As a child, I sat in a chair every morning while my mom combed out my hair. I hated how the comb pulled on my hair, and I hated sitting still for the whole thing. As an adult, I hate going to the dentist. Sitting with my mouth open while my dentist pokes around in there scraping my teeth is painful and very stressful for me.
Dogs are also stressed by the grooming procedures we subject them to. Unlike humans, dogs don’t realize that we’re doing it for their own good, and they usually don’t consent in any way to the procedures. Understandably, dogs often struggle and sometimes feel the need to defend themselves during grooming procedures like hair combing, nail trimming, and teeth brushing.
Dogs can be trained to communicate clearly whether they are comfortable or not with a procedure. “Consent behaviors” allow dogs to communicate when they are ready for the procedure to continue, and give them a way to stop the procedure without biting. Dogs can also be trained to be more comfortable with procedures so that they are willing to give consent.
In this blog post, I will explain how dogs can be trained to present consent behaviors and to accept grooming procedures. But first, I will mention a method that should never be used in these situations.
What Not to Do
Unfortunately, it is a common misconception that a dog displaying threats towards a person needs to be taught that the person is “dominant” and therefore not to be threatened or attacked. Such methods generally involve punishing the dog with threatening vocal tones and body language or even physical pain. This method is ineffective and highly dangerous.
Under no circumstances should a dog be punished in any way for displaying threats. A dog that is displaying a threat is communicating important information: that she is not comfortable with the situation and that she is willing and able to defend herself. Punishing a threat may cause the dog to escalate to biting, and it certainly won’t help her feel more comfortable with the situation.
Punishing threats may even appear to work for a time, because the dog may learn to stop exhibiting threats. But a dog punished for threats still feels the underlying emotion that triggered the threat, you just won’t see the signs anymore. This is a very dangerous state for you and your dog, because a dog that doesn’t exhibit threats anymore due to punishment is still willing to defend herself by biting. You will have lost that valuable information that the threat provided: that your dog is not comfortable with the situation and may bite if provoked further.
Consent Behavior
Most people don’t think of dogs as creatures that can give consent. After all, we can’t explain to dogs how important the procedures are and ask their permission to proceed with them. But we can show them that their behavior has consequences. In the case of a consent behavior, we show the dog that we will proceed with the procedure if they maintain a certain behavior and we will stop the procedure if they don’t.
The type of consent behavior you should choose depends on what type of grooming you’ll be doing.
For example, my dog, Bella, has long ear hair that has to be combed regularly to stave off tangles and mats. A convenient consent behavior for such a procedure is a head rest on my lap. From that position, I can easily comb out her ears. While her head is in my lap she is “giving consent,” and I can proceed with the ear combing. If she lifts her head off my lap even slightly, I stop. She doesn’t have to threaten me or, even worse, bite me to get me to stop. She simply lifts up her head, and I stop.
For nail trims, a convenient consent behavior is your dog laying on her side with her head down. From that position, you can easily reach all four paws. If your dog lifts her head up, you stop.
For teeth brushing, a muzzle target is convenient. Your dog touches the top of her muzzle to your hand, and then you can lift her lips with that hand and brush her teeth with the other. If your dog pulls her head away, you stop. I want to emphasize that your dog comes to you. In the picture, it may appear that I placed my hand on the dog’s muzzle, but in fact I held my hand out so that she could come to me.
Training a Consent Behavior
The first step in training a consent behavior is simply training the dog to perform the behavior. When I trained Bella to rest her head in my lap, I started by luring her head into my lap, marking and rewarding once she was in position. From there I did the same hand motion without a lure, so that she put her head in my lap for a hand motion. Then, I gave her more treats for holding the position. Once she was able to hold the head rest for several seconds without a treat, we were ready to start using it as a consent behavior.
In order to use the head rest as a consent behavior, I only bring the comb towards her and comb her ears when her head is resting firmly in my lap. If she lifts her head, I move the comb away from her. That way, Bella learns that she can control the situation without threats or aggression.
Counter-Conditioning
Consent behaviors make grooming procedures safe by giving dogs a tool to stop the procedure without aggression. But along with training a consent behavior, we have to train our dogs to accept the grooming procedures. Otherwise, they’ll simply communicate to us that they are not comfortable by not exhibiting the consent behavior. Training a dog to be comfortable with something they don’t like is called counter-conditioning in the world of behavioral science.
To counter-condition a dog, you must reduce the level of the disliked thing to the point that the dog can tolerate it. Then, you pair the disliked thing with something the dog loves, like really yummy treats. When I say really yummy treats, I mean something extra special like a chunk of meat. Many dogs are not overly excited by traditional training treats.
Counter-Conditioning a Grooming Procedure
In the case of counter-conditioning a dog to grooming procedures, a good first step is to introduce your dog to the grooming tool. Bring out the grooming tool so that your dog can see it, and immediately mark and reward your dog with wonderful treats. From there, progress to marking/rewarding your dog for moving towards the grooming tool, and then for touching the grooming tool with her nose. Training your dog to touch the grooming tool herself before you touch her with it is a great way to avoid the development of fear towards the grooming tool.
That being said, a tool like the Dremel is not a good candidate for this kind of training, because your dog touching her nose to a Dremel would be dangerous if it were turned on. For the Dremel, start by giving your dog treats when she sees it, and then progress to giving her treats after turning it on. Only turn on the Dremel when you can be sure your dog won’t touch it with any part of her body other than her nails.
Once you’ve introduced your dog to the grooming tool, you’re ready to begin using it along with the consent behavior to counter-condition your dog to the grooming procedure.
You can, theoretically, counter-condition your dog to a grooming procedure without a consent behavior. You could watch your dog’s natural body language carefully and only proceed when she is comfortable. However, people–even professional dog trainers like me–tend to push forward too quickly without a consent behavior as a clear cut sign that the dog is comfortable. Pushing forward too quickly will actually slow down the counter-conditioning process, so it is well worth the effort to train in a consent behavior first.
In the example of Bella’s ear hair combing, I would start by reaching towards the comb while her head is in my lap. If Bella maintained her position, I would mark and give her a treat. Once she held the position several times in a row as I reached for the comb, I would progress to grabbing the comb. I would repeat this process with each step towards combing out Bella’s ears. The next step would be to bring the comb towards her. After that, I would touch her with the comb. Then, I would begin combing her ear hair lightly. From there, I would progress to more combing until I could comb out an entire ear for one treat at the end.
If at any point during the process she lifted her head, I would stop. Then, I would go back to an earlier step and work our way back up. It is important that I not push her past what she can handle, because pushing her too far could result in progress lost.
Conclusion
Restraining your dog for grooming is not your only option. It is possible to train your dog to relax and accept grooming procedures, making the process easier and safer. Do yourself and your dog a favor, and put in the time and effort to train a consent behavior and counter-condition your dog to grooming procedures.
Possible Consent Behaviors for Grooming and Medical Procedures
Nail trimming – the dog laying down on her side with her head down
Teeth brushing – top of the dog’s muzzle touching your hand
Bathing – the dog jumping into the bath and staying there without force
Ear fur combing – the dog’s head in your lap
Fur clipping/brushing – the dog laying down on her side with her head down (for the parts that are hard to reach with the dog in this position you could use a different consent behavior such as the dog standing or sitting still)
Ear drops – the dog laying down on her side with her head down
Eye drops – the dog’s head in your lap
Citation
My coworker Heather Arata introduced me to the concept of “consent behaviors.”
This concept stems from the idea of “start button behaviors,” which was presented in the 2016 ClickerExpo by Peggy Hogan, Eva Bertelsen and Emelie Johnson Vegh.