I haven’t always been a dog trainer, and there are a lot of things I used to believe, and things I was taught, that I now know were incorrect. One of the more persistent myths I have heard over the years is that you can reinforce fear with food. I even used to believe it myself many years ago. It turns out I was mythtaken.

It is possible to reinforce fear-based behaviors, like barking. If you treat the dog every time they bark fearfully, the dog may decide barking is a good way to get treats.

But barking for a treat and barking due to fear are different. They sound different and the dog’s body language will be different. A demand bark obviously isn’t something we want our dogs to get in the habit of doing, but it’s not as serious as a fear-aggressive bark and is often easier to address. For more information on barking generally and how to deal with it, please check out this article from the Karen Pryor Academy: https://www.clickertraining.com/node/5029

When your dog is frightened, they may engage in undesirable behaviours, like barking, lunging, pulling on the leash, etc. You may be able to suppress the undesirable behavior with punishment, but that will not help the dog’s emotional state at all and will likely make it even worse.

What you need to do is change the dog’s emotional state. If am in a bad mood, there are a few things that can change my emotional state. One of those things is tacos. I don’t think I have ever been in a bad mood while eating tacos. If I am having a really bad day, tacos may not completely turn it around, but I will be a little less distressed while eating them.

There is NO possible scenario where offering me a taco will cause me to be more fearful unless you only offer me a taco to lure me into the doctor’s office for a grueling physical therapy treatment. In that scenario, the taco is not the source of fear, the pain that you’re subjected to is the source of the fear, the food lure just predicted it. Luring people or dogs into scary situations isn’t a great idea. It will work sometimes, but if they figure out that the lure is there to trick them into doing something they don’t want to do, they’ll learn not to trust you. But if you offer me a taco after an unpleasant exam or treatment, that will almost always help. If I am in too much pain to appreciate tacos, or too stressed to eat anything, a taco might not do much good. But in most situations, tacos reliably improve my emotional state. If I am in a good mood, tacos will be an additional source of joy. If I am in a bad mood, tacos will perk me up a little bit.

There is no unpleasant emotional state that I experience that can be made worse by giving me tacos. There is no unpleasant emotional state that your dog can experience that will be made worse by giving them something they love as much as I love tacos. There may be times when tacos or your dog’s taco-equivalent treat isn’t enough to change their emotional state. There may be times when luring them into a scary situation causes them to lose trust in you. But we use food to comfort ourselves all the time, that’s why we have the expression “Comfort food.” We can use food to comfort our dogs as well, and we should.

The process we use as trainers to condition a happier emotional response is called Counter Conditioning and Desensitization, and it is the safest, most reliable way to change a dog’s emotional response. If you need help teaching your dog to be less fearful of other dogs, people, or anything else, a professional trainer can help you use food and other rewarding things like toys and play to gradually condition a happier response, while avoiding the problems luring can sometimes create.

The next time you’re having a bad day and you try to cheer yourself up with some delicious tacos, remember that your dog likes comfort food too!


Until next time –
Daniel