Train N Treat: Helping your Dog Cope with Something Scary

From Tuesday 1 Oct 2013, cheerfuldogs.com will post a "Train N Treat" column which will be available every alternate Tuesday until "the cows come home". We hope that you'll enjoy the little training secrets that Chief Cheery Officer Kiyo, will share with you. If he hasn't approved the training method, it's not going into our trainer's toolkit :)!

Today, in our dog-friendly training tip for enlightened dog lovers - Kiyo shares how he overcame his fear of having eye-drops dribbled into his eyes. The same "Bad = Good" game can be tweaked to help your dog cope with scary situations.

"If your dog, Fido, loves having his ears cleaned, nails trimmed, teeth brushed and even eye-drops dribbled into his eyes, you’re a very lucky owner. Hug Fido (if he loves being hugged too) and reward him for doing a great job!

But not all dogs naturally enjoy being handled in certain ways, e.g. nail trims and ear cleaning, and can become scared and stressed by it. However, we can make things easier by helping them grow accustomed to being groomed or handled The first step of the learning process is always for your dog to form a positive and rewarding association with what it's not instinctively comfortable with.

From flinching and turning away from the eye-drop bottle,
Kiyo now holds still for his daily eye-drop application

When our dog, Kiyo (in the photo), needed a cataract operation, it was a struggle to apply eye-drops, as it was clearly a no-go zone for him. Instead of escalating the conflict, we turned to an evergreen training tip and made something ‘bad’ into something ‘good’ for Kiyo. Here’s a step-by-step guide that you can re-engineer for many scary situations for your dog. But if you’re not sure, do seek help from a reputable professional dog behaviourist or trainer. Your dog will thank you for it!

Read: “Putting the ‘Good’ into Something ‘Bad'"



Postscript: In case you're wondering how a game created for applying eye-drops could be tweaked to say, help a dog that lunges, barks and spins when it sees another dog - enjoy these pictures :). Because rewards-based, positive and humane training works!

Muffin with Chief Cheery Officer (CCO) Kiyo.
After Muffin was unfortunately attacked by 2 dogs some time ago, he'd spin, bark, growl and sometimes redirect his reactivity towards his humans. The "Bad=Good" game helped Muffin re-associate positive consequences with another dog and he was able to meet and chill out with Kiyo.

Rose with Kiyo.
Just like with Muffin, Rose would lunge, bark and spin when she saw dogs, even at a distance.
The "Bad=Good" game again helped Rose be able to hang out with Kiyo.