Counter Conditioning & Safety

"[Counter Conditioning] can, however, be an extremely slow and ineffective process if the dog doesn’t feel safe."    Suzanne Clothier

Because the Cairn Terrier is genetically inclined to be aware of and react to any change in their environment or routine, we are all familiar with the need to desensitize our Cairns to certain things in our efforts to eliminate unwanted behavior.  This takes a lot of consistent effort on our parts, especially when the dog is reacting to a fear of something.  It is important to understand the need to make the dog feel safe and before we can help the dog work through his fears.  This brief video is part of a lecture by Suzanne Clothier about Counter Conditioning and Safety.  She illustrates how positive training methods work very well when a dog feels safe, but not otherwise.  The single most important thing a fearful dog needs is to feel safe, and it is incumbent on us to understand what that means from the dog’s perspective.

"Copyright © 2013 by Suzanne Clothier. Used by permission of Suzanne Clothier. All rights reserved. For more information about Suzanne please visit SuzanneClothier.com"

Understanding Arousal, Anxiety, and Fear:
http://cairnrescue.blogspot.com/2015/08/understanding-arousal-anxiety-and-fear.html

Relationship Centered Dog Training Tips by Suzanne Clothier:

http://cairnrescue.blogspot.com/2014/06/relationship-centered-dog-training.html

Read More Training Tips from Suzanne Clothier:

http://suzanneclothier.com/articles