Dealing with Puppy Mill-Induced Phobias - Part 1

At the rescue shelter

Part of my motivation to get professional clicker training came from my learning to deal with my dog’s little phobias. All puppies have fears of one sort or another. Most of these fears are of things unknown and have no pre-history so they can be dealt with relatively easily. A phobia, though is something quite different. By definition, it is a “persistent irrational fear of a specific object, activity or situation that leads to a compelling desire to avoid it” (www.dictionary.com ). It often originates from some sort of deep-seated trauma, can manifest at any time and the oddest things can trigger one. 

Blue, our miniature poodle, has them in abundance - only no-one knew this when we adopted him.

After surgery

Close up

Blue is a “chien sauvé”, a rescued dog. At the end of 2010, he was rescued from a notorious puppy mill in Italy as ‘unsold stock’. He was 6 months old and weighed only 3 kg, most of which was his matted coat of bug infested wool. Multiple infections in his eyes, ears and paws qualified him as a hospital case yet the people at Dr. Villiers Clinic in Lausanne soon had him on the mend and fostered out with Lindy, the AIDA Switzerland volunteer who rescued him.

With his foster family, Blue’s true delightful character started to emerge. He was with a caring family which included three other dogs, and they took particularly good care of him. It was a honeymoon period for him and he took to it with total appreciation and an out-pouring of puppy emotion – everybody loved him.

With Hercule

With Suki

When Blue came to us it was his third change of environment in 6 weeks. In foster care he had other dogs with which he could play and from whom he gained courage. He could follow them about and annoy them with his puppy antics; he could use them to model his behavior. In our home, there were no other dogs, he had to keep himself occupied at times, and it is in these sorts of alone moments that a phobia begins to manifest itself.

With Jerry and Hercule in
in his foster home

We have little knowledge of what life was like for Blue in those formative months of his life. All we could do at the time was attempt to piece together some of the picture from aspects of his behavior and the reactions he displayed to certain things in those first few weeks with us. Each day brought startling revelations and new challenges to overcome.

Fear of grates and drains

 Puppy mill dogs are typically kept in wire crates with no base board so that feces and urine can pass directly through into a collection tray or runoff drain underneath. We believe that Blue spent most of his life before his rescue in a wire crate of this type. We also suspect his crate was probably located in an elevated position as many of these crates are stacked on top of each other to make full utilization of space. We surmise this from Blue’s behavior whenever he comes across an unknown drainage grate or ventilation outlet as well as his almost pathological fear of heights.

Initially Blue’s reaction to a grate or drain was one of avoidance – he would stop stock still and back away even though the grate might be several metres away.  When this first happened no amount of coaxing could get the wee chap to approach the offending piece of road bling – we skirted the issue for weeks, literally.

It soon became apparent that this was an issue that needed dealing with if we were ever going to be able to take our dog out for any normal sort of walk – do you know how many drainage grates and manhole covers there are in a city?

Some schools of thought would suggest that one use a “throw him into the deep end” approach i.e. tug the dog over to the grate and make him see it’s perfectly safe. In my opinion this would have done nothing other than terrify him even further and reaffirm that his initial fear was indeed the right one. What I needed was a means to desensitize him to the source of fear and allow him to come to the realization that his fears were unfounded on his own.  Clicker training provides the ideal vehicle for this. However this was much more than a simple click’n’treat situation!

Blue’s fear was so great that he would refuse to accept even the most appealing of treats. On more than one occasion his response was simply to spit out any treats offered to him. It was important to me to modify my understanding of the term “reward” as the primary motivator. It is easy to think of food as that which is most important to a dog, but Blue was teaching me that comfort, security, acceptance, understanding …were all equally powerful motivators.

We dog lovers have a terrible habit of anthropomorphism when it comes to our dogs – attributing human emotions to our canine friends. The reality is that all mammals, regardless of species, have a need for at least the first four stages of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. What Blue was in need of was the fourth stage: esteem: confidence, achievement, respect for and by others – it was my job as his ‘pack’ to provide him with that.

My Interpretation of Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs as it applies to dogs

And so it was my education began. First I needed to develop my powers of observation – where were all these jolly grates and how could I spot them before my dog did? A little forward planning and a few walks on my own provided me with several routes I could take my dog where there were a few relatively unobtrusive grates that we should be able to successfully sidle past.

My next task was to engineer it so that my body always came between my dog and the terrifying metal work. If I could orchestrate it so Blue’s focus was on me as we went past, he could become familiar with the route and build his confidence before having to confront a grate.  It was all very well in theory, but the reality was more complicated. To pull this off I had to keep one eye on Blue and watch for any signs of stress, while also being on the lookout for each subsequent grate.

It was a slow process – one in which I learned the power of the click after we had successfully passed. If I clicked before approaching the grate, and there was any element of fear, I ran the risk of inadvertently rewarding Blue for being afraid. I learned this because it was during these times that Blue would categorically refuse to accept any treat. If, however, we negotiated our way past without incident  – my being between dog and grate – the click would mark the success of the pass-by and the treat was more readily accepted.

Another strategy I employed was to pair up the fearful object with something of great desire to Blue – his love of balls. Our estate has many ventilation vents and drainage grates alongside the gardens and playgrounds. By taking a ball out when we went to play and selecting a place close to one of these drains I could provide Blue with an opportunity to approach the grate to retrieve his ball. In those early days he’d never go too close, preferring to crouch and bark for me to retrieve it. When I didn’t respond, he’d look at me standing as I was in close proximity to the grate, and decide that another strategy might be more effective. A tentative step closer to the grate, CLICK!, and I’d nudge the ball closer to him and farther away from the grate. If he took another step, he’d get another CLICK!, and the ball would come ever closer. Soon the ball would be an acceptable distance from the grate and he’d rush to retrieve it. In this way I was able to gradually reduce the circle of fear around the grate.

That was 12 months ago, now Blue pays little heed to the familiar metal work in the road. On occasion we may come across one unknown and he will approach tentatively, sniff at it and peer into its depths as if looking for the ghost dogs beneath. Each approach earns him a click’n’treat or some much deserved praise for being such a brave boy. He’s also getting quite adept at jumping over any that come between him and where he wants to go. And that’s the sort of great he likes! 

Acknowledgement: Many thanks to Lindy, Blue's foster mum for the photos from his time with her.