How to Train your Dog Not to be Scared

today's video is brought to you by Midwest homes for pets many of you have requested tips on working with nervous or anxious dogs and many of you have also requested tips on interpreting dog's body language now the two kind of go hand-in-hand so we'll attempt to adjust both of those in today's video you see Millie the rescue dog is kind of nervous or apprehensive when she meets new people especially men as I found out a few days ago today we're going to try and help her get over this anxiety like me on Facebook to become a greater part of our community also subscribe right now so that you can keep up with all the latest dog training advice I have to offer if you understand that force free training is not only more enjoyable but more effective help us strengthen that message by supporting us on patreon comm slash Zach George plus you can find out how to hire me as your personal dog trainer wherever you live in the entire world check the description for details on that now let's go inside to meet Millie joey and amber say amber say how did you come up with the name Millie oh my brother named my dog kilo after a rapper and I didn't like that so I saw qo in the metric system and I started naming all my animals after metric units I love it it's creative it's good science name do you have a call from millimetre when she's in trouble or anything oh my gosh she's getting cute how old was Millie when you got her Joey coming father she was 2 months ok so two months in how old is she now she's two years now and tell me what the issue you have with her is well whenever a new person walks to the house especially a man she's more apprehensive that she gets scared to see them get go near them she barks her hair raises up I was over here a few days ago and I could see she was really uncomfortable in my presence I mean when I stood up for example she was really thrown off by that you could see her her tail in between her legs and her ears back as she barked indicating that she just really wasn't comfortable with a new person in her presence but you don't notice the behavior as much with women is that right that's very sure this is a super common thing you know a lot of dogs are more intimidated by the presence of a man versus a woman I mean oftentimes the bigger our goal needs to be getting Millie comfortable and creating good associations with strangers and people she doesn't know Millie is upstairs right now all right so why don't we bring her down and see how she does and then I'll give you some tips from there why some dogs act like this there is a good chance that she may behave this way due to a lack of socialization at a young age but it could also be genetic for many dogs maybe they had a bad experience earlier on in their life and this made them act that way a lot of people kind of jumped to the conclusion that a dog may have been abused in their past if they tend to be reluctant of men or strangers this is not usually the case but sometimes it can be I'll be paying particular attention and I hope you guys will too to Millie's body language to kind of try and read her and see how she's interpreting this new variable of me being here Plus remember we've got all lights set up here we have Breanna who's filming there are a lot of other variables here that are likely to make Milly uncomfortable so our goal is to make her as comfortable as we can all right Yap doesn't want to come inside me that's what I'm gonna do right guys I'm gonna get just be a little bit more inviting do you want this and look at this it's amazing what's her key will do so that's a good sign straightaway that she took treats for me if a dog is really stressed off and they won't even take treats from you because they're nervous of you notice the wagon wheel - you see our tails back that's more of a nervous tail wagging kind of waving back and forth rather than wagging vigorously so that means that she's a bit nervous I'm also not going to force my eyes on her or encourage any strong eye color with her right now I'm actually going to look away so I'm appear less threatening to her you know I'm very big on eye contact but a dog like Milly may be quite nervous if you look at her in the eyes and force the eye contact so it's important to be very understanding with that every dog is different now I'm looking at her pilo erection that's when their hair stands up on the back of their neck and it seems to have gone down and subsided completely so that's nice that's good I mean she's a little bit more comfortable but see she'll coming as a turkey but then she's like I'm not going to stick around past that you heard that growl right there now oftentimes when a dog growls we have this association that oh that means that they're aggressive or they're about to do something mean actually growling is a pretty good thing largely speaking because they are being very open about their emotions and expressing how they feel now a little avoid standing up to suddenly right now because that's likely to make her a bit nervous good will you sit for me no you sit yes major success right there if a dog will take direction treats or not from a stranger like me who has this issue that's a step you're on the right direction she actually just licked me on the arm right here which is another good indicator that she's becoming more comfortable with me so I'm going to end up now I'm gonna go slow you don't want to make too many so she's taking a bit of a step back here I've noticed that her tail is going between her legs a bit now it's wagging a little bit but not in the good way see that so right here when you were whenever your dog exhibits any type of anxiety like this it's important to just live adjustment at this point it made sense to ask Joey to begin communicating with Milly because she feels safer when he's close by why did you show me what you've taught her overall now she does anything that you taught her like sit or lie down a par or whatever it is that you've taught her execute a few tricks okay Milly sit and it would be amazing if she would do that in my presence now let's close it sit he's normally she'll sit for you all situations all right all right sit Mele sit okay okay good but she's still looking at me here now got you go ahead and reward her for the city if you like I'm gonna clearly say that baffle okay good girl high five I really good can do up lie down great there are obedience like this and tricks like this can really facilitate the bond and accelerate it which will help you with dealing with this issue of reluctance of strangers as well it's important to move really slowly whenever you're dealing with any issue relating to anxiety with your dog I haven't made any effort to pet Milly yet because I don't want her to misinterpret any hand gestures coming at her as something that would be threatening now I'm going to try and pet her sit good girl I'm going to give her the treat I'm gonna pet her underneath the chin we don't want to come on over our dog's head usually see I went to touch her she's like wait I didn't see any turkey that time I don't like you that much good girl very good nice were close able to touch her good girl yes look at that nice little chin scratch you know one of the first things I like to do in order to set our dog up for success is to teach them how to look at us when we ask now I wouldn't insist that she look at me right now because I make her a little bit uncomfortable just by virtue of being a stranger in her house we can easily do this by simply holding up a piece of Turkey like that although she actually did look at me and when you have eye contact just know yes give her the reward letting her know that you like that she looked at you no good good girl now rather than holding up a tree you'll do something like this look at me that was really good right there so you see so just point up here or whatever hand signal you're comfortable with but don't hold up a treat in your hand anymore Millie look yeah good girl excellent the reason we're teaching this is so that when she does become stressed or when she's in a situation you can say hey Millie look at me I've got it under control everything's ok and then you can begin calming your dog I'd like to try and exercise here where we get our comfortable with relaxing on this awesome bed this is actually a quiet time bed it comes from Midwest homes from pets I'll have the link in the description where you can get more information on this these beds are wonderful as a standalone bed or they're designed to fit in your crate they'll keep your dog cool in the summer and warm in the winter and they're super super soft you might also notice the design of this bed is designed to kind of hide shedding as well but that's no big deal because you can always throw it in the washing machine when you need to wash it which is a nice touch in the interest of keeping her super comfortable in the presence of me and other strangers it would be great to get her relaxing on this nice soft quiet time bed while we hang out for a bit now do you think she'll lie down on here I think she should be able to yeah sometimes it's a good idea to just freak out and get real excited when your dog does something new but when you're trying to encourage them to relax and reduce anxiety you'll find that approach is usually more effective you can see that Joey is doing a fantastic job of keeping her calm and relaxing or it's up to you as your dog's person and trainer and parent to make sure that you're doing everything you can keep your dog comfortable and at ease it's the first time I've been able to pepper right now without her getting nervous no growling no barking of any kind her hips are nice and relaxed her eyes would indicate that she's just fine here she's enjoying herself Gambhir stays over here playing with Milly getting her into play mode I wonder if we can get her playing tug with me if we could that would accelerate our progress tremendously because if a dog is willing to play with you when they're otherwise nervous of you that's a good indicator that they're more comfortable kidsí look at her she's in a goofy mood she's a little uncertain but you can see she's a lot more comfortable she's in a playful mood there we go there's the tug that's what I'm looking for tug-of-war is a really natural game for dogs to play and if you can get them playing tug that's a surefire sign that they're very comfortable with you look at you get that just because she might be comfortable with me doesn't mean she's going to be comfortable with all strangers moving forward so you'll have to take it on a case-by-case basis eventually the hope is that your dog will generalize calm acceptable behavior reducing anxiety is a weeks to months long process for most dog micro bits of progress or all you're looking for if you enjoyed this video make sure you click thumbs up also visit our sponsor midwest homes for pets and check out the quiet time bet the link will be in the description like me on Facebook and help support videos like this in the future by visiting us on patreon.com slash as Zack Jordan okay guys see you in the next video good job guys thank you learn how to teach your dog tricks with beignet the trick dog or watch Lucy the shy dog learn how to become confident you need help with getting your dog comfortable with taking a bath hyper the Aussie is super cute and that's a great video too if you haven't seen extreme leash pulling with Lafitte holy cow you definitely have to check that one out but it's about 20 minutes or so so be prepared to kick back with joy you

Channel: Zak George’s Dog Training Revolution

Views: 422,053

Keywords: How to train dog not to bark, nervous dog, fearful, nervous, reactive, aggressive, dog training, positive dog training, positive reinforcement, puppy training, german shepherd, how to train a dog, barking, stop barking, make dog stop barking, Dog (Domesticated Animal), Bark

Id: rwQlrqmnNF0

Length: 11min 10sec (670 seconds)

Published: Tue Jul 01 2014