Protocol for Relaxation: Behavior Modification Tier 1
This protocol contains the essential, basic behavior modification program on which all more complex programs using desensitization (DS) and counter-conditioning (CC) will be built. This protocol can be used for both cats and dogs. The protocol has the following sections:
There are 15 task sheets, enough to allow you to work steadily for at least 2 weeks at the fastest recommended pace. The speed with which you complete this behavior modification program with your pet depends entirely on your pet’s response, as explained below. There is no reward for speedy completion; however, the reward for successful completion is a happy, calm, less reactive and more interactive pet.
1 Introduction
This program is the foundation program for all other behavior modification programs. You can see how this program should be done and learn about some pitfalls in the video, Humane Behavioral Care for Dogs: Problem Prevention and Treatment.
First, some advice: Please do not be afraid of the term “behavior modification.” When most people hear this term they think of some complex set of exercises that will take hours a day. Not so. Behavior modification is nothing more than a set of exercises that lead to changes in behavior. You can practice these for 2 minutes 10 times a day, 5 minutes a day, 30 minutes a day, or 20 minutes twice a day—whatever works best for you and your pet.
A cautionary note is warranted: Please do not feel that you should do this. If you feel that this program is a troublesome imposition and a burden, you will not be able to use it as a tool that empowers you and makes your relationship with your pet better. Please do not set a schedule you cannot keep, or one that makes you feel rushed or burdened. Will your pet improve more slowly if you work less often and for shorter periods of time with the program? Yes. But if you resent working with your pet, feel that you should do so, and cram a long exercise into an already overburdened schedule, you will resent the program and your pet, and you will not do it correctly. Instead, work with a realistic schedule for you and work at your pet’s pace. You will both be happier, and as your pet improves, you will be more willing to work with her.
Accordingly, you should realize that this Protocol can also be used as a preventative program for puppies and kittens. In fact, if everyone used the Protocol for Deference, the Protocol for Teaching Your Dog to Take a Deep Breath (and Use Other Biofeedback Methods as Part of Relaxation), and this Protocol as the rule structure for teaching puppies and kittens or newly adopted cats and dogs appropriate behaviors, we would likely prevent most behavioral complaints, or recognize and treat concerns earlier. The single biggest mistake that veterinarians and trainers make is to forget about the preventative use of these types of programs.
Before your read further please note that this is not your typical “behavior mod” program. This program differs from most other behavior programs in that the behavior you are rewarding is subtle, and the better you get at rewarding the subtleties, the faster your dog or cat will improve.
The purpose of this Protocol is to teach the dog or cat to sit and stay while relaxing in a variety of circumstances. It’s important that you understand that there is nothing magical about just sitting. Sitting is helpful because a sit acts as a “stop” signal understood by us, dogs, and cats, and it helps focus your pet on the task and on your signals. In dogs, sitting is a deferential behavior, and it’s the rare dog who will not sit and then look to another individual for instructions or information about what is to come next. However—and this is a huge however—dogs can sit and look at you and still be terrified or concerned. If you reward the dog or cat when he is exhibiting any behavior other than a relaxed, calm pose, you have just inadvertently also rewarded anxiety, fear, and distress. This is not what you want to do. Because of this, your pet should be able to comply with the Protocol for Deference and the Protocol for Teaching Your Dog to Take a Deep Breath (and Use Other Biofeedback Methods as Part of Relaxation) before starting this protocol. If your dog or cat cannot sit and stay, see the Protocol for Teaching Cats and Dogs to “Sit,” “Stay,” and “Come.”
2 Starting Out: Roles for Spontaneous Reward and Using the “Shaping” Technique
Before you start this program, learn what a relaxed facial and body expression in your pet looks like. Practice rewarding this expression. See the Protocol for Teaching Your Dog to Take a Deep Breath (and Use Other Biofeedback Methods as Part of Relaxation) for one approach. If you can only get the animal to look calm and relaxed for a few seconds at first, that’s fine; you can gradually expand the time they stay relaxed by rewarding the behavior every time it occurs and while it is continuing to occur.
If you cannot get the “relaxed look” at all, go for one that is less distressed and then use a technique called “shaping.” When you use shaping you continually reward behaviors that are better approximations of the behavior you want. When your pet backslides—and she will—please do not shriek at her. Instead, just ignore the anxious behaviors that are not going in the direction that you want (e.g., more relaxed). For example, if no matter what you do the dog’s eyes are popping out of his head and he’s panting, just walk away and quit. This is not an endurance test. Then, when the dog spontaneously exhibits calm behaviors, maybe even before he goes to sleep, reward those calm behaviors. Softly telling your pets that they are wonderful when they are already asleep is the least-used trick to improve their behavior, but it works! Don’t startle them, don’t pet them, just quietly commend them.
For very, very anxious dogs, before you can even start this program, you will have to spend a lot of time spontaneously rewarding the dog when he exhibits the relaxed behavior just in the context of everyday life. Only then will that dog be able to move on to having his behavior shaped in response to a request. Dogs should not be starting this Protocol until they can be and have been rewarded for a sufficient number of calm, spontaneous behaviors that they have learned are valued by you. Working consistently with the Protocol for Deference, especially when coupled with tangible rewards like food treats, will help speed this initial process.
3 Description of the Protocol for Relaxation: Tier 1:
The circumstances under which you will work with your pet in this Protocol change from very reassuring ones where you are present, to potentially more stressful ones where you are absent and acting pretty strangely. You may wish to tailor the program to your specific needs and lifestyle. Please remember that the point of the program is not to teach the dog or cat to sit; sitting (or lying down, if the dog or cat is more comfortable) is only a tool. The five main points of the program are to teach the dog or cat to:
This Protocol will act as a foundation for teaching the dog or cat context-specific appropriate behavior. The focus is to teach the dog or cat to rely on you for all the cues as to the appropriateness of his behavior so that he can learn not to react inappropriately.
4 A Note About Food Treats
This program utilizes food treats. Please read about the logic of using food treats in the Protocol for Deference. Remember, the treats are to be used as a salary or reward, not as a bribe. If you bribe a problem dog, you are sunk before you start. It is often difficult to work with a problem dog who has learned to manipulate bribes, but there are creative ways around this, some of which may involve head collars. Head collars are humane ways to prevent biting, to help the dog to focus on you, and to stop dogs from bolting away or jumping up. For more information about these, please see Protocol for Choosing Collars, Head Collars, Harnesses, and Leads.
First, find a food that your pet likes, but doesn’t get all the time. Suggestions include boiled, slivered chicken, freeze-dried liver, and tiny pieces of cheese. Boiled, shredded chicken can be frozen in small portions and defrosted as needed. Individually wrapped slices of cheese can be divided into tiny pieces suitable for behavior modification through the plastic, minimizing waste and mess. Tinned shrimp can be drained and frozen individually in a plastic container, and then you can take out and defrost only what you need. Very young kittens and puppies will like salty, yeasty dabs (e.g., Vegemite, Marmite) that can be placed on their nose or lips. Whatever you choose, the following eight guidelines apply:
That said, people have been reduced to tears because they have felt they cannot use treats to reward a dog or cat who is fat, and their veterinarian has warned them about the dangers of obesity. Obesity is not good, but by working with a veterinary nutritionist, a program that factors in food treats and minimizes weight gain can easily be created. For most pets, if they gain a little bit of weight, it’s not tragic, they can lose it when they are better. Remember that behavioral problems will kill pets faster than will obesity. Sometimes in life we have to make some tradeoffs.
5 Understanding the Reward Process
There is an art to rewarding dogs and cats with food treats. Learning to do so correctly will help the dog or cat to focus on the instructions and will keep everyone safe. To prevent the dog from lunging for the food, keep the already prepared treats in a little cup or baggie behind your back, and keep one treat in the hand that you’ll use to reward the dog. That hand can then either be kept behind your back so that the dog or cat doesn’t stare at the food, or can be moved to your eye so that you can teach the dog to look happy and make eye contact with you. The food treat must be small so that the focus of the dog’s or cat’s attention is not a slab of food, but rather your cues. A treat that is the correct size can be closed in the palm of your hand just by folding it, and will not be apparent when held between the thumb and forefingers. When presenting the dog or cat with the treat, bring the hand, with a lightly closed fist, up quickly to the dog (do not startle the dog or cat), and turn your wrist to open your hand, as you say “Good boy!”
When first starting the program, let the dog or cat smell and taste the reward so that he knows what the reward for the work will be. If your pet is too terrified to approach, you can place a small amount of the treat on the floor. Then ask the dog to “sit”; if the dog or cat sits instantly, say “Good boy!” and instantly open your hand to give the treat while saying “stay.” Two tips: (a) whisper—most troubled pets have experienced enough screaming to last a lifetime, and (b) use an “upbeat” voice with a lilt at the end—pets respond to tone and you will need to watch yours.
6 Getting the Dog’s or Cat’s Attention
If the dog or cat does not sit instantly, call his name again, and as soon as your pet looks at or attends to you, say “sit.” If you cannot get your dog or cat to look at you and pay attention, don’t keep saying “sit.” If you continue to give a request that you cannot reinforce, all you will do is teach the recipient to ignore that your request. This isn’t what you want.
If necessary, use a whistle or make an unusual sound with your lips to get your pet’s attention. As soon as the dog or cat looks at you, say “sit.” Use a cheerful voice. Some people find that they have to soften or lower their voice almost to a whisper to get the dog to pay attention to them. This is usually because, in the past, the dog or cat has had all “commands” delivered in a forceful voice, and that tone is now ignored.
If the dog or cat is looking at you but not sitting, approach and lessen the distance between the two of you, raise the treat gently to your eyes, and request “sit.” Often just moving toward a dog helps that dog to sit. Not only have you decreased the distance between you, but now to look at your eyes the dog must raise his head, a behavior often accompanied by sitting. You can use these innate dog behaviors as long as you are careful. This means:
Remember that the point of this Protocol is to teach the dog or cat to relax and look to you for the cues about the appropriateness of his behavior. The dog or cat can’t do this if she is upset.
If the dog still will not sit for your request, consider using a head collar (see Protocol for Choosing Collars, Head Collars, Harnesses, and Leads). If your dog or cat is wearing a head collar or harness you may be able to use a long-distance lead to help you request that the dog or cat “sit,” by gently getting her attention. You must be able to reward your pet with a treat as soon as sitting occurs.
Cautionary Note
If your dog is aggressive, or if you are afraid to approach him, do not do any of these exercises off-lead until the dog is perfect on-lead. Please consider working with a good, modern, educated and certified dog trainer or veterinary professional to help you fit the dog with a head collar and work with the dog only on a lead. A head collar allows you to close the dog’s mouth if the dog begins to be aggressive. This is an ideal “correction” because you have interrupted the dog’s inappropriate behavior within the first few seconds of the onset of the behavior so that the dog can learn from the experience, if they are not made fearful.
Be gentle, but be consistent. Taking your anger or fear out on the dog will only make him worse. As soon as the dog responds to the halter and calmly sits, reward the dog, and continue. Never reward a dog who is growling, lunging, barking, shaking, or urinating. These are all signs that the dog sees the situation as threatening and to continue may put his welfare at risk.
After the dog or cat sits for the first time, you are ready to begin the program. Remember the following four guidelines:
A sample behavior mod sequence might look like this:
“Bonnie—sit—(3-second pause)—sit—(3-second pause)—Bonnie, sit, look—(move closer to dog and move treat to your eye to encourage her to track the treat to your eye and “look”)—sit—good girl! (treat)—stay—good girl—stay (take a step backward while saying “stay”—then stop)—stay Bonnie—good girl—stay (return while saying “stay”—then stop)—stay Bonnie—good girl (treat)—okay (the releaser and she can get up)!”
Teaching “sit” and “look” to a dog in laboratory class. Notice that the human moved closer and lower (by kneeling) to this dog to keep the dog focused on her. The dog is about to be given a treat which is enclosed in the human’s left hand (a clicker is in the right hand).
Note that you talk non-stop to the dog or cat at the beginning of these programs. This type of talking is not allowed in obedience classes, but is desperately needed with inexperienced puppies and kittens and problem dogs and cats. These dogs and cats need all the cues that they can get. They need the constant guidance and reassurance of hearing your voice with clear instructions. These instructions and reassurances should occur in the context of shaping or gradually guiding their behavior towards more appropriate behaviors. You will have to learn to read subtle cues that your dog or cat is giving and using these to your advantage. You will find this easier to do than you believe. The one thing that you absolutely cannot do is to talk a continuous stream to the dog or cat without receiving the context-appropriate responses to your requests. If you just rush through everything you will only stress the dog or cat and teach him to ignore everything you say. This is not good. A corollary of this admonition is that it is necessary to use consistent terminology of brief phrases and to do so in an environment when no one else is carrying on long, loud, distracting conversations.
7 Avoiding Problems
Please do not push or pull on your dog or cat or tug on his collar to get him to sit. These types of behaviors can be viewed as scary or as threats by some dogs, especially, and may make them potentially dangerous. Use the methods discussed above. If you really feel that the dog will need some physical help in sitting, please use a head collar (and have someone who works with these dogs for a living present to help you).
Please do not wave your hands or the treat around in front of the dog or cat. This will just act as a distraction and confuse your pet. Part of the point of this program is to make your pet calmer and less confused. Excitable behavior on your part or unclear signals can make your dog or cat more anxious. This will not help. If you wish to add hand signal or clicker training to the skills your pet is now developing, please do so only after your pet has flawlessly mastered the program. Otherwise, you have just provided another level of complexity. It is unlikely that either you or your pet can handle all of those levels simultaneously if the reason that you are doing this is to treat a behavioral problem.
Please be calm. Your dog or cat will make mistakes. This doesn’t have to reflect on you. Problem dogs and cats and new kittens and puppies require a lot of patience. The people who have had the most success with these animals using these protocols have been the people who work the hardest and the most consistently. Finally, it is difficult, but please leave your anger behind.
Please do not let your dog or cat become a jack-in-the-box. You must control the situation so that you can give appropriate direction, and you must do so by convincing the dog or cat to defer to you. If your pet gets up to get the treat every time it is offered, you have not made the rule structure clear. We forget that so many of the behaviors that animals offer to us and other animals are offered as a way of getting information: they watch the response and learn from that. Your pets are always asking questions, and their answers are taken from your behaviors. If you reward both sitting and popup behavior, you have just taught your pet that both sitting and reactive behaviors are your desired response. This is not what you want.
If the dog or cat pops up as you approach with the treat, ask yourself if you were too far away from the dog or cat when you offered the treat. If so, move closer to your pet. Ideally, your pet should be able to get the treat just by stretching out his neck. He should not have to get up. If you have a little dog or a kitten, this may mean that you have to squat down. Be careful if the dog or cat is aggressive as your face is now close to your pet.
If you are close enough for your pet to do the exercise properly and your pet still gets up, close your hand over the treat, and softly and calmly say “No.” One advantage of holding the treat in the manner recommended above is that you can safely deny a dog or cat the treat at the last second if the dog acts inappropriately. Here, a soft and gentle “no” is a verbal marker for an incorrect response with notification that it will result in a lack of reward. Then gently ask your dog or cat to “sit” again. After your pet sits, say “stay,” wait 3 to 5 seconds, say “stay” again, and THEN immediately give the treat. The two “stays” with the time period between them will serve to reinforce the concept that getting up is not part of the pattern of behavior that is rewarded. By twice asking your dog or cat to stay you are telling him that whenever he makes a mistake he has to do two things to recover from it. A sample sequence might look like this:
“Susie—sit—(3- to 5-second pause)—sit—good girl!—stay—(start to give treat and dog gets up)—no (whispered)—(close hand over treat)—sit—stay—(3- to 5-second pause)—s-t-a-y (long, low sound; no shouting)—good girl!—s-t-a-y (long, low sound; no shouting)—(and give treat)—okay!” (dog is now allowed to get up).
Please do not tell the dog or cat that she is good if she is not. Do not reward shaking, growling, whining, or any other behavior that may be a component of the behavior on which you are trying to work. If you reward these behaviors you are only rewarding the underlying anxiety and sabotaging your own program. In fact, if you see these behaviors, your dog or cat is not ready for what you wish to teach. These are signs of stress and distress, and you need to go back to any calm interaction that can be rewarded without these signs appearing.
If the dog becomes impatient and barks at you for attention say “Ah, softly! (again, whisper) Quiet! (soft whisper, no anger)—stay—good girl—stay—good girl—(treat)—stay….” If a vocal signal is not sufficient to quiet the dog, please remember that a head collar can be pulled forward to close the mouth and abort the bark before it starts, so that your correction is appropriately timed. This technique may allow you to reward the dog for closing her mouth and for being quiet, but you have to be gentle and ensure that she is not barking because she is distressed.
Finally, if you accidentally drop a food treat and the dog or cat gets up to get it, don’t correct the dog or cat. She didn’t make a mistake. Any food that hits the ground is hers. Don’t lunge and try to retrieve the treat, especially if your pet really cares about and protects food, as you will be bitten and/or scratched. Just consider the dropped treat a free one, and then restart the Protocol at the place where you dropped the treat.
The use of behavior modification as discussed here is fully covered and demonstrated in the videotape, Humane Behavioral Care for Dogs: Problem Prevention and Treatment.
8 The Format for the Protocol
This program was designed so that your dog or cat could learn from it without becoming stressed or distressed, and without learning to ignore the tasks because they were too predictable. The Protocol intersperses long activities with short ones. You may have to adjust some of these to your particular needs.
It is preferable to reward the dog or cat only for performing each task perfectly, but if this is not possible for your dog, you can use a “shaping” procedure. When shaping a behavior you first reward the dog for any behavior that approaches that indicated in the task. The next time you do the task the behavior should be closer to that which you desire in order to be rewarded. Steps to improvement can be quite small. Don’t rush a worried pet—you will just make him worse. Done correctly, you will get your dog or cat to perform the task perfectly within a short time.
The Protocol is a foundation for later behavior modification protocols and techniques, including those involved in desensitizing and counter-conditioning your dog or cat to situations in which he reacts inappropriately, such as meeting another dog, greeting a child, entering a veterinary clinic, and getting into a car.
The numbered tasks can be used as one day’s tasks, one week’s tasks, or you can go at the dog’s speed (which may be faster or slower). Some of the exercises are weird (asking you to run in circles or talk to people who don’t exist), but can be very helpful in getting dogs to learn to relax in a variety of circumstances.
Before you can start the actual exercises you must practice with the dog or cat so that she can sit perfectly for 15 seconds without moving. Do this with food treats as described above. Once your pet can sit this way and look happy and as if they worshiped the ground you walk on, you are ready for the more challenging stuff!
Theoretically, the tasks are grouped in 15- to 20-minute units. As stated, your dog or cat may have to go more slowly, or may be able to go more quickly. Please do not treat this Protocol as a competitive race. People who push their pets too quickly create additional anxiety problems for their pets. Watch your pet’s cues. If your dog or cat really cannot perform an exercise or task, go back to one that he knows flawlessly, reward his excellent performance of that task, and stop. It’s best if every member of the family works daily with the dog or cat, but it may be less anxiety provoking and more stimulating for the dog if this is done in three or four 5-minute segments, than in one long segment. Study the graphs below.
In Figure 1, you have a static model of normal vs. various versions of reactive dogs. When working with the Protocol for Relaxation you always want to keep your dog or cat below the level at which he or she starts to react. In Figure 2, the more real-world, continuous type of reaction is represented. It is clear why it is so hard to keep worried dogs and cats below the level at which they change from watchful and worrying to becoming truly reactive: They have a very narrow window of time over which they become distressed quickly. One of the goals of the Protocol for Relaxation is to stretch this window of time so that there is more time to intervene and less time spent reacting and on the way to reacting.
Figure 1 The arrows represent the point at which the behavior changes from being more watchful to being more reactive. If you want the dog or cat to become less reactive (green areas) you cannot reward any behaviors above this point, and should avoid anything that triggers such behaviors because fear and reactivity, like calm, are reinforced with practice.
Figure 2 In a continuous model of reactivity it is clear why you wish to keep the dog or cat below the threshold for reactivity, if possible, and why this is so difficult with a reactive dog or cat. It also should be clear why it is essential to keep the dog or cat below the level—the inflection point—at which the behavior changes from watchful to reactive.
If everyone in the family cannot or will not work with the dog or cat, the people who are not participating must not sabotage the program. They minimally must comply with the Protocol for Deference. If family members cannot or will not do this, they should not be interacting with the dog or cat. If there is non-cooperation in the household, the dog or cat will not get as well as he can get. If that non-cooperation is deliberate, please consider family counseling. Often, pets are either responding to or further victimized by extant inter-personal problems in the household.
Please remember that the keys to success are consistency and appropriate rewards. This means that, although it may be more helpful to work 15 to 20 minutes 1 to 2 times per day, you should work for only as long as both you and the dog are enjoying and benefiting from the program. If this means that you use six 5-minute intervals to get through three or four of the tasks, this is fine. Please do not end on a bad note. If the dog’s behavior is deteriorating or his attention is dissipating, go back to one final, fun, easy exercise and stop. By pushing the dog or cat past his limits you will induce anxiety and your pet will backslide.
Once your pet is able to perform all of the tasks and exercises both on- and off-lead in one location (the living room), repeat them all in other rooms and circumstances (the backyard or the park—use a lead here).
Please make a list of all the things to which your pet reacts that distress you and that you and your vet think are problematic. Then, incorporate these into your own, customized behavior mod program.
When the dog or cat is just terrific for all the tasks listed in all places with all household members, add your specific concerns using the slow and broken-down approach recommended in this program. Then, when your pet has succeeded in these situations, you are ready for Tier 2 of the protocols, which focuses on your dog’s or cat’s specific problems.
If at any point you cannot get past one task, try breaking that task into two or three component parts. If this still doesn’t help, call the veterinarian who recommended the program and who is working with the dog’s behavior problems. The veterinarian will be able to help you discover where the problem lies. You can also video your work session with your pet. Chances are that you’ll see exactly what the problem is and how to fix it. Please do not just continue, accepting sub-optimal responses. The goal is to get your dog or cat better.
If you are not sure that your dog is improving, measure the outcomes. There are numerous ways to do this and they are not equally easy for all people.
Note the pattern here: In these types of measures you need a better success rate to advance over a short period of time than you do if you are going to advance more slowly over a period of days. These types of measures are common validity tools, and are most useful when the dog is learning something that has a clear end point.
Regardless of how you decide to measure your and your dog’s progress, you should advance to the next steps only when there is true progress and when your dog has learned something helpful. If you are having trouble, get help from your vet and people who do this for a living.
Finally, please remember that your dog or cat will give you lots of cues about how they are feeling. This program differs from other behavior modification programs because of the emphasis on these signals. We are rewarding the physical changes associated with relaxation and happiness and so will also reward the underlying physiological states associated with this (parasympathetic part of the autonomic nervous system). This means that if the dog is relaxed—his body is not stiff; his jaws hang relaxed and are not tense; his ears are alert or cocked, but not rigid; his head is held gently at an angle; and his eyes are calm and adoring—you will be rewarding the nervous system responses that help your dog to learn. If you mistakenly reward fear, tension, aggression, or avoidance, you will not make as much progress. If it is easier for you and the dog or cat to be relaxed if the dog or cat is lying down, do that.
Good luck, and don’t get discouraged. Many pets go through a period of a few days to a few weeks where they get worse before they get better. This is because they have a new rule structure to follow and they are trying to learn all the rules, while at the same time clinging to the rule structure that has worked for them in the past. As they discover they are rewarded for being relaxed and happy, their behavior will improve. These programs are harder on the people, in many ways, than they are on the dogs or cats. Stick with it!
9 The Protocol Task Sheets
These task sheets are meant to give you guidance, only. They are designed to take the approach of very, very, very gradual changes. Such tiny steps allow you to reward aspects of the behaviors that are good, without accidentally rewarding behaviors that are not so good. Built into these programs are the concepts of desensitization, where you stimulate the animal to a response but at a level below which they become distressed, and counter-conditioning, where you reward behaviors that are in direct opposition or contrast to those that are undesirable. If you open any applied text or article on learning, you will see similar programs. There is nothing magic or novel or original here. These tasks are those that are common to most dog and cat training and behavior modification programs, and you will see similar task sheets in a variety of training books. Please remember that what is different here is that you are rewarding the physical signals that underlie your pet’s behavioral state. You are rewarding only relaxed, compliant behaviors. The tasks, themselves, involve only common situations in which pets may respond inappropriately or undesirably. Some of these situations may not be relevant to you, and others that are relevant may be missing. Please feel free to customize or alter this program, but do so using the pattern of approach used here (e.g., gradually work up to the task, frequent returns to something easier, always ending on a good note, et cetera).
The task is listed on the left. To the right is a space for you to make comments about how easy or hard the task was for the dog, how many times it had to be repeated, or other questionable behaviors that appeared during the task. You should discuss these with your veterinarian at your re-exam appointment.
Remember, after each task you are to verbally praise the dog or cat and reward him with a treat for perfect performance prior to going on to the next task. Each set of exercises is designed for a day or a block of time, and have warm-up and cool-down periods just like physical exercises.
At the first signs of any anxiety (e.g., lips retracted, pupils dilated, head lowered, ears pulled down and back, trembling, scanning, lip licking, avoidance of eye contact, hissing, growling, et cetera), move back to an exercise with which the dog or cat is more comfortable, or break down the exercise that produced these behaviors into smaller steps.
Antianxiety medications may help some dogs who otherwise are not able to succeed in this program. Please remember that if it’s decided that medication could benefit your dog, you need to use it in addition to the behavior modification, not instead of it.