{"id":276,"date":"2015-12-17T08:57:18","date_gmt":"2015-12-17T07:57:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/illis.se\/en\/?p=276"},"modified":"2024-12-30T20:45:54","modified_gmt":"2024-12-30T19:45:54","slug":"four-reasons-why-habituation-is-not-a-good-choice-of-technique-to-reduce-fear-at-the-vets","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/illis.se\/en\/four-reasons-why-habituation-is-not-a-good-choice-of-technique-to-reduce-fear-at-the-vets\/","title":{"rendered":"4 reasons why habituation is not a good choice of technique to reduce fear at the vet\u2019s"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>If you\u2019ve read my other posts in this series, you know I\u2019ve been promoting <a href=\"https:\/\/illis.se\/en\/cc\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">counterconditioning<\/a> (or re-learning) as one of the best techniques to reduce fear in the veterinary clinic.<\/p>\n<p>You might be thinking: \u201cAaaaw, that\u2019s too much of a hassle, there\u2019s 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 <em>habituate<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>There are four reasons why I don\u2019t think that\u2019s a good idea:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>If it works, it\u2019s a slow process<\/li>\n<li>Meanwhile, you risk injury in staff handling the animal and difficulty in diagnosis.<\/li>\n<li>You run the risk of <em>sensitization<\/em> (the animal becoming successively more fearful)<\/li>\n<li>You risk confusing successful habituation with <em>learned helplessness<\/em> (animals giving up; a potentially pathological reaction)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<p>Stimuli could be rated according to <em>valence <\/em>(whether they\u2019re pleasant \/ unpleasant) and range from super-nice to super-nasty in how they are perceived by the animal. What the animal actually thinks is unobservable, but behaviour will give us a cue &#8211; let\u2019s assume behaviour correlates to valence, and look at one end of this continuum for a while.<\/p>\n<p>For starters, sometimes it\u2019s hard to know where on this scale different stimuli would rate. For some individual animals, moving through a crowded reception room may be really really aversive, for others less so, or not at all.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_277\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-277\" style=\"width: 288px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><a href=\"http:\/\/illis.se\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2015\/12\/habituation.png\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"wp-image-277\" src=\"http:\/\/illis.se\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2015\/12\/habituation.png\" alt=\"habituation\" width=\"288\" height=\"465\" srcset=\"https:\/\/illis.se\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2015\/12\/habituation.png 447w, https:\/\/illis.se\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2015\/12\/habituation-185x300.png 185w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 288px) 100vw, 288px\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-277\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">In habituation, stimuli go from aversive to neutral over time.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Habituation is simply exposing the animal to some stimulus until they stop responding. Conceptualized in our valence continuum, habituation brings stimuli to neutral over time or with repeated exposure, simply by exposure. What we actually observe is the animal reacting less and less to it. Habituation may occur with stimuli that are initially really aversive, or with stimuli that are not so aversive to begin with.<\/p>\n<p>The first two problems are clear from this illustration: if we\u2019re early in the process, the stimuli are aversive and behaviours will reflect that. Dogs may growl, cats may scratch, parrots may bite. Or worse. Even though later, they may stop responding, the initial exposures are risky and it may be difficult to properly examine (and thus diagnose) the animal.<\/p>\n<p>What\u2019s even more important is that it\u2019s sort of like a lottery. Though habituation is one potential outcome of repeated exposure, <em>sensitization is more likely in the vet clinic.<\/em> Third problem.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_278\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-278\" style=\"width: 288px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><a href=\"http:\/\/illis.se\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2015\/12\/Sensitization.png\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"wp-image-278\" src=\"http:\/\/illis.se\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2015\/12\/Sensitization.png\" alt=\"Sensitization\" width=\"288\" height=\"465\" srcset=\"https:\/\/illis.se\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2015\/12\/Sensitization.png 447w, https:\/\/illis.se\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2015\/12\/Sensitization-186x300.png 186w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 288px) 100vw, 288px\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-278\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">In sensitization, stimuli become more aversive over time.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>If the animal sensitizes, what you\u2019ll notice is that she starts responding more rather than less, over time or with repeated exposure.<\/p>\n<h5>Crucial differences between Habituation and Sensitization<\/h5>\n<p>Though they seem like two sides of the same coin, they\u2019re not. Sensitization and habituation are different in a few ways:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Habituation is slow, sensitization is potentially fast. Generally animals learn quicker about potentially dangerous stimuli.<\/li>\n<li>Habituation doesn\u2019t generalize, sensitization does. Animals start reacting to other stimuli than the one that originally triggered the response.<\/li>\n<li>Habituation isn\u2019t multi-modal, sensitization tends to be. Animals start reacting to other sensory stimuli than the original one: they get sensitive to noise, touch, visual input, etc.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>The problem is that it\u2019s hard to predict whether an animal will habituate or sensitize to a given stimulus. Some animals may sensitize even to not-so-aversive stimuli, others will not.<\/p>\n<p>Judging by studies on how fear develops in animals visiting the veterinary clinic, the majority sensitize rather than habituate: dogs with previous negative experiences are more fearful than dogs with only positive previous experiences; older animals are more fearful than younger animals.<\/p>\n<p>In this post, I\u2019ve been assuming that we can tell by the animal\u2019s behaviour how aversive a situation is.<\/p>\n<p>But sometimes we can\u2019t. Sometimes animals may stop struggling and meekly accept handling because it\u2019s learned that resistance is futile. This is a potentially serious stress syndrome called <em>learned helplessness.<\/em> The fourth problem with attempting habituation in the vet clinic is thus telling successful habituation from learned helplessness.<\/p>\n<p>Based on these thoughts, I\u2019d advise against simply \u201cgetting it done\u201d in the veterinary clinic.<\/p>\n<p>Habituation alone won&#8217;t work.<\/p>\n<p>Rather, I would suggest <a href=\"https:\/\/illis.se\/en\/one-of-the-5-most-important-words-in-animal-training-counterconditioning\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">counterconditioning<\/a> to reduce fear at the vet&#8217;s.<\/p>\n<p>But, despite these shortcomings &#8211; there is still a nugget of gold hidden in the process of habituation. It&#8217;s a version of habituation called&nbsp;<a href=\"http:\/\/illis.se\/en\/systematic-desensitization-essential-to-reducing-fear\/\">systematic desensitization<\/a>&#8211; more about that in another post.<\/p>\n<p><em>\u2026 Do you agree? Are there any more adverse effects of habituation that I didn\u2019t mention? Let me know in the comment section below! <\/em><\/p>\n<p>I give online courses about getting happy, reasonably well-behaved animals that thrive with people. Wanna learn more, and get information about when they&#8217;re available (and also get info about new blogposts and free webinars)? Sign up below!<\/p>\n<p><b><\/b><\/p>\n<p>References:<\/p>\n<p>D\u00f6ring et al., 2009. Fear-related behaviour of dogs in veterinary practice.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>It&#8217;s slow, potentially dangerous, the animal may become more fearful or learn to give up (a pathological condition).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19,6],"tags":[4,3,8,9,5],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/illis.se\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/276"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/illis.se\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/illis.se\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/illis.se\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/illis.se\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=276"}],"version-history":[{"count":16,"href":"https:\/\/illis.se\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/276\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6809,"href":"https:\/\/illis.se\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/276\/revisions\/6809"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/illis.se\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=276"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/illis.se\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=276"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/illis.se\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=276"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}