Category: Dealing with fear

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Animal Emotions Dealing with fear Problem Solving

Fireworks, Thunder, and Fear: The Complete Graded Guide to Canine Noise Phobia

… Is your dog afraid of fireworks? How about thunder?

Keep reading, this blog post contains everything you need to know.

… Is your dog *not* fearful of fireworks, thunder or other loud noise?

Keep reading anyway. That may change, and you should be prepared. What’s more, you can prevent it from ever becoming an issue.

This post is updated about twice a year, last on May 31st, 2026 – look for the “revised” signs in the post to find the latest changes.

It’s the combination of different techniques that produce the best effect (Crowell-Davis et al., 2003: 93%). Nobody’s tried using all the techniques suggested in this blog post, as far as I know.

Is the noise starting already? Jump straight to what to do now.

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Animal Emotions Dealing with fear

4 compelling reasons to feed treats at the vet’s

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.

feeding
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Animal Emotions Dealing with fear Problem Solving

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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Animal Emotions Dealing with fear

Dog owners: to pet or not to pet during thunderstorms or fireworks.

Revised August 2019.

Depending on who you ask, you get a vastly different answer to the question of whether it’s a good idea to pet a frightened dog (or other animal with whom you have an established relationship and that enjoys your touch) during noisy (scary) events.

In the scientific literature, the overwhelming majority of articles (if not all…?) recommend not petting, meaning that petting fearful dogs inadvertently reinforces the anxious behaviour.

Still, in the dog training community, many professional dog trainers do recommend petting an anxious animal, and it has been argued that “petting doesn’t reinforce fear, it reduces it”.

Does petting reduce fear – or reinforce it?

So which is it? Could both sides have a point?

Continue reading “Dog owners: to pet or not to pet during thunderstorms or fireworks.”
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Animal Emotions Dealing with fear

Systematic desensitization – essential to reducing fear

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.

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Animal Emotions Dealing with fear

4 reasons why habituation is not a good choice of technique to reduce fear at the vet’s

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:

  • If it works, it’s a slow process
  • Meanwhile, you risk injury in staff handling the animal and difficulty in diagnosis.
  • You run the risk of sensitization (the animal becoming successively more fearful)
  • You risk confusing successful habituation with learned helplessness (animals giving up; a potentially pathological reaction)
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