How to Help Your Dog Overcome Fears

Video Transcript

"Hi this is Ronny William with Expert Village. I am going to be talking about a dog that has any kind of fear. Take this dog for instance. I had this dog for about a month and realized he had an extreme fear of people. If you yelled at him or raised your voice, he would pee on himself. We have been able to get over that by giving him some confidence. Basically, a dog that is scared and tucking his tail between his legs or anything like that has low self esteem. We have to do things which will increase self esteem. With this dog, we began, by exposing him to people and dogs. We would take him to the dog park. We would take him on walks with other dogs. We would have parties at the house and as importantly, would take him to parties at friends houses and allow him to interact with tons of people. When we first started, he would be crouched on the floor with the tail between the legs, scared for his life. A month later, he would walk into a house confident, with his tail where it should be and just have fun playing and being social like a normal dog should. Another thing that we did at the dog parks, where they have hills, tunnels and things like that, was create a challenge for him by allowing him to run up on a hill or go through a tunnel where he didn't exactly know where it was leading. When he accomplishes those things, it seems simple to us, but for him it's a big step in building his confidence. The main thing would be, whatever he's afraid of, make him face that."