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This exercise is intended for dogs that are fearful, but not dangerous. If your dog has ever bitten someone hard enough to cause a serious injury, you need one-on-one help from a professional who can evaluate your dog ASAP. Please do not attempt this exercise without supervision. Check the CCPDT or IAABC websites to find a certified professional in your area. 

If your dog has never caused a serious bite injury, then you may proceed...

When dogs are fearful of people it can have a terrible impact on quality of life, for the dog, and their humans.

The dog has to deal with anxiety and fear whenever they see people they are not comfortable with, which can be often. The people have to deal with a fearful dog, and often feel worried, embarrassed, or socially ostracized.

Fortunately, this is a relatively simple and straightforward problem to solve, and you can do so without causing the dog much stress at all. Whatever stress it does cause is well worth it because it will help your dog overcome their fears and dramatically reduce the amount of stress your dog has to suffer in the long term.

You can download the PNG version of this file by Right-clicking on the image below, then selecting "Save Image As..." or something similar.

Or you can download the PDF version here: Retreat with Honor.pdf

You are welcome to share this document with anyone! 

If you'd like to learn more about how to get your dog to feel comfortable around people, you should keep reading and then enroll in our free course; Six Simple Steps to Solve Your Dog's Behavior Problems.

Or, join the Top Dog Academy to get access to ALL of our online courses, plus our private support community, for just $20/month.

For You or Anyone

Anyone can do this simple and easy exercise. If a dog is afraid of you, you can do this exercise to teach the dog to feel comfortable around you.

If your dog is afraid of people, you can use this document to teach anyone how to do this exercise with your dog, so your dog learns to be comfortable around that person.

The more people that do this exercise with your dog, the more comfortable your dog will feel around people in general, and that type of person in particular. 

The common types of people that dogs are most fearful of are children, men, and unfamiliar people, or people wearing or holding unfamiliar things. 

Start at a Comfortable Distance

When a dog is afraid of someone, they will try to maintain a comfortable distance from that person. As the distance between the dog and the person gets smaller, the dog will get increasingly more stressed. If the distance gets small enough, and especially if the dog is unable to retreat, the dog may bite the person.

This exercise allows you to teach a dog to feel comfortable around you, or any person, using food, without causing the dog to get very stressed at all. The key is to alternate between luring the dog away from the person with kibble to maintain that comfortable distance, and then luring the dog towards the person while providing high-value treats so the dog forms a positive association with the person.

YOU WILL NEED:
High value treats
Regular kibble

STEP 1

This exercise works best in a large, safely confined area so the dog can move around freely, but safely, and so the dog can move to a comfortable distance from the person. The person should remain stationary, either standing still or sitting in a chair. The person should try to avoid staring at the dog or making eye-contact, as this can be unsettling to some dogs.

STEP 2

Toss a piece of kibble over the dog's head. This works best if the dog is not being free-fed from a bowl and is food-motivated, and it can work best on a hard surface so the dog can hear the kibble hit the ground and easily find it.

STEP 3

The dog will have to move away from the person to get the kibble. Now the dog will be at an even greater, more comfortable distance than when they started.

STEP 4

Toss three high-value food treats towards the dog so that the dog will have to take a few steps towards you to get the treats. Don't try to lure the dog too close right away, keep them at a comfortable distance. This should be easy to do since you began this exercise by luring the dog to move further away from you.

STEP 5

The dog will move towards you to get the treats. Each treat they eat will reinforce them for moving towards you and each treat will help the dog feel good about your presence.

STEP 6

Repeat steps 2-5 over and over again until the dog is very comfortable moving away from you, and then towards you at this distance. As you repeat these steps, you should notice a change in the dog's body language. As the dog gets more comfortable, their movements should get looser and more relaxed, and you should see less stiffness and tension.

NEXT STEPS

If you've spent some time luring the dog back and forth at the same comfortable distance and you've started to see the dog's body language become more relaxed, you can now start luring the dog closer to you.

Use three high-value treats to lure the dog a little closer than they have come in the past, then use a piece of kibble to lure them a little ways back. Then use three high-value treats to lure them even closer. Then lure them back again with kibble.

Carefully keep an eye on the dog's body language. If the dog starts to show any signs of apprehension about approaching you, then next time you toss the kibble, toss it way back to a very comfortable distance to put the dog at ease again.

Then, toss three treats to lure the dog a little bit closer to you. This should be very easy now that the dog is far away, at a comfortable distance.

The whole point of this exercise is to keep the dog relatively comfortable and relaxed, by not bringing them too close to you too quickly.

TAKE A BREAK

At any point you can pause the exercise and see what the dog does now that there are no food treats available. A fearful dog will retreat and remain as far away as possible, but if the dog approaches you willingly, without any food lures, it's a good sign that the dog is starting to feel more confident.

Take occasional breaks to see what the dog's comfortable distance is and whether it has gotten closer.

THE END GAME

If you keep doing this, the dog will gradually learn to feel quite happy and comfortable about approaching you and being near you. Eventually, you'll be dropping three high-value treats at your feet, then tossing a piece of kibble a few feet away to get the dog to retreat.

Once the dog is comfortable taking treats that you drop at your feet, you should take another break from tossing treats and see what happens. If the dog comes right up to you without any food lures, then you can try offering treats directly from your hand. When you do so, keep your hand down by your side, where it will be less threatening. Hold multiple treats in your hand and feed the dog one treat at a time, and then withdraw your hand before you feed the last treat, or toss a treat to lure the dog to retreat, so the dog is never confronted with an empty human hand, which can be threatening to fearful dogs.

Once you can feed the dog treats from your hand, you can try feeding the dog kibble from your hand. You can also try feeding the dog treats and kibble for some basic obedience. Take one big step back away from the dog and reward the dog with food when they come to you.

Feed the dog enough pieces of food by hand and they will learn to LOVE you! 

LEARN MORE

If you'd like to learn more about how to how to use food to help your dog feel comfortable around people you should enroll in our free course; Six Simple Steps to Solve Your Dog's Behavior Problems.

Or, join the Top Dog Academy to get access to ALL of our online courses, plus our private support community, for just $20/month.

Looking for more DADDs (Dunbar Academy Downloadable Documents)? You can find them here.

We have one all about Classical Conditioning, plus one about how to Predict and Prevent Dog Bites.