Barks Blog

by Anna Bradley

Desensitization is a tool used routinely in the behavioral rehabilitation of animals with many varied emotional responses, but primarily those centered around anxiety and fear. Several terms have in recent years become almost “bandied” about—used in regular discourse in doggy chat rooms, forums, social boards, social media groups and the like, and desensitization is just one of them. The result is that, while professionals use the technique as it should be applied, it can be less well understood, so its effectiveness “watered down” or even completely incorrectly utilized. 

Desensitization in itself is a very powerful tool for behavior professionals to have in their armory—applied correctly, it is a means to effect a whole positive emotional reversal.

What Exactly Is Desensitization?

A quick scour of the internet will reveal a plethora of definitions, many of which are pretty confusing. To keep things super simple, I define desensitization as involving a very gradual and repeated presentation of the stimulus the animal is reactive to, in a non-threatening way, until the animal becomes habituated to it. The stimulus can be wide ranging, for instance, perhaps the animal is afraid of another dog or person, or maybe a cat dislikes being brushed or touched, or perhaps you have a dog who is sound phobic with gunshots or fireworks, and therefore desensitization has a wide range of application—that is its real advantage.

Confusion About the Definition of Desensitization

When I first meet clients and mention the notion of desensitization, some state that they have already attempted the approach. Usually, these are clients who have dogs who are fearful of other dogs or people. These clients in all good faith continue to explain how their attempts at desensitization have included continual exposure to as many people or dogs as possible, including forced confrontations, and also enrolling the dog at doggy day schools or puppy creches. Subsequent discussions reveal how the dog appeared either completely shut down at puppy creche or even displayed aggressive behaviors when people have forced a meet and greet. So, there is an important distinction here between what is and is notdesensitization. What my clients believe is desensitization is, in fact, flooding or the over exposure of an animal to a scary stimulus with no ability to escape. Unsurprisingly, this only exacerbates the fearful behaviors, as demonstrated in mental shutdown at doggy day school where the dog was found trembling in a corner, and severe escalation in escape/avoidance distress, as shown in the display of aggressive behaviors when the dog was on lead and forced attempts to confront the dog were made. Desensitization involves repeated and progressive exposures to the stimulus, but within the animal’scoping threshold, and this is crucial to success.

Making Desensitization Work

There are many factors involved in making desensitization a success. The process has a standard, but the way it is applied varies greatly according to each individual, their characteristics and level of arousal. I’ll run through a few of the main critical points for success. 

Threshold Distance

Moving on from an earlier point, working on an animal’s coping threshold or “threshold distance” is absolutely paramount to desensitization’s success. Sometimes this can be a little tricky to determine because clients generally err on the optimistic side and, taking the example of dog reactivity, usually wish to start a little closer to unfamiliar dogs (i.e., a closer threshold distance) than they should. I always advise starting with a much wider distance, or safer threshold zone in the example of touch desensitization (work on really comfortable “safe” areas), first. The animal must be absolutely relaxed, exhibiting no signs of arousal, excitement, fear, or anxiety, and should be ready and able to calmly take treats from your hand (if that is what you are using as a reward) or respond well and willingly to another form of reinforcement. If you have an animal who is snatching the treat quickly, take this as a sign that the animal has become “over threshold” and increase that boundary. So, teaching close observance of the animal is a crucial first step—many owners have not learned such awareness of appeasement signalling, especially early “red flag” behaviors that could signal the animal is uncomfortable with the situation. 

As behavior professionals working with very stressed animals, it is our job to research context, as well as help owners with threshold boundaries. We must look out for contexts where animals feel most calm. For example, some dogs with a fear of other dogs may be completely unable to focus in the local park due to a multitude of scents and extraneous variables (traffic, unfamiliar people, city noise, unusual visual or sound stimuli), let alone other dogs. You may need to condition a calm den or zone in the home before you actually start desensitizing an animal to touch or brush work or sound desensitization, and commonly with very stressed dogs who are worried about unfamiliar dogs, I will start them within the interior of the car (provided they like the car!) where they feel safe.

Emotional Regulation

Very often desensitization work is stressful, and it’s not unusual for clients themselves to become upset on a first meeting. Who doesn’t feel distressed when our pets are distressed? Well, this is the problem. I’ll sometimes take the animal away from the owner for a little while, just to calm and de-stress both individually because both feed off each other in a bad way and that doesn’t help the process, and then we’ll reconvene. I often stress that I want owners to try to be in a good place before each session, and much of my process is about positivity and hope—you feel good about it, and then this connects through your animal.

Dilution and Splitting

This is a hugely important concept when working with animals who are very sensitive to stimuli and maybe have had no real positive results with desensitization in the past. Essentially, you break down the problem stimulus into individual components and desensitize to each constituent part. As an example, I recently had a tricky case involving a dog with extreme vehicle fear. To gain success, the stimulus of “vehicles” was split into “cars” and “heavy vehicles,” and then “diesel” and “petrol” engines. Subsequent work involved sound desensitization to each of those vehicle and engine categories, and even a little smell desensitization to petrol on a dab stick. Over the next weeks, we worked on specific desensitization to the sound of cars on a wet road (a whoosh noise), and when we had positive results and no vocalization, desensitization involving movement ensued—walking past stationary vehicles and progressing to gradually upping the speed. As you can see, this is not quick progress; however, done correctly and crucially at the dog’s pace, desensitization should not be a process that takes months and months. You are looking for small, incremental progressions.

Support

Support is absolutely crucial because it is easy for owners to lapse or not get the timing of the reward correct or decrease the distance–threshold boundary too soon. It is absolutely important is to keep sessions short, end on a positive note each time, and try not to push the animal beyond their remit. The process can be hard work for both animal and handler as a team.

Desensitization is a tool that I employ almost every day of the week, most usually in conjunction with counterconditioning. On the face of it, desensitization is a simple tool, but often practiced incorrectly. With greater understanding and care in application, desensitization can be used to help to resolve a multitude of behaviors to the behavioral benefit of many animals.

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