15/07/2025
"He needs to get over it!"
"Leave her, she'll get used to it."
We so often hear these words used when talking about dogs who are scared of something. That it's just something they have to get used to and, if we make them stay close to it for long enough, that they will realise there is no danger and learn to accept it.
There is a logic there - after all, this is how immersion therapy for phobias works with people. In a controlled setting the person is exposed to the source of their fear while the therapist helps them to remain as calm and grounded as possible. And so, with exposure, they come to be less terrified, less likely to have that immediate instinctive reaction that screams at them 'Danger, RUN!'
Here's the thing - that doesn't work with dogs. They will not just get over it, or suddenly realise that they are safe. Rather than helping, forcing a dog to stay in proximity of something that scares them can make things a whole lot worse.
This technique of making the dog stay close to the source of their fear is called flooding. And yes, it can work well with people in certain cases and used carefully. So why not with dogs?
Humans have a much more developed pre-frontal cortex in the brain than dogs, and this is where reasoning takes place. Dogs simply are not equipped to carry out the same level of reasoning as humans. Much more of their brain proportionally is involved in processing instinctive responses including fear responses when they feel they are in danger.
This means they are not capable of the thought processes that exposure therapy relies on because they cannot reason that they are in a controlled environment and nothing bad is going to happen to them.
What flooding is far more likely to do in dogs is lead to them shutting down. They can’t escape from the thing that is causing their fear and, especially when they have tried to get away in the past but have been prevented, they give up and just wait for it to be over.
This is truly an awful situation to contemplate, a dog who feels all they can do is shut down and wait for the trigger of their terror to go away. Even worse, this can be mistaken for calm and good behaviour by people who are unaware of what flooding does.
A lot of what I do involves ‘reactive’ dogs who are reacting to something in their environment due to fear or anxiety. Some trainers, who either don’t know better or do not care about the emotional state of the dog, may put aversive equipment on the dog such as prong or shock collars. The dog learns that, if they react, it hurts and so they stop reacting.
This leads the ignorant or unscrupulous trainer to claim the dog is ‘fixed’ when in fact the dog knows they cannot escape and, if they try, it will hurt, and so they shut down and wait. It’s heartbreaking when you realise what is actually going on in these situations. There is also the massive damage that is done to the bond and trust between the dog and their people.
When a dog is scared of something they need distance from that thing and, if it’s something that we need them to be more comfortable with, a careful programme of helping them to feel better about that thing.
And, if your dog is scared, it’s absolutely fine to comfort them – you will not make their fear worse. What you will do is reinforce to your dog that, if they are scared and they come to you they will get comfort and help to feel safer in that moment.
How could that ever be a bad thing?
