Fearfulness or anxiety

The arrival of strangers in the home often leads to undesirable behavior — jumping up to greet, excited barking, or general mild chaos. In most cases, this is easily trained by rewarding the dog for keeping “four on the floor.”

For other dogs, the arrival of strangers is a serious problem. This is the case when a dog is reactive to strangers (barks, lunges, growls, etc.) or shows fear-avoidance (hides, cries, barks and retreats, etc.), as well as dogs who are “over the top” in greeting with jumping, muzzle-punching, scratching, etc.

Training for these dogs can involve a range of strategies, from training the dog to go to a mat or crate to lie down, counterconditioning the dog to be more comfortable with strangers, training the dog to back up, etc. However, a critical first step is to set up management and enrichment so that dogs don’t continue to practice bad behavior and make negative emotional associations with visitors. For this, I recommend creating a “safe place” for the dog.

A “safe place” is a room, crate, or other confinement area where your dog stays when people visit – or when visitors first arrive and get settled. It should be a place your dog feels can relax. For dogs that are fearful, reactive, or overly exuberant with visitors, the safe place prevents your dog from making negative associations or practicing bad behavior with visitors. This is a critical part of the training process for fearful, reactive, or “hyper greeter,” dogs. For some dogs, this is a stepping stone toward training to be calm and comfy around strangers after people have come in and settled. For other dogs, the safe room may be a long-term solution.

Covering a crate with a towel can make it more cozy for some dogs

How to Create a Safe Place?

The best safe place is…

As far as possible from the door where people enter
At least one door (two is better). For dogs with a bite history, you definitely need at least two barriers, such as a crate inside a closed bedroom. This backup is in case a child or guest opens the bedroom door or the crate door doesn’t latch properly. The other barrier will still be there to keep everyone safe. A sign on the door that says, “KEEP CLOSED. DOG SAFE SPACE” reminds guests it’s NOT the bathroom or coat closet
Sound masking – continuous white noise is best, such as a fan or white noise machine
A drop of lavender or other calming essential oil on a blanket near the crate may also help (don’t use more than a drop, and forego if you have cats – it’s not safe for them)
An engrossing high-value chew: a meat marrow bone, frozen stuffed Kong, or bully stick. For dogs that are power chewers, you may need to bring a new chew every so often. Remember that for these stressful situations, that old Nylabone or squeaky toy is not going to be good enough. Use the high-value chews!

Condition Your Dog to Love Their Safe Space

When possible, make the crate a happy and relaxing place from puppyhood to build a lifelong positive association with going into the crate

You MUST get your dog to be happy and comfortable in their safe space when visitors are NOT present! Otherwise, being sent to their safe space becomes a predictor that strangers are going to arrive, getting your dog worked up or worried every time they go to their safe space.

If your dog already likes being in their crate or room by themselves with their chew, simply do a “dress rehearsal” once every day or two at different times: take them to their safe place, turn on the white noise, give them their high-value chew, and leave them alone. They’ll learn sometimes they go there before people come. Sometimes they go there just to relax.

For dogs that don’t already have a crate or room where they’re comfortable being alone, you may need to help them get used to it by spending some time with them in the room, and then over time, periodically walking out, shutting the door, come back in, etc. Help them learn it is no big deal to be in their safe space by themselves, enjoying a delicious chew.

Remember: A safe place does not take the place of training. It helps set the stage for more successful training by reducing stress (for dogs, owners, and visitors alike) and creating more positive associations with strangers. Once this protocol is in place, the training that comes after will be easier, more pleasant, and much more effective.

Open Bar/Closed Bar is a great training game to help dogs become more comfortable with things they are reactive, aggressive, or afraid of. It is often used for dogs with handling issues (e.g., uncomfortable with having their collar grabbed), fears of certain types of people (men, people with facial hair, tall people), or reactivity toward objects, such as cars.

Changing your dog’s emotional association to a trigger is a very effective way to influence your dog’s behavior. It takes time, repetition, and carefully following certain rules, explained below.

What is DS/CC?

Desensitization and counterconditioning (DS/CC) is a time-tested method for improving behavior in dogs that have a strong emotional reaction to a trigger. Often this manifests as reactivity (barking, lunging, staring), aggression (growling, snapping, biting), or fearfulness (hiding, trembling, running away).

Counterconditioning means changing the dog’s emotional association with the trigger from negative to positive. To countercondition, we must pair the trigger (at a very low intensity –

Plate with a large grilled steak and a burger. see below) many, many times with something the dog loves. This is usually best accomplished by using lots of tiny pieces of very high-value food (real cooked meat or cheese). The dog comes to feel happy about the trigger because it predicts delicious food.

Desensitization means reducing the dog’s response to the trigger by starting the trigger at such a low level that the dog does not react to it. The dog eventually thinks the trigger is no big deal. For visual triggers, we usually start with it so far away the dog can barely see it. With sound triggers, we start with the sound at such a low volume that the dog can barely hear it.

We must combine DS and CC: If the dog is reacting (barking, hiding, lunging), even if we are feeding high-value food (counterconditioning), the dog is over their threshold of tolerance. We are not using desensitization. In fact, the dog may actually be further sensitized to the trigger.

A Human Example…

Imagine you have a phobia of snakes. If I wanted to help you overcome your fears, I would not start by trapping you in a room full of pythons (like Indiana Jones). This would not be DS/CC; it would be “flooding.”

Instead, I would start with showing you a picture of a funny little cartoon snake, and then give you $100. I would repeat that until every time you saw that picture of the cartoon snake, you felt happy.

Then I would show you a picture of a real snake and pay you $100 each time. Eventually, we would start with one small real snake at a distance. And you would be free to stop the training at any point if it felt too uncomfortable for you.

Open Bar/Closed Bar

Pouring_champagne Trainers often refer to this method as “open bar” and “closed bar.” When the dog sees (or hears or feels) the trigger, the bar is open: you feed MANY TREATS, one after the other — treat after treat after treat. As long as the trigger is present, the bar is open, and it’s fantastic! The dog should feel showered with fabulous goodies. It should be dramatic, repetitive, and wonderful.

Equally important is when the trigger goes away. As soon as the dog does not see or perceive the trigger, the bar is closed. Then life is boring. No treats, no praise, no petting, just boring. Over time, the dog notices the dramatic difference between these two situations and starts hoping for the trigger to appear so that the bar will open again!

Once your dog looks delighted by the presence of the trigger, you can make it a tiny bit more intense (bring it closer, make it louder, etc.). But you still must keep the dog below the threshold of reactivity or fear. GO SLOW. It is always better to go slower than to push. Only make the trigger more intense when your dog looks truly happy (wagging tail, eager, happy, relaxed, loose body) to see the trigger. If they are just tolerating it, that’s not good enough.

Why so much repetition? Negative Outweighs Positive

Policeman's waist showing handcuffs, bun, and radio Neuroscientists refer to our brains as having a “negativity bias.” Bad experiences loom much larger than equally good experiences. This is also true for dogs.

Think about how you feel if a policeman pulls you over and gives you a ticket for $200. You may feel angry, scared, or ashamed, and your body responds with a racing heart, sweaty palms, red cheeks, etc. For months after, every time you drive past that spot, you feel tense, possibly angry or worried, your stomach tightens, your jaw clenches. That is a negative emotional association.

Now imagine that every time you drive past that spot, the same police officer pulls you over, smiles, and gives you $100. Logically, he should only have to do that twice to change your feelings about him, right? But that is not how our brains work. Realistically, it would take several dozen repetitions (thousands of dollars) before your heart would stop racing every time you saw the police officer.

The same is true for our dogs. We must do hundreds of repetitions of good things to change their feelings about a bad thing. They’re not being stubborn. It’s just how brains work!

To do both types of training – planned lessons and “real-life training” – it helps to know how dogs learn. It helps to understand that dogs have two types of learning: emotional learning and learning by consequence. Both play a role how behavior problems develop and how to modify them with training. Both types of learning are taking place all the time and at the same time. Please see our handout on how dogs learn for more information.

Tips for Success

Although the concepts are simple, it can be tricky to do DS/CC correctly:

The trigger has to occur first. The trigger must PREDICT good stuff. If your dog is fearful of people, she must first see the person, and then get one treat after another. It is a common mistake to feed before the trigger appears. This is usually not effective and can even make the dog hate or fear treats
There must be a noticeable “closed bar” between each “open bar.” If the dog thinks he’s just getting treats and doesn’t notice that the treats only happen when the trigger appears, you are not making the crucial association between trigger and treats
Closed bar must mean truly closed bar. Keep it boring – don’t chatter, don’t pet, don’t praise, don’t play, don’t feed. Just stand there watching the paint dry.
Increase intensity of the trigger in the smallest increment possible. If the trigger is 20 feet away, and your dog is delighted when it appears, move it 19 feet away. Don’t skip to 10 feet! Likewise, if your dog looks totally happy, relaxed, and playful with fireworks sounds at volume level 1, now train with it at level 2.
Do not increase the trigger’s intensity until your dog looks delighted to see the trigger. It’s not enough for your dog just to not be reacting. Your dog must look actively HAPPY every time she sees the trigger. This means loads of repetition.
If your dog is making progress, but training feels horribly repetitive, boring, and slow – you’re probably doing it right!