Resolving destructive behaviour in your pet

Revised August 2022.

destructive animals
Destructive behaviour can be extremely frustrating. Image: concept by ILLIS ABC, drawing by Pyrrth

Destructive behaviour from your beloved pet can be a nuisance. Assuming there’s not an underlying medical condition or the behaviour isn’t anxiety-related, let’s look at some ways of addressing these types of behaviour, regardless of whether you’re a dog dude, a cat gal or a parrot person.

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On the danger of dog collars.

There’s a debate raging in Sweden about whether choke collars are potentially dangerous to dogs.

choke chain
Pros and cons of choke collars? Photo: Elf, Wikipedia

Several influential dog coaches on TV use and recommend them, other experienced dog professionals argue against them. It’s currently causing all kinds of shock waves to ripple across social media, which inspired me for a blog post.

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The golden combination to prevent and reduce fear: systematic desensitization / counterconditioning (SD/CC)

In previous posts, I have described systematic desensitization (SD – introducing scary things gradually), and counterconditioning (CC), learning to associate potentially aversive stimuli with something nice.

The combination procedure is called SD/CC, DS/CC or CC/D depending on who you’re talking to; some people skip the first word of SD and only talk about desensitization. The procedure looks the same, though: after each exposure to the stimulus, the animal gets something it really likes.

The basic SD/CC to teach a cat to accept an injection may look like this – note that there may be up to 20 intermediate steps between each of these (for instance, when introducing the needle):

  • Stroking the cat, then giving it some tuna.
  • Stroking more firmly – more tuna.
  • Lifting the skin – tuna again.
  • Pinching – tuna.
  • Needle prick – tuna.
  • Injection – tuna…

But remember, do not move on to the next step until you see that the animal is completely comfortable and at ease at the current step (the relaxation part of SD) and is looking for the tuna (showing signs of learning the association: CC).

In short, this type of procedure is typically not done in one single session but over several training sessions.

SDCC

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