Rehabilitating a fearful dog is very rewarding. Transforming a dog from fear to fearless starts with discovering exactly what they fear and why. Pairing the dog's fear with something pleasant starts the rehabilitation process. The dog learns how to cope with their fear in real life.
If a broom falls to the floor and makes a loud sound causing the dog to jump and run for cover, it is reasonable to assume it will happen again. Soon all brooms, whether they have fallen or not will become an object to fear. Then sounds similar to the one made by the broom now become something else to fear.
Recovery from an incident like this means pairing a pleasant experience with the broom and then the sound. Being calm yourself when something like this occurs is also a key to rehabilitation. Drop a handful of yummy treats around the object, something your dog can't resist starts the process. When the dog comes over to investigate and eat, you put this response on cue, saying "check it out!" in a happy, encouraging voice. The treats and the tone of your voice help minimize the fear response associated with the broom and the cue to "check it out" brings them back in to investigate. When they return, they see nothing happens to them and recovery from brooms and loud sounds starts to build confidence.
Some are much more powerful, to for instance other dogs or people. Deep fears can even cause a dog to have a lack of trust for months and even years. Dogs can be fearful due to genetics, nurture or both. Rehabilitating a fearful dog can be done in the following steps.
Discover Where The Fear Derives
Again, dogs fear many things - people, objects, other dogs, breeds of dogs, sounds, pressures, closed spaces, fast movements or a combination of all of these. For instance, a dog might fear people with dogs, people staring and moving quickly toward them, sound of dog tags or car keys dropping on the floor.
Take time to list exactly what your dog fears. Proof your assumptions. For instance, a man with a bulky parka, hat and cell phone walks by and the dog reacts by lunging and barking or runs behind you and cowers. An owner might assume the dog is afraid of men or it could be assumed they are afraid of caps or bulky parkas. Present a variety of men in neutral clothing. If the dog reacts to all of them, their fear manifests itself to men. Now take apart the pieces, bulky parka, cellphone, hat. Does the dog react to any of these, if so this is another object of fear. Pair each separately with a man, then a woman. The discovery may be the dog fears hats no matter whether they are on a man or a woman. Break it down to exactly what the dog fears making no assumptions.
Getting To Work
The process is similar for most fear responses. The goal is to increase a dog's confidence in order to rehabilitate. This may be a very slow process for some and for others it may go quickly. You cannot rush the process and it must be kept at the pace at which your dog can process the information.
Eliminate Access
Eliminate access to what causes the fear. While you are desensitizing, you will want to build from a clean slate.
Keep Dog Below Threshold
If people or dogs are the driving fear motivators, keep distance from people or dogs to a below threshold perimeter. Keep duration to a minimum, only five minutes of exposure below threshold whenever your dog's trigger is present. You'll need to clearly define what their threshold is to work below it. Working below equals success and the more success your dog has the more confident they will become.
Distance
At what distance can your dog handle their fear? Does confidence crumble at 100 feet or 10 feet? For example if your dog's fear is people approaching too fast and they start cowering, or lunge, bark at 15 feet, then you would not have anyone approach beyond 20 feet. You would set up practice sessions with various people approaching only where (distance) your dog can confidently process the approach without fear. Then have a person toss a treat to your dog and walk away. You may need to do this for several sessions. You are looking for conditioned positive emotional responses (CERs) from your dog before decreasing distance by 1 to 5 feet. This would mean your dog shows through their body language they are looking forward to these approaches. Is tail wagging, body relaxed, ears and face relaxed and eager? Then and only then can you move the exercise closer.
If dogs are the object of fear, you'll need to work with a professional who has trained teacher dogs to build positive associations. Doing it yourself will mean to find friends, relatives or neighbors who have completely neutral dogs to do distance and duration work. These are dogs who will not react if your dog shows fear, weakness or fear in the form of barking and lunging to get the scary dog to move away.
Duration
You would only want to repeat the exercise for five minutes total. As in example above, person would approach and go away at the required distance for five minutes. Then the exercise would end on success with no fear response from the dog and the dog would rest and process that success.
Pleasant Reinforcers
Pairing fearful stimuli with pleasant reinforcers is an important part of the process of rehabilitating a fearful dog. The premise is whenever the fearful stimuli or trigger is present, positive activities occur such as food flows, play begins or favorite tricks are performed and even praise from you simply for being calm in the face of the fearful thing. The more the stimuli is equated with positive pairings, the easier it will be for the dog to face their fear and even conquer it becoming a much more confident pooch.
Consistency and Commitment
Consistency and commitment to the process is your job as your dog's educator. The process cannot be rushed. At times it will seem like slow going. Noting the subtle changes in your dog will be an important factor to progress. Keeping a log or a notebook will allow you to move forward from where left off in the last session. If the last session noted your dog was able to handle a person approaching up to 20 feet and a food toss, then you might try 19 or 15 feet. If you have any fear responses at all you must immediately end, remain calm and increase distance. Try again later. Your goal is always no fear response, because having one means you have taken the limit too far and your dog is uncomfortable with it. Comfort, safety, calm interaction is always the goal.
Repeat all of the above and soon your dog will be more confident, will trust you because you are keeping them safe and will start to be more adventurous. In summary, discover exactly what is causing your dog's fears, systematically set up situations where the trigger is paired with pleasant reinforcements, watch for positive conditioned emotional responses and decrease distance slowly, keeping duration minimal and recording results.