Animal Behaviour Courses
Is your dog afraid of fireworks? How about thunder?
Keep reading, this blog post contains everything you need to know. This post is updated and all the links are double-checked about twice a year, last on June 14th, 2024 – look for the “revised” signs in the post to find the latest changes.
Is your dog not fearful of fireworks, thunder or other loud noise?
Keep reading anyway. That may change, and you should be prepared.
This post is part of a series on addressing animals’ fear in the veterinary clinic.
Why feed treats? The technical term is counterconditioning (CC), and it’s about feeding fabulous treats in order to reduce fear.
Continue reading “4 compelling reasons to feed treats at the vet’s”
Systematic desensitization is an essential part of your toolbox to reduce and eliminate fear.
I know, ten syllables. And yet, it’s one of the most important tools in animal training, so… let me explain it, and perhaps it will be easier to digest.
Let’s call it SD for short.
Continue reading “Systematic desensitization – essential to reducing fear”
If you’ve read my other posts in this series, you know I’ve been promoting counterconditioning (or re-learning) as one of the best techniques to reduce fear in the veterinary clinic.
You might be thinking: “Aaaaw, that’s too much of a hassle, there’s no time. Why not just grab the animal, do what needs to be done, and with time, the animal will get used to it? It will habituate.”
There are four reasons why I don’t think that’s a good idea:
Revised September 2022.
I collaborate with a vet who claims that many of the dogs that visit her facility are so eager to get inside the door that they pull their owners by the leash all the way from the parking lot.
Her secret?
*drumroll*
Coun-ter-con-di-tio-ning.
Six syllables. I know, most people tune out beyond four. But I still think you should learn this particular term. Why?
Because it’s one of the most important techniques in animal training (arguably top five).
Continue reading “One of the 5 most important words in animal training: counterconditioning”
(revised Jan. 2019)
Is your dog or cat offered treats during the visit to the veterinarian?
I can think of two reasons why this might not happen.
For several years, I’ve been teaching about fear, anxiety and stress (FAS) in pets during veterinary visits. Among several topics, I’ve spoken about why treat feeding is such a powerful technique to reduce and eliminate – and prevent – fear and fear learning. This is called counterconditioning.
But in the various groups of veterinarians and vet technicians I’ve lectured to over the years, I’ve kept hearing the same objections over and over again:
“That sounds great”, the vets would say. “But if we need to sedate them, we can’t feed them so soon before we put them under”.
That got me curious, and I started asking questions:
As a scientist, my knee-jerk reaction was to look for the article that addressed those questions.
I didn’t find one. There wasn’t any. Nobody had looked at that!
Continue reading “Why vets shouldn’t avoid treat feeding in the clinic”