I know, this goes against what we call common sense. But I promise, there are reasons behind my madness.
The thought is: my dog is afraid of strangers. My dog loves food. Having strangers feed my dog treats will teach my dog that the stranger is good! Seems reasonable, except unfortunately, that’s not how fearful dogs work.
The reality is: if your dog is truly fearful, then at best, this doesn’t impact your dog’s distress - no real improvement but no dramatic change. At worst: this could cause a bite.
Here’s why:
Just like humans, dogs do their best learning when they can relax and focus. In order for your dog to pair positive outcomes with an experience, their brain must actively be able to process information. “Ooh, a stranger gave me a treat. I love treats. How do I get another treat?”
However, when dogs (and humans) are under duress, our thoughts are not focused on learning, but rather danger avoidance.This is also known as Fight or Flight (and Freeze and Fidget). If a dog is sufficiently frightened, they won’t eat at all because their body is preparing for them to fight, flee, or freeze. (Same with us - if you were in a dark alley about to get mugged, and a friend said “It’s cool, do you want cake?” you’d probably respond “No! What is wrong with you?!” while you’re backing away from the mugger. Now is no time for cake, fool!)
In some cases, the fear may not be strong enough to put your dog fully into fight-or-flight mode. I’m mortified of spiders, but if there’s something I want badly enough near a spider, I’ll suck it up. Like if I need to wash my hair because I have a client soon, but there’s a spider in the shower. Given the time constraint, I will creep into the bathroom, eyes locked on the spider, snatch my shampoo and conditioner, and book it out of there! (The kitchen sinks work great for washing hair, by the way.
Dogs will often do this with treats. They’re afraid of the stranger, but the lure of a sufficiently tasty treat is strong, and so they approach, eyes on the treat, usually leaving their back legs behind as an escape route, and snarf it down. But once the treat is gone, guess what remains?
A super scary stranger...directly in front of them. That would be like me grabbing my shampoo and suddenly realizing the spider is on the bottle. (Writing this made my heart race, fyi)
So now your dog goes back to their initial options: fight or flight. Only the scary thing is right on top of them, so the chance that they may choose to fight increases, because the monster is right there staring them in the eyes.
Even if your dog goes into flight and returns to you: they haven’t processed information or learned anything if they’re afraid of the person. Their brain was not ready to learn.
OK, cool. Now, what should you do instead?
In order to build positive associations, your dog needs to be in a learning state of mind - that means they need to be far enough away from the scary person that they can remain calm and relaxed when they look at the person. That means soft face, loose muscles, neutral tail, and no stiffening/barking/lunging. We call this “under threshold.”
Then, you can provide tasty treats to your dog while they look at the stranger. If done correctly, this allows your dog to begin building good feelings (strangers = cookies), and over time, you can carefully start to get closer to strangers as your dog continues to feel relaxed and happy. Just make sure you stay in the state of learning.
To continue our spider example (a decision I instantly regret): if you wanted to desensitize me to spiders, first we start with a spider in the bathroom and me in the living room as far away from the spider as I can get but still see it.
You’d sit next to me calmly, and every time I looked at the spider, you’d praise my bravery and give me chocolate. (Thank you!)
After several repetitions, you should notice my breathing slowing and my body relaxing. When I seem really relaxed and have no problem looking at the spider, you might move me a little closer - just close enough that I seem less thrilled but not stressed. Then we repeat the process until I look super relaxed again...then, we move me a little closer, repeat...get super relaxed, move me closer, repeat.
If at any point my tension goes back up, we retreat to the last stage that I could relax at, and we stay that far away for longer...because once I get tense, learning is over and my fear kicks in.
It gets more complicated depending on other factors (in my case, how big is the spider, is it still or moving, etc) -- for dogs, this might be “is the stranger staring directly at me or looking away? Are they approaching me, holding still, or going away? Are they moving fast or slow? Seated or standing? etc” Your dog decides what’s easy and what’s hard for them to handle.
If you’re having a hard time figuring out when your dog is under threshold, when they’re not, or how to set them up for learning success: book an appointment so I can help! (That will also reinforce me for being brave enough to write this metaphor!)