We’ve all been there! Your neighbour’s dog is barking up a storm, day in and day out. Although some dogs are just born to make their voices heard, some can be trained to be less sensitive to sounds and activities around them.

Unfortunately, dogs who constantly bark may have a side effect of being sensitive to objects, people, or sounds. There is nothing sadder than to see a dog shy away from people, other animals or objects that could add value to their lives. By identifying their triggers, will help them to gradually get used to the situation, which can help turn their negative perception to a positive experience.

Dogs can be emotional and their behaviour may often be driven by anxiety or fear. With desensitisation and counterconditioning, you can change your dog’s emotions from a negative to a positive, leaving them a happier dog.

There are many reasons why a dog could feel scared or anxious. This can go back as far as them not being socialised as a pup when they fear strangers, they could have had a negative experience when someone cut their nails and now don’t like their paws being touched.

Below are a few tips from the Petinsurance.com.au team to help you:

  • Your first task would be to identify the triggers. This will be anything that happens in your dog’s world that changes their behaviour. They might run away, bark aggressively, whimper and/or shy away.
  • When you have identified the trigger, it might be possible to rank them. For instance, your dog might seem like they are scared of people but if you start ranking the triggers, you might find that they are more scared of children than adults.
  • Flooding your dog by making them face their fears head-on could backfire in a negative way. Forcing your dog into a situation that scares them may also make it worse for your dog to face their fears.
  • Counterconditioning can be a softer approach. It is a method of making your dog connect a positive experience with the reason they are feeling anxious. Some dogs might enjoy a treat as a reward whilst others might prefer a toy. As an example, your dog may fear other dogs. When you take them to the park, you may want to take a toy or treat with so that they associate the good experience with the negative one.
  • Keep your dog below threshold. If your dog is very nervous the above tip may not work as they are disinterested in eating or playing when they are nervous. You will have to find the spot where your dog’s emotional response to whatever is making them nervous is low enough for them not to impact on their emotions. Using the same example as above, you might want to take your dog to the dog park but keep them far enough from other dogs until they are used to the idea of going to the park.
  • Once you found the sweet spot where your dog doesn’t react to the fear then the desensitisation can start. This simply means that you start by getting your dog used to an event or situation slowly and increasing it over time, gradually working up to the desired outcome. It is important at this point to keep a close eye on your dog’s progress. Never push them to a point where they are nervous, make sure they are comfortable, relaxed and calm.

These types of processes do not happen overnight and it all depends on the level of fear and period your dog has felt this way about a particular situation, which will determine the time it will take to “reverse” their responses from a negative to a positive.