I have a lovely blog post about fear in dogs that I’d like to share with you. It’s about the author’s experience of finding out that her dog had fear aggression, her search for answers, the simplicity of the Touch cue as an anchor for fearful dogs, and a description of where her dog, Sadie, is today.
The post is from my Twitter friend, @boulderdog1, known in her real life as Deborah Flick from Boulder, Colorado. It’s not often that I read a blog that hits me so hard that I write about it in my own. Maybe it resonated with me because I have a fearful dog, myself and the fact that I also use Touch as a way to keep Peanut sane. We have also done counter-conditioning (treats for monsters), CAT, and techniques from Control Unleashed.
Peanut’s gone from barking 100-150 feet away to being the sort of dog that many people don’t even know is fearful. At the ripe old age of 6, he now volunteers as a therapy dog at an assisted living facility. Every Tuesday, the staff and residents form Peanut’s Fan Club and pet him, enjoy his tricks, and generally think he’s the best dog ever.
If they only knew that I, too felt frustrated and isolated and nervous about my fearful dog. I love the line from the blog article, “Fantasies of living down the road from Patricia McConnell looped through my mind. Surely she could save us.” Me too!!
The title of Deborah’s article, “Magic Touch,” comes from the fact that she used targeting, among other things, to work through her dog’s fear. Sadie has been taught to target people’s hands (touch her nose to their palm) and lots of other types of targeting, too, like paw targeting. The post describes how she uses Touch to give Sadie something to do with that nervous energy. Instead of freaking out and barking at a scary trash can, she learns that she can touch it with her nose and mommy will feed her!
I like having Peanut target my own hand, too, so that he can keep himself occupied as we walk by. We rarely need such things, any more, as he can confidently trot by on his own. But just the other day, we walked past a Seattle Metro bus as several people got off. Peanut started looking like he might bark, and I had him touch my hand several times as we walked past the commuters. Problem solved.
Reading the article, I realized that I may not convince our puppy and dog training students enough of how important teaching “touch” can be. Now, maybe I can just quote Deborah! She writes, “Sadie and I are still a work-in-progress. But the ‘touch’ cue we had learned in puppy kindergarten with Gigi had laid the foundation for new, possibly life-saving, cues and behaviors.”
I haven’t done the emotional side of the post any justice at all, or how well she captures the mind of the dog, so you should read it yourself! For the full post, visit the Boulder Dog website
We teach Touch in our Puppy Kindergarten at Ahimsa and also in the Super Start sessions in Dream Dog, which is our rolling admission training program for adult dogs in Seattle.
Written by Grisha Stewart, Ahimsa Dog Training, Seattle Tweet This Post!
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May 11th, 2009 at 11:54 am
Recently found your blog, and am enjoying reading through it!
I find it fascinating how training techniques that work are continually re-discovered by different trainers for different species.
“The post describes how she uses Touch to give Sadie something to do with that nervous energy. Instead of freaking out and barking at a scary trash can, she learns that she can touch it with her nose and mommy will feed her!”
This is a sometimes used technique in the horse world, as horses can be incredibly nervous and reactive with scary objects. Clicker trainer Alexandra Kurland calls it the “touch the goblins” game and even traditional horse trainers use it when addressing fear (trainer pat parelli calls it the “put your nose on it” game.)
I think it works so well because it teaches the animal something productive to do to earn reinforcement, rather than just letting the animal be reactive. Also, by letting our animals approach and touch things on their own, we minimize the amount of forced novelty. (I wrote recently on my blog about how terrifying forced novelty can be! http://stalecheerios.com/blog/2009/04/what-makes-something-scary/)
Anyways, I enjoyed this post and will have to bookmark your blog. Keep up the good work!
cheers,
Mary H.
May 11th, 2009 at 12:10 pm
Yes, touch has been one of my favorites for a while. I loved the blog post because it really hits home *why* touch is so cool. Several clients have read it and got ‘aha’ moments.