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Icollaborate with a vet who claims that many of the dogs who visit her facility are so eager to get inside the door that they pull their owners by the leash all the way from the parking lot. Her secret? Counterconditioning (CC).
Counterconditioning is one of the most important techniques in animal training (arguably top five). Simply put, ‘conditioning’ means ‘learning’ and ‘counter’ means ‘opposite.’ Relearning might be another way of putting it. Practically speaking, it’s about changing someone’s learned associations.
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An example! Let’s say we have a dog, who’s started trembling and panting whenever she arrives to the vet’s office. She has probably learned to associate the vet’s office with aversive events. Strange sounds and smells. Unfamiliar people looming. Needles poking. A string of events that ends up with something painful… Most animals will learn these predictors. This is one type of classical conditioning, learning that certain events predict things the animal would rather avoid (just like Pavlov’s dogs drooled when they learned that bells predicted things they really wanted).
Some animals may start showing behaviors indicative of a fear response at the first stimulus in such a predictive chain, and some even resort to defensive aggression in their attempts to escape the situation – which could be very risky for all parties involved.
Counterconditioning is about relearning. Typically, rather than predicting pain, the animal learns that certain events predict outstanding free delicacies, delivered right under your nose. Let’s go back to our example. Through counterconditioning, the dog now relearns that: • Strange sounds and smells – but followed by fabulous treats. • Unfamiliar people looming – and then you get something that smells just wonderful! • Needles poking – is that chicken liver? (or, if you’re a cat: whaaaat – tuna?!)
Counterconditioning is learning new associations, so that the animal starts looking forward to the sounds, smells, people and procedures since they precede fabulous goodies.
Studies have shown that counterconditioning may reduce the risk of defensive aggression in just a few training sessions. For example, one dog’s aggressive behaviors towards a stranger at the door (charging, lunging, barking, and biting) diminished from 88% of 30second intervals before training to 3% after counterconditioning training (Savage, 2010).
How to Perform Counterconditioning
How do you do it, then? In theory, it’s easy. Start by identifying some fabulous treat – something that the animal really likes. Something spectacular. Then feed small mouthfuls to the animal as soon as it has been exposed to a potentially scary stimulus. The fearinducing stimulus should predict the arrival of something fabulous. After a few pairings (scary thing – fab food) the animal learns that one leads to the other. She relearns that the potentially scary thing is actually not scary but a predictor of something spectacularly good.
Take a look at Dr. Sophia Yin counterconditioning a dog to actually enjoying something he initially thought aversive in the video Jack Russell Terrier (JRT) Aggression When Blowing in Face. Dr. Yin discusses –and dismisses – the common assumption that giving treats to animals while or after they’re aggressive inadvertently rewards, or reinforces, the behavior. Note that the animal doesn’t have to DO anything. In clas
Fig. 1: Counterconditioning - Three Scenarios
© Illis Animal Behaviour Consulting
sical counterconditioning, the potentially scary thing precedes the wonderful treat – regardless of what the animal is doing.
In theory, counterconditioning is easy. In practice, unless you know what you’re doing, it is quite difficult. Actually, there are at least three ways in which counterconditioning can go wrong.
Problem One: Choosing the Wrong Procedure We sometimes mistake hyperarousal and happy/excited emotional states for fear. In such cases, presenting a stimulus that’s not scary, and then treats, might have little to no effect on the animal’s behavior – or even increase arousal. Such procedures might inadvertently reinforce whatever behavior is being shown, and solutions other than counterconditioning are called for.
Problem Two: Exposure above Conflict Threshold Let’s walk through this procedure. The animal is exposed to something potentially scary (and it might be scarier than you think). Step one. The animal is then exposed to something nice (and it might be less nice than you think). Step two. Through repeated pairings (step onestep two), the animal learns that the potentially scary thing is actually not scary at all but a predictor of nice things. So, two questions: How scary is the scary thing? And how nice is the nice thing?
The answers to those two questions are likely going to determine your success in counterconditioning.
If the scary thing is not so scary, and the nice thing is fabulous, counterconditioning will likely be successful. If the scary thing is really scary, and the nice thing is fabulous, the animal will be in conflict. If the scary thing is really scary, and the nice thing is not exactly spectacular, counterconditioning won’t work (see Fig 1, above).
The contrast between the scariness and fabulousness of the two respective stimuli will determine the outcome. • If the scary thing isn’t that bad, you can probably get away with lessthanfabulous treats and still countercondition successfully. • At the other extreme, if the scary thing is scary enough, you won’t be able to countercondition successfully regardless of how fabulous your treats are. • At some intermediate level, the animal gets into conflict. The scary thing is really scary, but the treats are really fabulous too, so the animal may eat the treats – but remain fearful.
The thing is to ensure that the level of scariness is below the conflict threshold – we don’t want the animal to overcome his fear, we want him to relearn: the potentially scary thing should become a predictor of great things.
Studies have shown that counterconditioning may reduce the risk of defensive aggression in just a few training sessions. For example, one dog’s aggressive behaviors towards a stranger at the door (charging, lunging, barking, and biting) diminished from 88% of 30-second intervals before training to 3% after counterconditioning training (Savage, 2010).
© Can Stock Photo / evdohaspb While it may sometimes be necessary to “control” animals (as in restricting their movement, their choices and their opportunities to control their environment through their behavior) for safety reasons, often it is not
Now, we might overestimate fabulousness, but I’d say that the main problem is that we often grossly underestimate scariness. This boils down to two things: • We fail to see or interpret the subtle signs of fearful body language in our animals. • We’re not afraid of whatever the animal is afraid of, so it doesn’t even occur to us that they might be fearful.
Animals are more easily frightened than people: they often react fearfully to novel stimuli or things that we can’t even perceive (smells or sounds, for instance). Or they might respond fearfully to things we wouldn’t ever consider scary – so we might dismiss their fears.
The thing is, if they are too fearful, they’ll either get into conflict, or they won’t take treats – and counterconditioning alone won’t work. I’ll get back to what to do about that in a minute, but first, the final main obstacle…
Problem Three: Asking for Behavior too Soon An additional problem is that people tend to use operant counterconditioning rather than classical counterconditioning – and that’s risky if the animal is too fearful.
Classical Counterconditioning
In classical counterconditioning, the animal doesn’t have to do anything in particular. Step one precedes step two (scary thing – treat) regardless of behavior. As we saw in Dr. Yin’s (2009) video, the airintheface stimulus preceded the treat. And meanwhile, what was the animal doing? He was raising his lip, giving a warning signal. At least initially. Many people might think: “I don’t want to reward that. I’m going to wait until he stops. When the lip goes down, that’s when I’ll present the food.” But that’s operant training, folks. That’s requiring the animal to perform a behavior in order to get reinforcement. Dr. Yin didn’t do that in her video, though. She just got the treat to him as soon as possible – despite his raised lip.
Counterconditioning is primarily about relearning predictors; its main purpose is not about relearning behavior. The dog isn’t learning that “ifIbehavepolitelydespiteairinthefaceIgettreats;” he’s learning that “airinthefaceprecedestreats.” He’s learning a predictor. One stimulus predicting another – regardless of behavior. Classical conditioning. Or in this case, classical counterconditioning. Technically, Dr. Yin didn’t use the treat as a reinforcer for desired behavior, she used it as an unconditioned stimulus (the airintheface being the conditioned stimulus).
The purpose of the exercise was not to get polite behavior, but to change the emotional state related to airintheface. And once the emotional state changed, the behavioral manifestations changed too. So those warning signals disappeared, since the animal no longer feared airintheface – he’s learned that it predicted treats! The dog stopped giving warning signals, because his emotional response to airintheface changed.
Operant Counterconditioning
But what does operant counterconditioning look like then, and why is it risky? It’s asking the animal to do something, show some behavior, in the presence of something potentially scary – and get rewarded for it. It might be “sit” on cue. Touch a target. Perform some trick. In an environment containing stimuli that might be aversive. This is often done later in the counterconditioning procedure. Once classical counterconditioning is achieved, we may ask the animal to perform a behavior in the presence of the previously scary thing, to ensure that it is, in fact, no longer scary, and the animal feels confident enough to respond to the trainer’s cues in its presence. Failure to respond to such cues may indicate that there’s some residual anxiety, perhaps. So, classical counterconditioning procedures are sometimes followed by operant counterconditioning.
The problem occurs when people start doing operant counterconditioning too soon. They might require that the animal *not* balk, rear, vocalize, or lift the lip in warning. So they might present the scary thing, and when the animal balks, they withhold the treat, hoping that he’ll stop soon so they can deliver the treat. And if the animal keeps balking or showing other unwanted behavior, the treat doesn’t appear at all. So, rather than learning that the scarythingpredictstreats, the animal learns that inthiscontextscarythingshappen. And so, he might sensitize, and escalate the undesirable behavior.
Sidestepping the Problems
What to do then? Combine counterconditioning with another technique – systematic desensitization (SD): gradually introducing the scary thing.
The combination of counterconditioning and systematic desensitization (SD/CC) is potentially the most powerful tool available in reducing or eliminating fear – in people as well as in animals. If you present the potentially scary thing, and the animal shows some unwanted fearrelated behavior: • Deliver the treat regardless (so that he still learns that scarythingspredicttreats). • In the next repetition, reduce the exposure of the scary thing below the conflict threshold (so that he doesn’t show any detectable signs of unease).
Note that the procedure of creating a positive association with the veterinary visit is best done even before animals develop fears. Strictly speaking, it might not even be “counter” conditioning or relearning if the animal isn’t afraid to begin with, just “plain” classical conditioning (Pavlov’s drooling dogs again) – but such preventive learning is very powerful in buffering against later fears developing.
The vet should be able to offer a vast assortment of fabulous treats, in order to bring about this important learning. And many modern animal trainers actually expand the procedure to include giving the animal the option of giving the goahead, effectively communicating, “yes I’m ready to be exposed to the scary thing.” Giving the animal control, as it were.
Habituation
So now you know that I promote counterconditioning (or relearning) as one of the best techniques to reduce fear in the veterinary clinic. You might be thinking: “Aaaaw, that’s too much of a hassle, there’s no time. Why not just grab the animal, do what needs to be done, and with time, the animal will get used to it? It will habituate.”
There are four reasons why I don’t think that’s a good idea: • If it works, it’s a slow process. • Meanwhile, you risk injury in staff handling the animal and difficulty in diagnosis. • You run the risk of sensitization (the animal becoming successively more fearful). • You risk confusing successful habituation with learned helplessness (animals giving up; a potentially pathological reaction).
Stimuli could be rated according to valence (whether they’re pleasant/unpleasant) and range from supernice to supernasty in how they are perceived by the animal. What the animal actually thinks is unobservable, but behavior will give us a cue – let’s assume behavior correlates to valence, and look at one end of this continuum for a while. For starters, sometimes it’s hard to know where on this scale different stimuli would rate. For some individual animals, moving through a crowded reception room may be really really aversive, for others less so, or not at all (see Fig. 2, top right).
Habituation is simply exposing the animal to some stimulus until they stop responding. Conceptualized in our valence continuum, habituation brings stimuli to neutral over time or with repeated exposure, simply by exposure. What we actually observe is the animal reacting less and less to it. Habituation may occur with stimuli that are initially really aversive, or with stimuli that are not so aversive to begin with.
The first two problems are clear from Fig 2: if we’re early in the process, the stimuli are aversive and behaviors will reflect that. Dogs may growl, cats may scratch, parrots may bite. Or worse. Even though later they may stop responding, the initial exposures are risky and it may be difficult to properly examine (and thus diagnose) the animal. What’s even more important is that it’s sort of like a lottery. Though habituation is one potential outcome of repeated exposure, sensitization Fig. 2: Habituation
© Illis Animal Behaviour Consulting Fig. 3: Sensitization
is more likely in the vet clinic. Third Problem.
In sensitization, stimuli become more aversive over time. If the animal sensitizes, what you’ll notice is that she starts responding more rather than less, over time or with repeated exposure (see Fig. 3, bot‐tom right on previous page).
Crucial Differences between Habituation and Sensitization
Though they seem like two sides of the same coin, they’re not. Sensitization and habituation are different in a few ways: • Habituation is slow, sensitization is potentially fast. Generally animals learn quicker about potentially dangerous stimuli. • Habituation doesn’t generalize, sensitization does. Animals start reacting to other stimuli than the one that originally triggered the response. • Habituation isn’t multimodal, sensitization tends to be. Animals start reacting to other sensory stimuli than the original one: they get sensitive to noise, touch, visual input, etc.
The problem is that it’s hard to predict whether an animal will habituate or sensitize to a given stimulus. Some animals may sensitize even to notsoaversive stimuli, others will not.
Judging by studies on how fear develops in animals visiting the veterinary clinic, the majority sensitize rather than habituate: dogs with previous negative experiences are more fearful than dogs with only positive previous experiences; older animals are more fearful than younger animals (Döring et al., 2009).
I am assuming here that we can tell by the animal’s behavior how aversive a situation is. But sometimes we can’t. Sometimes animals may stop struggling and meekly accept handling because they’ve learned that resistance is futile. This is a potentially serious stress syndrome called learned helplessness. The fourth problem with attempting habituation in the vet clinic is thus telling successful habituation from learned helplessness. Based on these thoughts, I’d advise against simply “getting it done” in the veterinary clinic. Habituation alone won’t work. Rather, I would suggest counterconditioning to reduce fear at the vet’s.
But, despite these shortcomings – there is still a nugget of gold hidden in the process of habituation. It’s a version of habituation called systematic desensitization (SD), which I mentioned earlier.
Fig. 4: Systematic Desensitization
© Illis Animal Behaviour Consulting
Judging by studies on how fear develops in animals visiting the veterinary clinic, the majority sensitize rather than habituate: dogs with previous negative experiences are more fearful than dogs with only positive previous experiences; older animals are more fearful than younger animals (Döring et al., 2009).
Systematic Desensitization
Systematic desensitization (see Fig. 4, bottom left) is an essential part of your toolbox to reduce and eliminate fear.
Systematic Desensitization = Graduated Exposure and Relaxation
Let’s go back to the habituation model and look at what happens if rather than introducing a very aversive stimulus head on (the red circle on the upper right in Fig. 4), we start out by introducing it at a very low intensity, where we basically don’t see the animal responding all that much to it (the green circle to the lower left in Fig. 4).
Say you want to habituate the animal to a stimulus that you suspect is really aversive. Say, having nails clipped. In systematic desensitization, the animal is exposed to lowintensity levels of the stimulus. Gradually, over time, the exposure level is increased until finally the stimulus is introduced at full exposure, including perhaps a level that would originally have been very aversive. At each exposure level, the animal should initially not be over threshold, and relax completely before moving to the next level (see Fig. 4).
What might work is this: starting with lowintensity versions of the stimulus, allow the animal to become accustomed to it. For instance, simply handling feet, or paws, or talons (or even just holding your hand several feet away from the foot, paw or talon). Since you’re choosing an exposure that the animal isn’t reacting much to, you won’t see any fear response.
After a while, the animal relaxes (e.g. in Fig. 4, the green dot would gradually turn neutral over time). Once the animal isn’t even reacting to this first step, move on. This relaxation is one of the key features of SD. At every step of the way, the stimulus turns neutral, so the animal stops responding to it. Note that if you’re only using SD, the stimulus becomes neutral, not nice (unlike when you’re using counterconditioning, which is often done in combination with SD). Present the stimulus again, only a little bit closer, or louder, or more intense. For instance, looking at the clipper from a distance, or listening to the sounds it makes – from a distance. Allow the animal to habituate – again, look for relaxation. Don’t move on until the animal is completely relaxed with this level of intensity. Then gradually increase the stimulus exposure. In the case of nail clipping, you might start with simply tapping the nails with the clipper. If the animal starts to show signs of tension, you might be advancing too quickly. The trick with systematic desensitization is going really slowly, perhaps taking several days or weeks. Exposure should barely be intense enough for the animal to notice the stimulus initially. It’s time to increase exposure once the animal is relaxed and no longer pays attention to the
© Can Stock Photo / vilma3000 An SD/CC protocol to teach a cat to remain relaxed and accept the administration of an injection may be broken down into multiple steps
stimulus at the current level. Finally, you clip the nail. Ideally, the animal actually doesn’t respond to the stimulus. This is called graduated exposure, and it’s a key feature of SD. It’s also when people often go wrong, advancing too quickly (or not awaiting relaxation).
SD reduces the risk of sensitization and the other potential pitfalls of habituation. With SD, potentially scary events are introduced gradually, allowing the animal to recover in between. Rather than overwhelming the animal with a new procedure, it is introduced in small steps, all the while staying below threshold. You should be looking closely at the animal for signs indicating that she’s troubled. If she seems uncomfortable, you’re moving too fast.
Ideally, in systematic desensitization, the animal should stay more or less unaffected by the procedure. Yes, it’s kinda boring. Obviously, this would be impossible in painful procedures if all you’re doing is SD – SD alone works best with small fears, and unfortunately is no guarantee that sensitization won’t occur after all.
Fear of Fireworks
One recent development is using SD in treating canine noise phobias. Certain classical piano pieces have been found to have a calming effect on 80% dogs (and yes, cats may also be calmed by specific catmusic!). Once the animal is in a relaxed state, offensive sounds such as fireworks or thunder are gradually introduced, masked by the soothing music. For instance, in these listening samples, low level fireworks are masked in a Gounoud piece, intermediate levels in an arabesque by Karganoff, and higher levels in a waltz by Beethoven. These samples are from the Canine Noise Phobia treatment developed by dog trainer Victoria Stilwell in collaboration with concert pianist Lisa Spector and sound researcher Joshua Leeds. Note that the music is used in combination with other techniques (see Resources).
SD has been shown to potentially be a critical element in treating separationrelated destructive behavior in dogs. One study found that
SD reduced the frequency of destructive separationrelated behavior in dogs to one quarter of baseline rates – and the level of intensity of these behaviors were reduced to less than half of levels seen prior to training (Butler et al., 2011).
Although SD is a useful technique in a number of settings, it takes time, so used as a standalone procedure it’s probably not appropriate in many cases, such as in the veterinary clinic. It is most often combined with counterconditioning (CC) in such settings.
SD/CC
The combination of counterconditioning and systematic desensitization (SD/CC) is potentially the most powerful tool available in reducing or eliminating fear – in people as well as in animals. The combination procedure is called SD/CC, DS/CC or CC/D depending on who you’re talking to; some people skip the first word of SD and only talk about desensitization. The procedure looks the same, though: after each exposure to the stimulus, the animal gets something it really likes.
The basic SD/CC to teach a cat to accept an injection may look like this – note that there may be up to 20 intermediate steps between each of these (for instance, when introducing the needle): • Stroking the cat, then giving it some tuna. • Stroking more firmly – more tuna. • Lifting the skin – tuna again. • Pinching – tuna.
© Can Stock Photo / sonjachnuj Sensitization is a huge risk when exposing animals to a frightening stimulus; the combined procedure of SD/CC reduces the risk of sensitization better than either procedure on its own
• Needle prick – tuna. • Injection – tuna…
But remember, do not move on to the next step until you see that the animal is completely comfortable and at ease at the current step (the relaxation part of SD) and is looking for the tuna (showing signs of learning the association: CC). In short, this type of procedure is typically not done in one single session but over several training sessions.
Some trainers will let the animal have access to the food preceding and during all handling, rather than just after each handling bout is initiated. That works too and may be a good choice when there’s little time and the process needs to be performed quickly. Beware that the presence of food before handling starts may be a distraction so the animal could potentially be unaware of the handling and may react violently if surprised. In the procedure I’ve described above, the animal actually learns that the initiation of handling happens before and therefore predicts treats.
The combination procedure SD/CC is a very powerful tool in both preventing and reducing fear and is more efficient than either procedure carried out alone.
Sensitization is a huge risk when exposing animals to a frightening stimulus, and the combined procedure reduces the risk of sensitization better than either SD or CC alone. Also, without SD it would be difficult to countercondition an animal to intensely frightening stimuli – when they’re over threshold (too aroused) they’re not that receptive to treats.
Gradually building up the exposure, and all the while repeating the association with treats – even in animals who are not fearful to begin with, builds up a Conditioned Emotional Response (known as a CER):
We sometimes mistake hyperarousal and happy/excited emotional states for fear. In such cases, presenting a stimulus that’s not scary, and then treats, might have little to no effect on the animal’s behavior – or even increase arousal. Such procedures might inadvertently reinforce whatever behavior is being shown, and solutions other than counterconditioning are called for.
© Can Stock Photo / rozum Giving animals control, thereby empowering them to make their own choices, has many advantages, including reducing fear and improving mental wellbeing
the animal starts looking forward to the procedure. More importantly, establishing such a routine will to some extent protect the animal from becoming afraid on future exposures, through the process of Latent Inhibition (learning something isn’t frightening inhibits fear learning regarding that particular something, later on).
So, will this work every time, with every animal? Unfortunately, no. In the case of cats and veterinary visits, only about half the cats actually accept food at the vet’s. In such cases, other techniques can be used to reduce the risk of the animal becoming more fearful. Preventing fear is a lot easier than curing it – and the SD/CC procedure should be ideally be used before the animal develops any fearrelated behavior in the vet clinic.
Fig. 5
In the video Teaching a Cat to Accept Injections, Monique Feyrechilde starts by explaining SD/CC and, at 2:31 minutes into the video, she explains the steps she will take to teach the 14yearold cat Ziggy to accept injections of Adequan for his arthritis, to be given twice a week initially. Feyrechilde takes advantage of the observation that cats easily associate noises to future events, so she uses the sound of the syringe wrapper to countercondition Ziggy as the first step before even touching him (low level systematic desensitization). Also, note how she verifies that the food she’s intending to use to countercondition the handling actually has value to the cat. Notice how she starts each handling bout by initiating handling first and then presenting the food: handling precedes food (with overlap, so feeding continues as long as handling does).
Start Button Behaviors
Modern animal trainers are starting to combine the SD/CC procedure with “Start Button Behaviors” – allowing the animal to initiate the exposure to the potentially scary thing herself. As far as I know, there’s no scientific data yet to demonstrate the added benefit of this twist in the procedure, but there’s no doubt in my mind that it gives tremendous added value.
Sometimes you have to “control” animals (as in restricting their movement, their choices and their opportunities to control their environment through their behavior) for safety reasons. Obviously. But often you don’t – and more often than you might think. The trend in modern animal training is to deliberately and strategically shift control from the handler to the animal, while still staying safe (see Fig. 5, bot‐tom right on previous page).
In the video Horse Hoof Lift, it was the first time I witnessed a socalled “YesTarget” or a Start Button Behavior. Quoquette (horse) initiates the hoof lift. In Fig. 5, this corresponds to the animal initiating the trials in the training session. She presses the start button, as it were: • Quoquette touches the bucket with her nose, indicating that she’s ready. • Hedvig (trainer) then offers her hand in response to Quoquette’s signal.
Giving animals choices changes the nature of an interaction from an authoritarian focus on obedience to one centered on collaboration • Quoquette lifts her hoof. • Hedvig holds on for a few seconds, sounds the clicker, releases, and gives a food treat.
Giving control to the animal – or the illusion of control – has many advantages, including reducing fear and improving wellbeing. This concept of agency, of being capable of acting, making choices, and resolving problems, is of huge importance, for animals as well as humans. Empowerment has direct and measurable health benefits. And, paradoxically, by giving control to the animal rather than restricting choice and control, the situation often turns out safer, since the animal is less fearful and less likely to switch into defensive aggression.
Lastly, giving control to the animal doesn’t mean that the whole training session goes haywire. Rather, it shifts the nature of the interaction from an authoritarian focus on obedience to one centered on collaboration. Or, as Chirag Patel (2018) so succinctly puts it: "Training is no longer something we do to animals but something we do with animals. It is a conversation. We want participation rather than compliance." n
References
Butler, R., Sargisson, R.J., & Elliffe, D. (2011). The efficacy of systematic desensitization for treating the separation-related problem behaviour of domestic dogs. Applied Animal Behaviour Science 129 2–4 136-145 Döring, D., Roscher, A., Scheipl, F., Küchenhoff, H., & Erhard, M.H. (2009). Fear-related behaviour of dogs in veterinary practice. The Veterinary Journal 182 1 38-43 Feyrechilde, M. (2011, July 1). Teaching a Cat to Accept Injections [Video File] ICalmPet. (n.d.). Beethoven Dream Waltz [Audio File]. CNP Fireworks ICalmPet. (n.d.). Gounod Berceuse [Audio File]. CNP Fireworks ICalmPet. (n.d.). Karganoff Arabesque [Audio File]. CNP Fireworks Illis ABC. (2017). Horse Hoof Lift [Video File] Patel, C. (2018). (In Nilson, S.) Lecture Notes: What They Said. BARKS from the Guild (31) 12-13 Savage, K. E. (2010). A Comparison of Classical Counterconditioning and Differential Reinforcement of Alternative Behavior on Aggressive Behavior in Dogs. Applied Behavioral Science Dissertations and Theses, University of Kansas. Kansas, KS: KU ScholarWorks Yin, S. (2009, March 16). Jack Russell Terrier (JRT) Aggression When Blowing in Face | drsophiayin.com [Video File]
Resources
Positively Victoria Stilwell. (2011). Introducing the Canine Noise Phobia Series!
Associate Prof. Karolina Westlund of Illis Animal Behaviour Consulting helps pet parents and animal professionals attain happier animals that thrive in the care of humans. She grew up pining for a kitten and pestered her parents until they finally gave in. The resulting black, green-eyed, half-Siamese cat she got for her 7th birthday became a true friend who lived to be 21 years old but was an easily startled cat who often went into hiding when there were visitors. While she had grand ideas about becoming a field biologist, instead she majored in ethology and developed a passionate interest in animal welfare as seen through a multidisciplinary lens, including behavior analysis and affective neuroscience. She is now an associate professor of ethology at the University of Stockholm, Sweden where she mainly teaches about how behavior management can be used to improve animal welfare. She also conducts live seminars, free online webinars and masterclasses in addition to more extensive courses, as well as the occasional scientific publication on the topic of enrichment, animal training and well-being.
