Using Shaping & Targeting to Overcome Fear in Dogs

Choose carefully the reinforcer you use in each environment. Too low and the dog may not be interested. Too high and the dog may get over excited about the object and there is also a risk that she may be willing to go beyond her threshold to get the food and/or loose trust in the reinforcer. We are ultimately aiming for a neutral to slightly interested response to the object because movement will be later added which will add excitement. In this video, I use cheese squares with Jessie. In the second video outdoors, I use beef heart fat squares as the environment is more distracting.

Tips:
start with shaping dog to voluntarily interact with object
then wait for dog to offer paw targeting
then add cue for paw target
then change the position of the object
start movement by pulling object away from the dog
then move object parallel to dog
then towards the dog in small increments, but only if she is comfortable
second video shows how to incrementally add sound of the object