Fear Based Behaviors - Part 1

Flower – the giant dog afraid of tile floors
Slippery floors are often a cause for fear based behaviors, especially in large breed dogs. It is important that puppies experience many different flooring types during their socialization period, so that they can learn how to walk on and adapt to new surfaces.

But, some puppies and adult dogs have a hard time with slippery floors. Some adult dogs have slipped and been injured and this leads to avoidance of the slippery floors. Some dogs will barely walk/crawl across slippery floors and others will make a mad dash across them.

Dogs that have lost a leg need to relearn how to walk on slippery floors. Extremely overweight dogs can have a fear of slippery floors because their legs are not strong enough to hold them up on the floor (in this case, the dog needs to lose weight while working on the floor issues).

It is important to manage this problem while desensitizing the dog to the floor. Management would include placing carpet strips (with non-slip backings) on the floor for the dog to walk on. Management might also include keeping the dog out of the room with the slippery floors during the behavior modification period. There are also products on the market, such as Paw Pads (http://www.puppylovepawpads.com), which are applied directly to the dog’s feet to give traction. This product is very useful for dogs that have lost limbs and are adapting to the new way they need to walk.

Flower’s owners tried the flooding technique in order to force Flower to get used to their kitchen floor. They dragged Flower to the middle of the floor and left her there. Flower just stood there and trembled until her owners dragged her back to the carpeted area. After that, every time they tried to get Flower onto the kitchen floor, she would fight against the leash. Her owners were afraid that she would hurt herself.

Flower needed to gain confidence on the floor. Since her experience with the flooring was very aversive, even using food to try to lure her onto the floor did not work. Neither did placing carpet samples and luring her onto those. She would not go into the kitchen at all.

After thinking about this issue, we decided to desensitize Flower to linoleum in the living room. This meant getting a piece of linoleum and placing it on the carpet and working with Flower there. We put the linoleum away while not working with Flower.

Thankfully, Flower was not afraid of the piece of linoleum, so we were able to start out by using desensitization and counterconditioning (DSCC) across the room from the linoleum. At all times, Flower was given treats for being in the same room as that linoleum. In one session, we were able to bring Flower right up to the linoleum.

The next session, we worked with carpet samples and the linoleum samples, still in the living room. In this session, our goal was to get Flower to step on each sample (our criteria was one foot). We used food to get Flower close to each sample. The carpet sample was easy. The linoleum one was a bit harder and we used a lot of food. At first we just tossed food around the sample. Then we tossed food onto the sample so that she was touching it with her nose. Then we lured her over and onto the sample with food. We did not force her to step on the sample. She was off leash at all times and could move away from the sample when she needed to (increase of distance to reduce stress).

After the first session, Flower’s owners were instructed to practice with her each day. Their goal was to have Flower be confident about walking over the linoleum sample while it was on the living room carpet.

After they were successful with this, it was time to start working in the kitchen. At first, we did not really work in the kitchen, but in the doorway to the kitchen. When Flower was comfortable in the doorway (again, using DSCC), we placed a carpet sample on the kitchen floor. We used food to get her to step on the carpet sample. By placing one sample next to each other and always allowing Flower to retreat to the living room when she needed to, we were able to bring her a few feet into the kitchen on the carpet samples.
The next step for the owners was to continue doing this with Flower until she was comfortable walking through the kitchen on the carpet samples.

Once that happened, we went back to the living room doorway. We placed Paw Pads on Flower’s feet (and used food to get her used to them). Then, we placed a carpet sample a short distance into the kitchen. Flower would need to take a step onto the real kitchen floor in order to step onto her safe carpet sample. Allowing her to back up into the safety of the living room when needed, we used food to have her place on foot on the floor. We repeated this until she was comfortable walking 1 step to the carpet sample, then 2 steps, then 3 steps.

Flower's owners continued with this process until Flower was successfully walking around a kitchen peppered with carpet samples. Then, they slowly began removing one carpet sample at a time until she was walking in the kitchen comfortably. At that point, they removed the Paw Pads and worked with Flower in the kitchen.

While Flower is still careful about moving around the kitchen, she will willingly walk through the kitchen to get to the back door. She will also come into the kitchen to greet her owners and to get treats. As time progresses, I expect that she will become more and more confident about the flooring.

And, Flower’s owners are now able to take her to places with slippery floors and have her feel confident about them.

Note: This same technique is used to help dogs learn stairs. We start with one stair, then two stairs and increase the number of stairs until the dog is able to go up and down easily.