When we got to the end, she seemed puzzled as to what would happen next. Perhaps, she hopefully waited to be thrown in again. When I started to push lightly on her backside toward the edge, she resisted, but it wasn't a frantic resistance. I then let her go. We just stood there for several seconds. I tried the push once more. This time she jumped. From that time forward, she became a water bird dog. Could be that the treatment worked because the water bath felt very refreshing on those hot days; and sometimes you get lucky.

Obedience Training and Temperament

The quality of life of the dog is likely to improve after he undergoes some meaningful obedience training in a few basic behaviors, as Sit or Down, Stay, Halt, Come when called, Walk on loose lead, and minding his manners. When these are brought under good control, the owner is more inclined to give him quality time—do fun things with the dog, exercise him on strolls, and take him along on away-trips, thus making him a happier, well-adjusted, and confident dog.

Trial-and-error Training. Now and then, training techniques succeed when they do not conform to accepted learning principles; Some dogs catch on even when the caliber of training is not all that good. But, more often, the inexperienced trainer not only fails to get the required control, but may also cause the dog to develop temperament and other behavior problems.

Regrettably, many owners enroll their dogs in formal training courses only when their dogs develop behavior problems, rather than do it as a problem-preventing measure. Present-day professional training, in the main, is a combination of Inducive (reward) and Compulsive (force) Training—difference in style is mostly determined by the degree of emphasis. Almost any variation will work if it's based on sound principles of learning.

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