Fear and Halloween Ep3

You're listening to creating great grooming dogs I'm Chrissy Neumyer Smith I'm a certified professional groomer certified Behavior consultant for canines and certified professional dog trainer and this my friends and colleagues is the podcast we're grooming and training meat

in the spirit of Halloween this segment is all about fear you know many of the behavior problems that we see on the table in The Grooming Room and the vet's office those are fear-based and the dogs are are uncomfortable with something that we're doing and it may not be that they're terrified but certainly they're they're worried they're anxious they're stressed out and those are all things that when a dog is afraid their body starts to have a chemical response now I'm not pretending to be a vet and I'm not going to get into medical details but I think that we're all familiar with terms like an adrenaline rush or the fight ORF flight response or a visceral reaction the dog doesn't choose the way their body reacts when they're afraid that part just happens and it's very individual just like with us you know some people are easily startled and some people are not easily startled some people can calm down faster than others can

so one of the things that I focus on when we're working with dogs is to help keep them calm because I want to avoid that physical response if we keep them calm we're avoiding fear we're helping them be um relaxed for what what we're doing we're helping them remain focused on us we're helping them learn because certainly when you're when you're afraid when you're having that that chemical reaction it's harder to learn it's all about getting away or fighting back right um so one of the things that many people don't think about is that that that physical chemical response can last for hours or even days it doesn't just go away when the scary thing stops it doesn't just end it's very hard to to to end that kind of chemical response some individuals are good at that some are not um

when your dog struggles with something like nail trimming their body starts to react even if nothing hurts fear isn't necessarily because something hurt or because it ever hurt it could just be um the way they're being held it could be just worrying about is that going to hurt but that fear can last for hours or even days even if what we're doing was over in a few minutes even if it only took a second even if it involved treats even if it involved balls and play and people that they trust fear is an interesting thing because it is not just what's going on in their head at that moment it's also what's going on in their body what their body has sparked to do when they become afraid and animals that are normally very nice with people can act very out of character when their body is having a chemical reaction to fear um

you don't become aggressive with things that you're comfortable with if a dog is comfortable with having somebody look in their ears they aren't aggressive about it and so that's what I mean by many of the aggressive problems that we see are also fear related we want dogs to be comfortable with it we want them to choose to be able to be cooperative with us and that doesn't mean that they have to walk over and you know put the stethoscope up against their own chest but they have to be able to allow us to touch them in a variety of ways and feel comfortable with the things that we need to do and that's why avoiding fear is going to be our long-term goal

now that we've talked a little bit about fear in the dogs I want to give you some human examples I think that when we relate to being afraid it'll help us look at the dog that we're handling right now and have a better understanding of how to calm them down how to help them through it and also to feel a little bit more compassion for the fact that you know they're afraid so here are some examples from a haunted house I used to work in a haunted house and I really enjoyed it we're going to have some fun here cuz um man I love scaring people so for as much as I'm really good at calming people down and calming dogs down and keeping everything calm it's really fun to get somebody scared

so here's an example of somebody who wanted to be there was having a good time at a haunted house but her startle response was so dramatic and she got so scared that she acted completely out of character um she was she was in there walking with her grandkids and I scared her bad enough that she turned around and took a swing at me that I actually had to block and duck I mean she was she was serious she was ready to kill the monster and she was instantly instantly so entirely embarrassed by the fact that she had done this and obviously it was out of character and I laughed and I I you know kind of whispered to her that the kids didn't see it because of course that was part of her concern like oh my God I'm here in a haunted house to get scared with the kids and I just tried to punch somebody and what did the kids see the kids didn't see it and I calmed her down again and I asked if she wanted to you know be escorted out of the house or if she wanted to continue and she calmed down enough she was able to continue

that type of dramatic instant response I think is kind of what we see when we suddenly turn on a loud noise and the dog just jumps out of their skin you know Tech talk jumps out of their skin um that they're instantly like whoa what was that right and that's a type of fear and think about the woman tried to punch me was really shaken by it even though everything was fine you know and I jumped right in with oh it's okay sorry you know don't you didn't hurt me and the kids are all right you know they didn't even see it relax you know you can't just say oh that was silly and relax so as an example of what happens with our dogs too when you suddenly turn on a something or they suddenly realize that the thing up against their skin vibrates right um the the corner of a Clipper could be a really strange feeling that is really scary even though we tend to not think of those things as scary they are

so another example from the haunted house is building fear man I wanted to build some fear another year I was I was acting um up in the as a patron I was acting up in the parking lot and just telling people oh my friend's chickened out can I go in with you so they think I'm one of them and I'm getting them all keyed up and I'm all antsy and I'm all worried and I notice every little thing that happens because I'm part of the cast and we get in like two rooms into this big huge haunted house and I've got them already worked up cuz they're with someone who's really really paranoid and then a friend jumps out grabs me I get pulled away screaming and then the screaming stops get pulled behind a curtain and people are left shaking oh wow I thought they weren't allowed to touch us was she really with us and from what I understand is that cuz I talked to a bunch of them when they'd come out the other side that they were so so scared the rest of the haunted house like it primed to the pump it got them all worked up so that was a lot of fun but I want you to relate to that feeling of all worked up okay now something scared you and now you had to walk through the rest of the haunted house and you know anything could happen they've already shown Anything could happen

so when we're building fear like that um I think that there are some examples in The Grooming Room and examples at the vet's office that a dog starts getting a little bit wor worried and starts getting a little bit worried and we just keep at it and keep at it and keep at it right that if they don't get a chance to calm down in between they start getting a little bit more worried and more worried and then it starts getting becoming really afraid and I want you to think about times when we're afraid and the way that re the animals react to us so if we're already worried that we could get hurt while we're working with this animal you're going to start showing a couple of signs of being afraid too which just gets everything worked up even more much like me guiding these patrons through you know through the yard and through a couple of rooms and jumping at everything there was someone jumpy and they became jumpy

so for us to also be calm during during sessions and during working with these dogs even if it's at the vet's office or at the Grimmer or at home you know I'm not going to downplay things that happen at home if we're really really calm about putting an eye ointment at home our dogs are also going to be able to be calmer with us um so sometimes we are actively making things harder

and then we've got another example from the haunted house there's uh there are times where someone thinks everything is calm and we can startle them and and suddenly we're sparking some new fear like they thought everything was great everything was going well um so we had this uh Spider room one year it big giant spider and a whole bunch of like cocoons with with mannequin pieces wrapped up and everyone would come in and go oh well this room doesn't look very scary until I called out whispered out help me while I sprayed Silly String across the room which if if you're in a dark area Silly String does look like a a spider just threw webs at you and people would duck for cover they'd jump they'd grab each other and scream and a second ago they thought that room looked safe because I startled them I got them so quickly it was something so sudden that they freaked right out

now I want you to think about times when we're on the grooming table and everything's going great but we think I'm going to just do it quick before he realizes what's going on right um maybe it's just a oh good well I'm scissoring his Pawn he's really really good for that so I'm just going to while he's not paying attention I'm going to grab the nail trimmers and crunch right and we have this crazy response because it's an awful lot like people ducking for cover when they see the Silly String and hear someone whisper um which really is low TCH scare it was a lot of fun but with our dogs

now that we've talked a little bit about fear in the haunted houses and some human reactions I also want to talk about how do we help ourselves calm down when we are afraid so imagine um those same people at the haunted house if somebody does need to be escorted out the kind of things that we do are to like all right well let's calm down and I'm going to have somebody in regular Street cloth just walk through with you and you know a flashlight and calm everybody's calm like hey guys we're just escorting people out which would happen once in a while with some of the younger kids sometimes a young kid would just get really really scared and um the haunted house that I was in was in a castle Museum so it was um already an interesting place

so um you think about calming somebody down and some of that takes all right let's back off from all of the scary let's get you away from the thing that you thought was scary another example is um I want you to think about the kind of things that we would do to help a child through a scary part of a movie and that's the kind of mindset I want you to be in if you're working with an animal who is has been known to be afraid of things is to be thinking about how do I help somebody through something that they already think is going to be a little bit scary

so I'm going to use example I think most people have seen The Wizard of Oz or at least most Americans have seen The Wizard of Oz um so thinking back to that when you were a little kid the flying monkeys ripping apart the Scarecrow was pretty scary and so before that came on my parents would kind of be like okay here come the flying monkeys but remember it's just a movie so everything's okay and the Scarecrow is going to be fine so I hope I'm not giving away the movie sorry but uh if if you think about the kind of things that you would do about all right you tell them ahead of time you help them remain calm through it and you're there to support and help them calm down if they did become afraid and those are the kind of things that we would do with a child who is afraid of a movie

so we had the flying monkeys ripping apart the Scarecrow um we also had when the trees started getting angry that she picked an apple off of them how would you like if somebody picked something off of you little girl you know and but again if you know ahead of time so in a grooming context we know ahead of time and I want you to start telling dogs like okay loud noise before you turn something on I actually work on loud noise pretty often loud noise in fact I don't think I could turn on a blender in the empty house by myself without my dogs around without saying loud noise before I turned it on it's just such a habit now if before I turn something on I say loud noise but it helps them understand it's almost like saying okay this is the scene with the scary part right cuz if you know the scary part's coming you're not nearly as scared and walk walking our dogs through the scary movie walking the dogs through the haunted house and be thinking about I want to help you stay calm so that you can still have fun with things that we're doing

and it may feel like it's so much more work but it's because we're taking a different route it's BEC it's almost like um instead of taking the highway you're taking some back roads that are a shortcut until you know the back roads that probably doesn't feel like a shortcut cuz highway driving is pretty basic and it seems very very straightforward and your brain doesn't have to respond as much but when you get to know that shortcut you're like yeah that does save me 10 minutes um in our case that shortcut or that other roote is going to save us a whole bunch of Heartache so it's sort of like skipping the um the flooding and the construction site and the traffic and by going back roads and actually getting to where you want to be and be happier and more relaxed when you get there

so a lot of things going on on this episode with our Halloween podcast but fear is such an important thing um to talk about and I want to mention I realize we haven't really talked about training yet because I feel that this part is so important um in training terms we call this you know managing the environment this is all parts of managing the environment understanding the things that they're afraid of understanding how to keep them calm why we keep them calm understanding how to talk to owners about why this is all necessary to add to this culture of we are going to teach the dogs to be safe and so the management part is really important um and by management I mean we're preventing the problem from cropping up and that's a big portion of training because if we just push then we're always reacting we're always just you know putting out fires we're always just trying to respond to times when a dog got overwhelmed and that's not the best use of our time so the management stuff is is talking to owners making sure they're on board making sure the dogs are calm helping them be calm figuring out what they're actually afraid of again our subjective and objective seeing what the story is and what we observe and helping them through these things so that we can also teach them

so don't worry training is on the way too but right now all of these things are so important to training they're the precursors to training where we're kind of building the schoolhouse

all right we are going to have fun with this and next week we're going to talk about more for any of you out there who are looking for some some one-on-one help we have these wonderful devices in our pockets these phones that we can do live video with each other I can definitely definitely set up a lesson with you with the dog that you're having trouble with right there on your table and be able to guide you through some of this stuff um definitely reach out and let me know I'm at Chrissy happy critters.com dogs um Facebook group and we can definitely set up times to work on these things together because you might be surprised how much I can do for you um live where we're actually looking at each other being able to observe what you're seeing helping guide you or even showing you on a dog over here on this end of video so there are ways for us to help each other there are ways to learn this from a distance.