Teaching a Santa Monica Boxer to Stop Hating His Harness

For this Santa Monica dog training session I helped 5 year-old Boxer Zazu stop hating his harness and shared tips to helpo with his anxiety.

I had met Zazu 5 years earlier at a local coffee shop. At the time I shared some basic puppy training tips with his guardians to help with potty training and some puppy basics. Unfortunately after our chance encounter, his guardians friends recommended a board and train and sent him away.

Although there are some reputable businesses that operate dog bootcamps, in my experience, most board and train facilities utilize the old force and punishment based methods. These frequently cause dogs to become fearful, anxious and sometimes reactive. Years later, im pretty sure the experiences at this board and train facility were what caused a barking behavior in this session. More on that later.

Fortunately after Zazu’s guardians learned of the methods that were used, they discontinued them when he returned home. But since this happened when he was a young pup, it’s probably that some of the issues he has now are related.

The issue that caused Zazu’s guardians to reach out to me for help was a potential resource guarding behavior around the families young child. They also wanted to address his infrequent anxious behaviors such as his fear of the harness.

But hefore we could address the more complex behavior issues, I wanted to start off the session by going over some fundamentals.  But shortly after giving him a few treats, Zazu started demand barking at me. But it was more than a demand for a treat. There was something else being communiciated. It was hard to pinpoint at the time; it felt like a combination of a demand with an alert and warning component added in.

Zazu’s guardians mentioned that he had acted in a similar way with another trainer.

I tried ignoring the barking behavior, but when it became clear that that wasn’t going to solve the issue, I took Zazu out for a walk without his humans. He stopped every dozen paces or so to stop and look back to see if his family was coming to join us. I stopped on the midway point and sat down to see if he would start to engage with me or his environment.

He came over to sit next to me, but didnt indicate he wanted any attention. We did some people watching and I tried to give him a few treats, but he wasnt interested. He was calm but not very curious so we headed back to his home.

When I returned, I tried to shift gears and incorporate some exercises to engage Zazu. We did a refresher on marker words, went over the importance of celebrating desired behaviors, I shared some creative exercise tips like cookie in the corner, a box enrichment game, then went over how to read dog body language as well as dog cut off signals and consent.

While the exercises helped, Zazu kept going back to the demand/leave barking behavior. After having a week to reflect on the session, I believe the barking behavior is a result of his early training experiences at the board and train. Its likely that the associaiton of many treats from a new person may cause Zazu to think back to what happened to him as a young puppy.

It can be intensely confusing to a puppy who is getting treats and punishment in the same training session. Its not unusual for a dog to adopt a protective behavior like a “get away” bark when things that remind them of punishment or bad expericnes occur.

Since the barking is limited to people with treats, I think it would be best for the guardians to take him outside to introduce Zazu to people who may give him treats for a clean first experience. This doesnt mean go out and give him treats. Instead if an outside person will be giving treats to train him, they should start out by introducing Zazu to them in a non training scenario at least once before any training takes place.

Creating a positive emotional response with a trainer first, sans treats, will be a crucially important part of Zazu’s future training. Only once he has gotten to know and trust them after one or a few sessions should they move on to positive dog training activities. And obviously avoid all punishment based training methods and tools like prong or shock collars.

I also recommended the guardians check out this video by Susan Garrett. It’s a great short video that includes a lot of information on dog body language, cut off signals and calming signals. DPOgs often work hard to resolve issues and we just dont know how to read these communicartions. The better of the humans can read Zazu’s behavior, the quicker they can intercede or redirect him if needed.

I also went over a number of common mistakes that humans make that cause anxiety in dogs. Knowing what they are and being mindful to avoid them can go along ways towards reducing a dog’s stress and anxiety.

When a dog has an anxious situation or trigger, its important to identify it early, then find a way to turn that into a positive or neutral response. By addressing the root cause of the dog’s behavior, we can solve the problem for good. Not simply supress or mask the symptoms.

Tips to Help a Dog Stop Hating His Harness

One of the sources of Zazu’s anxiety was putting on his harness. Some dogs do not like things approaching their head, find gear that is constructing to be uncomfortable and often humans don’t read cut off signals very well. This combination can cause many dogs to feel anxious about the harness.

Many humans confuse a dog offering cut off signals as being defiant, but these can also be ways of communicating they dont like something or disagree. Examples include not wanting to approach a stranger, or moving away becaue he hates his harness.

Fortunately there’s an easy way to stop harness anxiety in dogs. I pulled out my camera and handed it to the guardian so that I could show them an easy way to help a dog afraid of the harness.

By gradually exposing Zazu to the sight of the harness and then marking and rewarding, I was able to help her start developing a positive emotional response with the harness. This easy dog harness training exercise only takes minutes, but can work wonders.

It’s important to establish a positive association with something before moving forward anytime you’re working with an anxious dog.

The next step is pushing a treat through the opening of the harness to entice the dog to approach it, but still stay away. As you practice this positive harness exercise eventually you extend your hand through the harness less and less until the dog is sticking its own head into the harness. This is some easy dog harness training, but it still takes practice.

Helping a dog stop hating his harness is easy to do if you practice regularily. Id love to see the guardians practicing this postive dog training trick 2-3 times a day until Zazu is putting his own harness on.

I love going over this tip for dogs afraid of the harness because of how quickly you can help the dog get over their fear and anxiety. It shouldn’t take long for Zazu’s guardian to get him to put his own head through the harness. When that happens, they will know they were able to help him stop hating his harness.

The last concern the guardians had was a single guarding incident with a toy between Zazu and their new baby. From what was described, it could have been resource guarding, but it could also have been a dog who just wanted something or to be left alone with something.

Since this was a single isolated incident, Im guessing this was just a bad setup or situation. I made sure to go over how the time a baby starts crawling can be difficult for some dogs. You have to remember, the dog is often trapped with no where to go. As dogs have a fight or flight response, making hsure Zazu has a place to go and not be approached by the baby is super important. Also scheduling some time for Zazu to hang alone or apart from the baby on the daily can help.

Usually the dog adjusts to baby movement as time passes, but obviously its important to make sure things stay safe. Another dog behavior tip for young kiddos is to get a stuffed dog toy that looks like the dog. There is a surprisingly wide selection of these stuffed teddy dogs available. Having one of these can take the pressue off Zazu and give the parents the ability to use the toy to teach appropriate interactions to a young baby.

We wrapped up this in home Santa Monica dog training session by filming a roadmap to success summary video to help the guardians remember what we covered. I also reminded them to call or text me with questions following the session. Im always there for my clients when they need support, but need them to reach out when that is the case.