What is conditioning training?

Conditioning simply means to learn by association. When a Chihuahua associates one thing with something different. Here’s an example: If a Chi has never been on a car ride before when you get out your car keys that Chihuahua would likely have no reaction at all. However, if that same Chihuahua has been on car rides and loves car rides he is likely to begin to get very excited when you get out your car keys. He associates those keys with a pleasant experience.

Conditioning often happens with no effort on our part. For instance, when your dog sees you go get his leash he might begin to get very excited because he associates that leash with a walk. Even though this conditioning can happen naturally, we can also use it as a powerful training tool.

Changing Behavior By Changing Feelings

Conditioning is not actual training as in traditional training methods. Training involves cues and teaching your Chihuahua to perform a behavior on cue, like “sit”. Or training a Chi stop an undesired behavior, such as not to bark at strangers.

Conditioning involves changing a dog’s feelings about a person, place, or thing. Using conditioning you can make a dog unconsciously react in a different way as before. It shifts your Chihuahua’s emotional reaction, perhaps from something fearful to something pleasant.

Learning Acceptance

Conditioning can be used for a myriad of things. Take as an example a Chihuahua that hates and resists having their nails trimmed. Conditioning can change your dog’s emotional reaction. By using conditioning you can change his reaction from resistance to calm acceptance.

Here’s how: first you get out the clippers place them where your dog can see them, but not too close. Give him a few treats, praise, and other enjoyable treatment. Next, you hold the clippers next to him and give him treats, praise, and other enjoyable attention. Next, you just lightly touch his nail with the clippers and lavishly do the same. Just step by step over a period of time and your Chihuahua may not get excited when he sees the clippers, but he will no longer react negatively because he now associates them with pleasant experiences.

Continue to reinforce this by always having the clippers when you begin something fun, walks, playing a game, other things that your Chihuahua enjoys.

Overcoming Fears

You can use conditioning to help your Chihuahua overcome his fears. The great thing about this is you don’t have to know why your dog is afraid (perhaps some unpleasant or scary thing in their past) all you have to know is what your dog is afraid of. Then you use conditioning to change his emotional reaction from fear to pleasant feelings.

Stopping a Chihuahua’s aggression

Chihuahuas are fear aggressive. Some dogs respond to fear by “flight” others respond with aggression. Most Chihuahuas respond to fear with aggression, but the underlying cause is the same.

I used conditioning with my little Chi, Remedy. When Remedy was 9 months old she was attacked by a mastiff. Thankfully the mastiff’s owner was able to get him off of her in time and she only had some puncture wounds that did not involve any major organs. That was a close one!

I’m not disparaging the mastiff breed, you’ll see what happened if you read Remedy’s Story. After that attack, naturally, she was deathly afraid of just about any dog, but especially bigger ones.

I’m not going to say she is completely over her fear, she has her moments still, however through conditioning I have helped to replace that fear with pleasant emotions.

Not An Over Night Cure

Conditioning training takes time. It takes patience. It takes consistency. How much time it takes depends on the behavior you are trying to change. If you are conditioning your dog to accept nail clipping it will not take as long as getting over a deeply ingrained fear.

Remedy’s accident happened when she was nine months old. She is now 4 years old and although she has come a long long way, as I said she still has her moments of fear around certain dogs. If you are not willing to put in the time that it takes it won’t work for you.

The Reward

Believe me, watching your Chihuahua overcome his fears and become a more confident and happier dog is well worth the time it takes! You and your Chihuahua can relax and enjoy things that used to be scary for your dog and difficult and heartbreaking for you.

Want to know more? I am re-launching soon (July 2020) my YouTube channel and will have videos on conditioning and how to do it. So, subscribe to my YouTube Channel today so you won’t miss any of them!

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