The Truth About Socializing Reactive or Aggressive Dogs at Home Depot

As I walked through the aisles of Home Depot recently, I witnessed a dog owner 'correcting' his anxious dog. The realization struck me that so many well-intentioned folks are led astray on how to manage and address their dog's fear and aggression.

This episode peels back the layers of commonly accepted, but misguided, dog training methods that dominate online forums and the advice from many dog trainers.

With each pop of the prong collar, it's clear we need to have an urgent discussion about why these punitive measures do more harm than good - and are even dangerous when done in venues like Home Depot.

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About Scott Sheaffer
Scott Sheaffer, CCBC-KA, CDBC, CPDT-KA, is a certified dog behavior consultant who has worked with thousands of dog owners and their aggressive dogs. Scott specializes in the assessment and treatment of fear, anxiety, aggression, and phobias in dogs six months and older. For more information about Scott, see USADogBehavior.com.

Disclaimer
If you have a dog who is aggressive and dangerous to humans, it is important that you immediately consult directly with an experienced and certified canine behavior consultant who specializes in dog aggression to humans. Take proper measures to ensure that your dog is never in a position to injure anyone. The information presented in this podcast is for educational purposes only and is neither intended nor implied to replace the need for the direct involvement of an experienced and certified canine behavior consultant who specializes in dog aggression to humans. Scott Sheaffer, the Grumpy Dogs podcast and USA Dog Behavior, LLC, are not liable for any incidents or outcomes resulting from following the advice given in this podcast.

Transcript

Scott Sheaffer, CBCC-KA, CDBC, CPDT-KA: 0:00

Is it a good idea to take your anxious, reactive or aggressive dog into places like Home Depot to socialize them? Does this work? I was at Home Depot yesterday with my wife and saw someone doing this. In today's episode, I'm going to answer this question Can you help your anxious, reactive or aggressive dog by taking them into a Home Depot? Are you struggling with a dog that is anxious or aggressive? You're at the right place, because in this podcast series, we educate dog owners, veterinary practices and dog trainers on how to overcome dog fear and aggression using humane methods. My name is Scott Sheaffer and it's my mission to help you better understand your dog's behavior.

Scott Sheaffer, CBCC-KA, CDBC, CPDT-KA: 0:55

Yesterday after church, my wife and I decided that we should go to Home Depot and pick us some stuff for around the house. And nothing remarkable about that, except for on the way out, I did see something that was remarkable in relation to reactive dogs. Sitting in the middle of an aisle was a big stack of fertilizer bags, and sitting on top of that stack of bags was a nicely dressed man, probably 35 years old, holding a very short leash on what looked like was some kind of lab mix. The dog is sitting next to him, very stressed out, and I'll tell you more about that in a sec. He had this very short leash on the dog and every time the dog did anything he would pop up on this leash. And, by the way, this leash was connected to a prong collar on the dog's neck, so he was holding his hand above the dog like a foot above, so like a foot long leash. Every time the dog did anything, when somebody came near, he popped the leash up real harshly. Well, no surprise here. The dog had airplane ears, which indicate stress, whale eyes, which indicate stress, and was licking his lips. This dog was terrified. I was so concerned that as we passed by this man and his dog on the aisle, I warned my wife Barb. I said stay as far away from this dog as you can because this is not a happy dog and he's going to bite somebody. Something's going to happen because this guy is really pushing this dog's limits. As we walked by, I tried to make it obvious that I wasn't staring at him or looking at him too much and of course I didn't say anything to him because he didn't really care what I had to say, but I did know exactly what I was looking at.

Scott Sheaffer, CBCC-KA, CDBC, CPDT-KA: 2:53

I've seen this kind of scenario many times and I've heard about it even many more than that. What was going on here? Well, what was going on here was that a dog trainer on a YouTube video or in person told him to do this and what he was having this person do was to sit in the store, put a leash on the dog with lots of times it's a shot collar, but in this case it was a prawn collar and anytime this dog showed any kind of reactivity meaning lunging or barking or maybe even growling or paying too much attention to people that he was to punish this dog, to teach it not to do those behaviors anymore. Many dog trainers and YouTube videos and other sources will simply just instruct the dog owner to punish the dog anytime it acts dominant in these kinds of situations, and you have any idea how painful that is for me to hear. What does that even mean and how would someone discern that? And that's not even what the dog is doing. So that's how silly these kinds of things can get. At any rate, the purpose of this quote unquote exercise is for the dog owner to stop the reactive, fearful or aggressive behaviors of his dog. But, of course, those of you who listen to this podcast series regularly, you'll know that all he was doing was punishing the symptoms of fear and not addressing the root cause, which is fear. And those of you who listen regularly will also know that that is exactly what you want to do if you want to make the fear worse.

Scott Sheaffer, CBCC-KA, CDBC, CPDT-KA: 4:43

And I get so many of these clients that come into me after going through one of these exercises dog trainers, youtube video series, whatever and their dog is so much worse. We have a much bigger hill to climb, which is why I get kind of passionate about this. Yeah, I'm happy, I guess, to get the business, but not that way. Not that way and, like I said, the dogs can be so much worse. One thing that I want to be clear to say right now and I say this to clients who come to me after seeing dog trainers that encourage them to do things like this YouTube videos, etc. I'm not mad at the client and I'm certainly not mad at that guy at Home Depot doing that to his dog, because these people have trusted the sources that they heard. They've trusted the dog trainers that gave them this advice, they've trusted the internet sources they referred to, and if I'm mad at someone, it's those people, I guess, but certainly not the client and certainly not this guy that I saw at Home Depot. Is there ever a time to do these kinds of exercises in public? Home Depot tractor supplying Lowe's all allow people to bring their dogs into their stores, which can provide a place for exposing them to people.

Scott Sheaffer, CBCC-KA, CDBC, CPDT-KA: 5:59

Here's the point. I guess there's some point where that may not be a totally bad idea, but you know when that occurs At the end of behavior modification, not the front, at the end, because that kind of exposure is pretty intense. Think about it. You're in these aisles, so you kind of have a little bit of a pinch point there. They're being forced to come up on people, etc, etc. So maybe could you do that, maybe. But again, that would be at the end of a really good behavior modification program that uses desensitization and counter conditioning and properly, properly does that. And guess what? That's going to be weeks and probably months of work and not every dog, even if they do pretty well in behavior modification, may be able to do that.

Scott Sheaffer, CBCC-KA, CDBC, CPDT-KA: 6:59

I would really encourage you, if you have a dog like this and you're tempted to do something like this, to make sure you talk with a certified dog behavior consultant who can really assess the situation, work with your dog and, if and when that's ever possible, help you with that. But really there's nothing sacred or wonderful about Home Depot, tractor supply or Lowe's. There's just nothing sacred. We really do the real world of behavior modification outside of these stores. As we start to wrap up, I want you to think about something. Think about the person who is arachnophobic and that's the number one phobia of humans fear of humans, fear of spiders. Think about taking someone like that in a straight jacket to a spider store someplace that has thousands of spiders everywhere and physically forcing this person up close and personal to these spiders. And, by the way, every time they resisted in any way or protested they were punished. Do you honestly think they would feel better about spiders after that experience? I think we could all agree probably not Taking a dog into a store like Home Depot, tractor supply, lowe's once or twice and, frankly, scaring them to death is just not how we do behavior modification for reactive, fearful and aggressive dogs.

Scott Sheaffer, CBCC-KA, CDBC, CPDT-KA: 8:31

It just doesn't work. And you know what else to? It's dangerous. I'm going to provide a link in the episode notes today, where there's an article about a dog trainer who took her client and the client's dog into a store and the dog viciously bit someone, was put exactly in the situation we're talking about today. The dog finally panicked and bit someone. Dog reactivity, fear, aggression can be addressed, but just please stay away from Home Depot. If you'd like to contact me and leave me some comments or questions, please go to USADogBehaviorcom slash podcast, where you can leave me a voicemail message or a written message, and if you're interested in talking to me a little bit further about your dog, go to USADogBehaviorcom slash contact. Thank you for joining me today. Don't forget to subscribe and share this podcast with other dog lovers. Stay tuned for our next episode, where we'll continue our dive into the world of dog behavior.