So if the dog has had one experience with something and it's been negative, it takes several new experiences that are positive to untag that experience. But the biggest piece of that is that the person removes the tag, because we tend to get emotionally involved as, oh, he hates this, I feel so bad for him. And now we've thrown a whole pile of emotions on something that was completely innocuous to begin with.
Some people have a fear of dogs. It's called sino phobia. But dogs have a fear of things to fear of the mailman of other dogs, stairs, loud noises, like fireworks or thunderstorms. This is random acts of knowledge presented by Heartland Community College. I'm your host, Steve fast. It can be distressing for pet owners to see their dogs react in fear to certain situations. The good news is that you can help your dog deal with its fears. Understanding why your dog might be afraid and how to help them is the topic we're tackling today.
Hi, I'm Tina Zimmerman, and I am a professional dog trainer. I own mainstream training. And we train service dogs, therapy dogs, and protection dogs and do behavioral modification. And so within that I get to teach classes here at Heartland based on dog behavior.
One of the behaviors you address in your teaching is when dogs are scared of things, other dogs, the mailman, other strangers thunderstorms. Are all those fears related or are they all individual? According to the dog?
I kind of think there's three categories. I mean, there's probably a lot more but the three that I see most common, probably 90%. If I can guess, our lack of exposure issues, and then there's rational fears, and there's irrational fears. So we can always have to look at the situation and see Where's this coming from?
Well, some fears that might seem irrational to people might be more rooted in a more rational mindset for the dogs. For instance, some dogs are afraid of stairs. Now are they afraid of falling down? What is it about the stairs that makes dogs very afraid sometimes,
stairs slicked floors, different floors, I would lump a lot of those into the lack of exposure. If you think about it, if we had not domesticated dogs, and you still see this in other countries where there's lots of feral dogs, the normal mature age for a dog in the wild is year two years old, right. And from the beginning, the first eight weeks of the puppies life, mom's keeping them secluded, she's bringing food but after that she starts traversing her world with them. And so the puppy's mind is wide open to smells, sounds, textures, different fields as far as their feet going up, going down, you know, squeezing through all these different things. We don't tend to do that with new puppies, you know, you get a new puppy, you're just trying to sleep through the night and not get your stuff destroyed. And have it be potty trained, you know, and that first year, the puppies brain is wide open. It's excited. And it's exhilarated for all those new sights and smells and sounds and feelings. But after a year, the brain kind of starts to close the file on what are normal experiences. And so if we live in a house, we get a puppy, we don't have a flight of stairs, you know, maybe we live in a ranch, or it's carpeted stairs, I mean, that can make the difference. And so in the first year, the puppy has not experienced those things in a normal situation. Now the file is closed, and that's not normal. And so the brain is not as open to accepting that.
Well, that old cliche is you can't teach an old dog new tricks. So is it repeated exposure that is the best way to teach dogs out of that puppy stage to get used to situations that they're not used to
repeated good exposure and repeated confident exposure and I like to keep those exposures short. And so if the dog has had one experience with something and it's been negative, it takes several new experiences that are positive to untag that experience. But the biggest piece of that is that the person removes the tag because we tend to get emotionally involved as Oh, he hates this I feel so bad for him. And now we've thrown a whole pile of emotions on something that was completely innocuous to begin with, you know, a stare is nothing scary. That's an irrational fear. But we feel bad that Then the dog scrambles because it's it's nervous about us, it's not paying attention, and it falls again or something like that.
Well, that raises an interesting point when it comes to certain fears. Do dogs take their cue from their owners?
Absolutely. You have to remember that dogs don't communicate verbally like we do. So number one, we can't explain to them, you're okay, this won't hurt, you're fine, which is what we do. But what they pick up on is the first two or three words of our mental sentence. So if you're saying in your mind, I feel bad because he was abused, or He's so scared, all the dog is picking up on is I feel bad. And so as a pack animal, they don't have a therapy session of well, why are you feeling bad? What's caused this, all they respond to is you're feeling bad, therefore, something is influencing that. And now I'm nervous, too. You know what I mean?
So you almost have to train yourself as an owner, as you're trying to train your dog to take an approach to have the right demeanor. That's probably hard for a lot of people, they worry about the situation, they're worried about their dog. No one wants to see an animal be afraid. How do you tell people to approach those situations?
Well, first of all, the one thing I always tell owners is, if we're going to err, let's err on the side of being too kind and compassionate. You know, I mean, there's a lot worse things that people can be. And I think that there are a handful of dogs that do just need some TLC to get through something because they've not experienced that. And so by the time I see someone, they've exhausted the efforts of being kind and compassionate, and trying to talk the dog through it, trying to love the dog through it. Most dogs that have a real fear, that's not effective. Because again, dogs are a pack mentality, they respond and mirror their leader. And so if you think about if you just imagine in your mind, your body language, as you're approaching a situation now, if you yourself, were going to go upstairs, you would just go up the stairs. But for some reason, when we go to lead a dog that's fearful, instead of us just looking up the stairs and going, we tend to learn leaned down to the dog to bend down. So we're losing our body posture of confidence, we start to feel bad. And so our whole entire leadership crumbles. And then we wonder why the dog won't follow us because we're not leading confidently. And almost always, I can tell you because I have a stairwell, a wooden staircase that comes into my training center, dogs come through the door and panic, and the owner starts, it's okay, you're all right, you're fine. He doesn't like stairs, he's scared of stairs, bla bla bla. And what I say is, look down the stairs and go. And as soon as the handler mirrors the behavior that they'd like the dog to do, it's remarkable that immediately the dog will just go down the stairs,
when you're trying to get your dogs to not be afraid, for instance, of strangers, you're out in the world, you are dealing with the unpredictable element of other people, you don't know what they're going to do. So how do you handle that,
that's a different situation in that we have to honor the dog's personality, and what they want. So if the dog is not excited about meeting other people, just like, you know, there's people who are very, you know, they walk into a room and want to find out everybody's names and where they work. And then there's people like me that I'll just stay in the hallway, you know, and there's dogs that are saying the same way. And so we have to honor that. And I think too often, we try to force an interaction, which just makes the dog now anticipate that you're going to make me tolerate being petted. You know, where that's not what they want. Now, if we teach them a protocol, which I was talking about your protocol, what is your expectation for the dog, I expect him to sit quietly, when approaching people, dogs, cars, whatever, sit quietly, be calm, read the situation and respond accordingly. But too often, we're trying to force the dog to the person, we're trying to force the person to the dog, you know, just say his name, just pet him just and the dog doesn't want any part of that. And so instead of processing and maturing through that situation, they're just learning to hate it more and more. So it's better with a dog that doesn't want to socialize. And by socialize, I mean, interacting, which to me, socializing is a whole different description, but just let the dog be present. Let them be present. Make sure that they're calm, and that they're processing and they're going to see that you're not going to let anyone force themselves on the dog. And sometimes it's hard to tell people, no, you can't pet my dog. He doesn't want to be petted right now, or we're working on this or we're training, please just ignore him for right now. So
often people adopt dogs from a shelter, which is a great thing to do. But often, you don't know that dog's history, then you don't know their experiences, what the history is, and how that might have sparked some behaviors. They have certain dogs, for instance, don't like men, or they don't like certain other animals, or they react to people, I don't know, wearing hats. Is this something that might come from incidents they experienced that we don't know about?
Well, we live in a community that is inundated with rescue. So I say this all the time. And most of those rescue dogs come into the picture with no back history. Even when people relinquish their pets, they don't tend to tell the real story of what's happened to that dog, maybe they don't know. But usually the story if it comes with a story at all, it's probably not really accurate. But I hear just just like you said, my dog is terrified of men. So then we create a backstory of he was probably abused by men, very likely, this would fall into a category of lack of exposure. Maybe a single mom with kids, adopted a puppy had great intentions, and then had to move into an apartment where no pets were allowed. And so they had to relinquish the puppy that's never been around men. It's not an anatomy issue. As far as dogs being afraid of men or women, I get asked this all the time. It's again, a body language and a carriage because women tend to move differently. Even very assertive women move differently than a man men just are very straight on heavy footed deep voice. And so if a puppy has not been exposed to that, again, that file has closed, it's not normal. And so the puppy is apprehensive. And then you add the backstory that we come up with in our mind. And so now we're feeling bad, we're feeling apprehensive, and just exaggerated. So just like when
you might be worried about your dog being worried, the owners can project their own anxieties and fears onto that dog, and the dog is likely to pick up on that bad.
Yeah. And some of those fears are legitimate dogs have been abused, they've been in a neglectful situation, or there is what we call a rational fear, even for something very normal, like going to the veterinarian. You know, the dog has a legitimate tag on an experience that says bad, you know, no, thank you. So what I like and that too, is a burning building. If we were in a fire, which is legitimately a bad situation, and somebody came to our rescue, what we would want them to do is remove us from that situation and take us to a safe place, right. But we tend to keep going back into the fire time and time again with our rescues. Because mentally we're going on for thing he has been beaten or he's been whatever. And so emotionally, we keep going back into the fire, the dog cannot move forward to feeling good about experiences when we keep taking it back into the past because dogs are very able to put a pin there and move forward and it's not always instant. But it's very possible to go in rescue a dog and you think about a firefighter very assertively coming into a situation they have a plan they're very confident with come with me walk this way, go out this door, go down the street, whatever, they don't stop in the middle of the fire and go oh, you poor thing. Your you must be hot, you know, they get you out, and they have a plan. So that's kind of the approach that we take. We don't have to be unnecessarily harsh. We just have to be confident and good leaders in the situation.
When you look at rational fears versus irrational fears. What are some of the irrational fears you see what are some of the weird things that you've seen that dogs are afraid of?
Water I think is a big one for dogs. Water which you know an inch of water and a baby pool or bathtub. They're probably okay you know, but though they just act like they're absolutely going to drowned. You know, or windshield wipers, like you said floors you know, a shiny floor shadows, lots of things like that.
So another fear that I would like to get into and in this case some dogs have this fear and others don't. I'm not sure why. But reaction is so loud noises like thunderstorms. Yeah. Every fourth of July. There's a similar concern with fireworks. It freaks a lot of dogs out. In both cases. Some people create a swaddle for the dog or a thunder shirt. To make the dogs a little more comfortable, I always think this is being small dogs, but maybe not. Maybe it's all dogs. Can you talk a little bit about that fear?
Yeah. You know, I've read a lot of studies on this as to what actually especially with thunderstorms, is it the barometric pressure, is it the thunder isn't the lightning, it's it's really hard to say. And nobody's nailed it down as far as what's causing it. And so of the five dogs I have one is crazy afraid like diving under a couch that's only four inches off the ground. And she's a large Dutch Shepherd, she doesn't fit. But she will try she gets in the bathtub, she tries to get behind the toilet. And so what we have to really strive to do, and I don't, I don't think there's anything that's 100% effective. But it always comes back to us and the way we lead through it. And there's going to be things in our lives and our dog lives that scare them. And they are rational like going to the vet, we have to go to the vet. And you know, it's the way we respond to the situation. You can experiment with different things like you said, the swaddle, putting the dog in the crate, pulling the blinds putting the TV on, if it's a sound thing, our dog will start reacting 10 minutes before we ever know anything's coming. And she'll, she'll know. And then I'll see her pacing, I'll open my phone app and be there is a storm coming through. But I've got her so I don't really need that. And so with her, she likes to go in a small room, dark room and a crate. She just that's where she'll lay there. And she still will pant. But she's most comfortable when she's secluded like that away from the windows. And so when she's in that state of mind, we're very reassuring. I don't baby her, you okay, it's okay, I don't feel bad for her. I know that we're in a safe house, and she's fine. And so that's the approach that I say go in your crate, good girl. Good job. And I more cheer for her than sympathize with her. There's a whole difference of attitude. And it's very helpful. If she's still afraid. Yes. And she probably always will be.
So it's interesting that you said it was only one of your five dogs that's afraid of the thunderstorms. She doesn't take cues from the other dogs that are not worried.
No. And she is actually rattled the rest of the pack where they'll look at her. And think what what's going on there. They don't associate it with the storm isn't that interesting? They are not afraid of the storm. They react to her energy being disturbed, and they start looking around for what's upsetting her so bad. Now with her backstory, you know, and I could make a lot more out of this. All I know is she came from someone who lived in the middle of the city of Chicago. And she was on a small pin outside inside a privacy fence. And so she was hearing all the sounds of inner city, Chicago and not having any leadership because she was alone. So in my head, that's probably but I could be completely wrong. All I know is move forward.
So I know that a lot of animals lead their world through scent. Is there anything where trying to help dogs deal with their fears, where you want to allow them to be able to get a scent or associate a scent with something that is positive,
it's the same as taking a child to the dentist, you know, they get to watch cartoons on a monitor, they get candy, when they're finished, they get a free toothbrush, does that make the pain of getting a feeling any better? No. But we've kind of piled positive on top of negative. And you'll see a lot of times even dogs that are super food motivated. When they're in that state of mind. They don't want food. But introducing food a lot of times is just putting a positive with a negative. I'm really big on the use of essential oils and herbs and things like that, that are natural calming things. And those can be effective as well. But we really need to capture the dog's brain from going into a vortex of panic. Because if you can calm them, I use obedience. If a dog is in a panic attack, I call them have them lie down or sit down so that they can process what's going on around them. The walls have not caved in, they are fine. But when their brain is spinning, they're not able to process any of that.
So in that situation, if you don't have a reward to give the animal at the time, what do you do?
Well, one of the things that we'll cover in class is just a protocol behavior. Something that's very familiar. They've done it a million times set, you get reward. And so when something is unfamiliar, and we introduce a familiar like sit and the dog is like I don't know who that person is. I don't know what that sound is, but I know set. I likes it because I get rewarded for Sit. And so we kind of bridge the unfamiliar with familiar. And at the same time, it's so big that we mirror what we want the dog to do. We don't expect them to be a robot like they don't hear, see smell, know what's going on. Just ignore it. We acknowledge it. Oh, that was a loud noise. Oh, that was scary. Oh, you did slip and fall. Let's move forward. You know, and your leadership is so huge in those situations, and what you said about not having a reward, you always have peace of mind. Calm, and that feels so good to a dog. If you've ever seen a dog stretched out on the floor sleeping, I want to be that dog, right. And so when we bring peace to a situation, that's the highest goal we can give, the highest reward that we can give is just taking a deep breath, assessing the situation and go, I'm fine, we're fine. And being that kind of cheerleader to the dog. Good job for setting. You know, and that also helps us focus on getting the dog into something that we can reward instead of saying, Oh, you poor thing. We're going Oh, good. You sat. That's awesome. Now we're a cheerleader instead of a worrier.
So something else your dog training goes beyond your classes and into some unique situations. You've done training internationally some pretty cool stuff there. But in fact, as we were arranging this interview, we had to coordinate a bit because you were on a set during the filming of a movie.
There's a new movie coming out. It's Novartis. My dog's Navarro second movie, actually, this one is called Shakespeare's mummy. And it's quite exciting. And I love that you brought it up because Novar had to do some stunts, he does his own stunts that were a little bit scary. There was one scene where he has to jump up on a sarcophagus. And they below in all of this fog to the point where he couldn't even see me or see the floor, and I had to be offset and call him to jump down off of that sarcophagus when he couldn't see anything. And he did it. He just did it. And he did things like that over and over. Because we've built this trust that if I lead you somewhere, I'm not going to lead you into something that's harmful, trust me. And when you obey, there's huge reward in it. And so, you know, we've gotten to movie roles. Now we've actually had a couple more offers because people see that this dog will do anything I asked. And it's not because I forced him to do it. It's because I've led him through it and I've rewarded him after it and he just understands the processes Good.
Well, you know, there's this old axiom in showbusiness where they say never worked with dogs and children. Yeah. So it sounds to me like working with dogs as long as the dog is well trained. isn't much of a big deal. That has to be a very different situation on a movie shoots. There's all sorts of things you don't see. Yeah, day life. Yeah, like fog machines.
Yeah. fog machine. There was a crane. There was a horse there was a lemur. There's a lot of yelling, just because the crew is saying, picture up action, the little clapboard that you see you know movies take to that actually happens. And he was actually of all the things that startled him. At the beginning of every scene when they would clap that board it's called the clapboard because it claps and its board. Every time they would clap that board he would kind of startle and shrink down a little bit. So what I had them do is bring the clapboard over. He loves scrambled eggs. That's his big high reward. They would clap it I would give him an egg. They would clap it I would give him eggs pretty soon he's looking for the clapboard can't wait for them to clap it because we had now attached a positive to something he had perceived as negative.
Did he have any hair and makeup or was he just good to go?
He had a really cool Egyptian costume rule. You got to wear a costume. Yeah, it was special made for him. It was really neat. And so you'll have to see the movie to see that Shakespeare's mummy Shakespeare's mummy.
I don't know that that's historically accurate.
Well Shakespeare's is a pizza parlor so I don't want to give anything away. But I will tell you that Navarro had to carry a real piece of pizza down the street without eating it and he actually pulled that off as well.
That to me when I see the film I will be really surprised to know that was not a special effects done with computer animation because piece of pizza in my home lasts about 1/3 of a second if it falls on the floor.
Well in a lot of the creativity in movies happens as you're filming and so the scene was supposed to be Navarre stealing up empty pizza box from a delivery girl right? And then the creative geniuses Oh said started saying well, what if he opened the pizza box? Could we open And then I said, well give me a pizza box, give me five minutes, and I'll teach him. And so I put the pizza down and pizza box down, taught him how to open the box. And you know, he just did it because again, he trusts if I do this, there will be reward. That's what we've established from day one. And then it went from there to what if there was actually, you know, what if he started eating the pizza in the box, okay, I know he'll do that. And then somebody said, what if he actually took a slice and ran down the street with it? And I said, There's no way but let me try. And I put the pizza in his mouth. I told them do not eat that you hold. He has a command for holding something. And he was drooling excessively, but he held the pizza and ran all the way down the street with it. So
that's pretty amazing. I would have thought that's a rubber piece of pizza. That's something but no, the real
nope, it was delivered hot and fresh to the set. Actually, when they decided there was a pizza place right across the street. We call them they ordered a pizza pepperoni, no less. Wow, it was the real deal.
For people that are listening. They don't know. He's been sitting in the studio here with us the entire time. So if you want to know how well behaved and well trained dog of ours, it's been pretty good this whole time we've been talking. So Tina, thanks so much for coming in and talking to us about the fears that dogs have and what we can do about it. It's been very enlightening.
Good. Thank you for having us.
Tina Zimmerman is the owner of mainstream training and teaches dog training courses at Heartland Community College. She founded us honor dogs, which trains and donates service dogs to police firefighters in the military. And she is also the founder of harvest guards International, a training program geared toward teaching farmers in rural Uganda to use dogs to protect their farms and families. For more interviews on interesting topics like this one, including the training of therapy dogs, and the use of mini horses as therapy animals. Check out our other random acts of knowledge podcasts, you can subscribe on iTunes Spotify for audiobooks. Thanks for listening
