What does flooding look like ?
It is a technique of training and learning, which aims to get the behavior of the dog extinct, to make the behavior stop, by exposing the dog in the middle of what causes the said behavior.
🐶 In concrete terms, what it looks like with Doggy :
he is afraid of dogs and is put in a dog park or on a walk with several of them around him,
bad experiences with children encourage him to keep them away from him, and he is forced to walk in a park where many are playing,
the bicycles are very stimulating negative elements to pursue and he is forced to sit down while a peloton circulates around him,
being in a river turns him hysterical and he is forced to enter it and swim,
he is terrified by the comings and goings of humans and he is forced to remain static in front of the door of a supermarket on a Saturday,
etc.
🙎♂️ In concrete terms, we also experience it as humans :
you have had a bad experience with explosions and you are forced to stay near the fireworks,
you can't stand spiders and you are forced to stay in a room with several of them,
you are afraid in the water and you are forced to immerse your body in a swimming pool,
you are afraid of thunderstorms and you are forced to observe one near a window,
etc.
In flooding as long as you or Doggy are expressing a hostile or fleeing behavior, you are left in the situation that provokes this behavior. You are only likely to be removed or distanced if you stop exhibiting this behavior.
⛔️ Why will I never use this technique ?
Its advantages :
whatever behavior you wanted to see stoppe, is likely to no longer be present,
you can impose things on your dog.
Its disadvantages :
the motivations for your dog's behavior are not addressed,
the emotions that motivated him are still present,
Doggy will consider other strategies to cope with the situation later on,
his trust in you may be affected,
his "calm" attitude likely turned out to be inhibition or emotional exhaustion,
his distress level was so high that he was unable to analyze what was around him apart from feeling in a survival mode.
If your dog experiences negative emotions about certain situations, environments, or elements, if exposed to them without his body language being observed, without his emotional state being adjusted, without regardless of how he is experiencing it, stopping the behavior is only removing the visible layer.
In K9 Voice, I prefer to make Doggy progress at his own pace, taking into account his skills and preferences, adjusting the sessions according to what he expresses, according to the strategies he chooses.
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