techniques Archives

Stationing Behaviors: How to Teach Consent Skills (Part Two)

Rachel Lees, RVT, KPA CTP, VTS (Behavior)Consent skills, voluntary behaviors, cooperative care. Using these techniques would be a veterinary professional’s dream come true. Wouldn’t it be great if you had some hints to begin teaching these behaviors with your own patients and pets?

We want to get you started with this brief summary of how to begin to teach stationary behaviors as well as the beginning steps of teaching consent to animals. (See Part One for a full introduction to Stationary and Consent Behaviors) It’s a good idea to practice these behaviors at home with your own pets until you are comfortable and confident with the skills and techniques.

Shaping a Stationary Behavior

In part one of this blog post, it was stated that marker training and shaping techniques are the best methods to create a strong and fluent stationary behavior. When using marker training, we are allowing patients to make their own choices and learn through shaping.

Shaping is the process of “building” a behavior by successively reinforcing bits or “criteria” of the behavior that are approximations of the final behavior. The behavior is molded into the end goal by the communication the trainer gives the pet. In this situation, the communication is the marker. When the marker (tongue click, clicker, or word “click”) is audible, treats should follow. The pet learns that the last behavior performed during the marker signal earns reinforcement.

When using this technique, we must break down the behavior into achievable steps for the patient. That means having a complete picture of what the end goal behavior will look like. An example is teaching an animal to place all four feet on a mat. The moment the mat is placed on the ground, the trainer must be aware of what behaviors need to be reinforced. Listed below are steps and criteria to teach three different behaviors. Videos will accompany the criteria to demonstrate the breakdown of each step and how the learner will achieve the final goal.

Be sure you have a good understanding of the shaping plan so you can increase or decrease criteria as needed. For instance, you may need to vary criteria based on the rate at which clicking and treating occurs. Varying criteria while adding duration to behaviors is also a good idea. It gives the learner smaller points of achievement and can be gradually increased for a greater challenge. Making duration variable is more helpful than making duration progressively more difficult.

Shaping Four Paws to a Mat

The training session begins the moment the mat is placed on the ground. The trainer should observe and begin to reinforce for the following behaviors:

Click and Treat for head turning toward the mat
Click and Treat for looking in the direction of the mat
Click and Treat for looking directly at the mat
Click and Treat for weight shifting toward the mat
Click and Treat for moving in the direction of the mat
Click and Treat for placing one paw on the mat
Click and Treat for placing two paws on the mat
Click and Treat for placing three or four paws on the mat
Click and Treat for keeping all four feet on the mat for 1 to 2 seconds
Click and Treat for duration on the mat for up to 10 seconds
Click and Treat for duration on the mat for 20 to 30 seconds

Shaping Nose to Target Stick

Present the nose target a few inches from the animal’s nose and observe for any nose touching or interacting with the target stick. Reinforce the following pieces of behavior:

Click and Treat for head turning in the direction of the target stick
Click and Treat for looking in the direction of the target stick
Click and Treat for looking directly at the target stick
Click and Treat for weight shifting in the direction of the target stick
Click and Treat for moving in the direction of the target stick
Click and Treat for sniffing or interacting with the target stick
Click and Treat for consistently nose touching to the target stick
Click and Treat for holding the nose at the target stick for 1 second
Click and Treat for holding the nose at the target stick for 2-3 seconds in duration
Click and Treat for holding the nose at the target stick for 5-10 seconds in duration
Click and Treat for holding the nose at the target for 10-25 seconds in duration

Shaping Chin Rest

Begin the training session by placing a towel on the area where the animal will be resting the chin (owner’s lap, chair, stool). The trainer then observes and begins to reinforce for the following behaviors:

Click and Treat for head turning toward the towel location
Click and Treat for looking in the direction of the towel location
Click and Treat for looking directly at the towel location
Click and Treat for weight shifting toward the towel location
Click and Treat for moving and walking in the direction of the towel location
Click and Treat for sniffing or interacting with the towel location
Click and Treat for head movement over the towel location
Click and Treat for head movement down (moving head down toward the towel location)
Click and Treat for chin touching the towel location
Click and Treat for consistently chin touching to the towel location
Click and treat for holding duration of the chin touching behavior for 1 to 2 seconds (at the towel location)
Click and Treat for duration of the chin rest behavior at the towel location for 2 to 5 seconds
Click and Treat for duration of the chin rest behavior at the towel location for 5 to 10 seconds
Click and Treat for duration of the chin rest behavior at the towel location for 10 to 30 seconds

Teaching and Understanding Consent

Consent is taught by giving the patient specific criteria when they are in their stationed behavior. When the animal steps into the stationary behavior, the veterinary team member will begin the training session using forms of desensitization and classical counterconditioning for touching parts of the patient’s body. If the patient moves out of the stationary behavior in any way, shape, or form, the training session will be discontinued. When the patient makes the choice to move back into the stationary behavior, the training session can begin.

**Video Demonstration: Connor and Consent Mat**

Author’s Note: A veterinary team member should be well educated in canine and feline body language before working on these procedures. The best resource for fully training these behaviors is the text “Cooperative Veterinary Care” by Alicea Howell and Monique Feyrecilde that is published by Wiley Blackwell.

This article was reviewed/edited by board-certified veterinary behaviorist Dr. Kenneth Martin and/or veterinary technician specialist in behavior Debbie Martin, LVT.

Rachel Lees, a Level 3 Fear Free Certified Professional, is a veterinary technician specialist in behavior, a KPA certified training partner, and lead veterinary behavior technician at The Behavior Clinic in Olmsted Falls, Ohio. She loves helping people create and maintain a strong human-animal bond.

Stationing and Consent Behaviors: Useful Skills for Every Veterinary Team (Part One)

Rachel Lees, RVT, KPA CTP, VTS (Behavior)Most of us became veterinary professionals because of our fondness for animals. Our goal is to assist them in times of need and to be their voice when they are unable to articulate their desires.

Unfortunately, our patients don’t always understand that. Most of our patients are not overjoyed about their trip to the veterinary practice. Even though we are here to help them live long, healthy, happy lives, they see our clinic as the place where they may be poked, touched inappropriately, and sometimes scared, even if this is not our intention.

Wouldn’t it be fantastic if we could communicate with our patients the way we can with humans? If they had the opportunity to say “Yes” or “No” to being injected or touched before resorting to a growl, bite, or air snap? Teaching strong stationary behaviors and using them as a consent cue can be useful and can take your veterinary team to the next level.

Stationary Behaviors

These behaviors cue the animal to stand, lie down, or touch a body part to a specific location for a duration of time. They are typically taught outside the veterinary setting using marker training and shaping techniques*. Once the patient is comfortable performing the stationary behavior in a non-stressful setting, training sessions can begin to take place at the veterinary practice. The patient should enjoy training and interacting with the stationary behavior as this is the place where most veterinary husbandry behaviors will be performed in the future. The patient should associate this location with reinforcements such as high-value food and fun. Stationing behaviors include but are not limited to the following:

Body Target to Mat
- Four paws on the Mat
- Lying in Sternal Recumbency on the Mat
- Lying in Lateral Recumbency on the Mat
Nose Target to a Hand or Object
Chin Rest
Paw Target to an Object

What Is Consent?

Once the above behaviors have been taught and the patient is 100 percent responsive in the veterinary practice, the concept of consent can begin. Consent allows the patient to choose to engage in training with the owner and veterinary team members by responding to the cued behavior and allowing the procedure to be performed. If the patient does not want to interact, they will send a clear signal that they are uncomfortable and are unable to perform the stationary behavior at the given time.

The goal with consent is to give patients some control by allowing them to make choices to reduce fear, anxiety, and stress, increase comfort, and increase the animal’s ability to cooperate. It is important to fully understand the patient’s body language and to understand that not responding to the cued behavior is not the patient being “stubborn.” If the patient is reluctant to stay in the cued stationary behavior, assess the patient and yourself, and then end the training session or veterinary visit. Remember that animals use avoidance behaviors such as displacement or conflict when a situation becomes stressful. Our goal is to give the animal a choice and to respect that choice.

Examples of avoidance behaviors:

Sniffing the ground
Not responding to a well-known station behavior
Yawning
Lip licking
Slow response to a station behavior
Head turning away
Weight shifting away

Final Note

If taught correctly, stationary behaviors can be an asset to any veterinary team. Any veterinary team member who is interested in teaching these protocols should consider training the patient ahead of time to wear a basket muzzle as we are teaching voluntary veterinary care. The patient can and will still say that they are uncomfortable if they are pushed too far above their comfort level. A veterinary team member should be well educated in canine and feline body language before working on these procedures. The best resource for fully teaching these behaviors is the text “Cooperative Veterinary Care” by Alicea Howell and Monique Feyrecilde, published by Wiley Blackwell.

*Shaping will be discussed in Part Two

This article was reviewed/edited by board-certified veterinary behaviorist Dr. Kenneth Martin and/or veterinary technician specialist in behavior Debbie Martin, LVT.

Rachel Lees, a Level 3 Fear Free Certified Professional, is a veterinary technician specialist in behavior, a KPA certified training partner, and lead veterinary behavior technician at The Behavior Clinic in Olmsted Falls, Ohio. She loves helping people create and maintain a strong human-animal bond.

Party Hats! Teaching Muzzle Training to Canine Patients

Rachel Lees RVT, KPA CTP, VTS (Behavior)Muzzle training is an important skill for every dog to have. Not only can muzzle training help keep veterinary teams safe during examinations and procedures, it can also provide opportunities for person and pet long term.

As humans, we may get stressed, fearful, anxious, or concerned about a situation and lash out aggressively. For us, that situation, if not escalated, may lead to an apology or resolution. But if a dog makes this choice, it can mean a bite, lawsuits, and potentially euthanasia. As veterinary professionals, our job is to enhance the human-animal bond and keep our patients safe, happy, and healthy. Using and recommending muzzle training can help prevent a bite on your patient’s record and potentially save a dog’s life.

The bad news is that dogs wearing muzzles are viewed as scary. This stigma needs to go because we never know when a pet will be in a situation where a muzzle may be beneficial. Those situations include emergencies such as being hit by a car as well as introductions to new challenges. Muzzles keep dogs safe when in public or around unfamiliar people, animals, and situations.

Using Marker Training and Positive Reinforcement

The best way to teach a patient to enjoy wearing a muzzle is through positive reinforcement: adding something to the situation to strengthen the likelihood of a behavior. Using this technique, we can teach dogs that muzzles are treat dispensers that make fantastic things happen.

For instance, muzzle training can be taught by using a luring technique in which treats are placed into the back of the muzzle to create a positive experience. This can be helpful, but moving from one step to the other too quickly risks pushing the pet too far and putting on the muzzle before training is complete. This can create fear, stress, and anxiety. Dogs may choose to place their head inside the muzzle for the peanut butter but may not truly understand the behavior they are being reinforced for. The result is that when we begin to place the strap over their head, they may display stress, fear, and panic.

Using marker training allows dogs to make their own choices and learn through shaping. Shaping is the process of “building” a behavior by successively reinforcing bits or “criteria’ of the behavior that are approximations of the final behavior. The behavior is molded by the communication the trainer gives the pet. In this situation, the communication is the marker. When the marker (tongue click, clicker, or word “click”) is audible, treats should follow. The pet learns that the last behavior performed during the marker signal earns reinforcement.

This video demonstrates the beginning steps of muzzle training using the shaping technique as described above. This patient does not have any learning history with a muzzle.

Breaking Down the Criteria of the Muzzle

When using the shaping technique, we must be able to break down the behavior into achievable steps for the patient. In the demonstration above, if the technician had expected the pet to place his nose inside the basket on the first try, it would have set the dog up for failure and frustration as he might not have received enough communication to learn the end-goal behavior. I typically break muzzle training into three different stages with initial goals to achieve and then break down those steps further. Here are the broken-down stages and criteria for each:

**The abbreviation C/T = Click then Treat**

Stage One: Nose into the Basket with Consistency
- C/T for pet looking at the muzzle
- C/T for weight shifting toward the muzzle
- C/T for nose touching the muzzle
- C/T for nose touching the opening of the basket of the muzzle
- C/T for nose touching the inside of the basket
- C/T for nose placement ½ way into the basket of the muzzle
- C/T for nose placement into the basket of the muzzle

Video Demonstration: FF Stage One Muzzle

Stage Two: Duration and Strap Introduction
- C/T for pet holding their nose in the basket for 1 second
- C/T for pet holding their nose in the basket for 2-3 seconds
- C/T for pet holding their nose in the basket for 5 seconds
- Raise strap and C/T for any attempt at nose into the basket (with the strap raised)
- Raise strap and C/T for holding nose inside of the basket with 3-5 seconds duration (with the strap raised)

Video Demonstration

Stage Three: Strap Behavioral Therapy and Wearing the Muzzle
- C/T for moving the strap ¼ of the way behind the pet’s head (without movement or shying away)
- C/T for moving the strap 1/2 of the way behind the pet’s head (without movement or shying away)
- C/T for moving the strap 3/4 of the way behind the pet’s head (without movement or shying away)
- C/T for moving the strap all the way behind the pet’s head (without movement or shying away)

**Depending on the pet, the strap may need to be tightened to make the fit tight. Once the pet is comfortable with the strap movement at the largest setting, begin to make the strap hole smaller and smaller over time**

C/T for wearing and responding to cued behaviors

Video Demonstration: FF Stage Three Muzzle & FF FINAL Muzzle Outcome

Utilizing Technicians

It takes time, coaching, and guidance to appropriately teach muzzle training. It’s best to utilize a veterinary technician who has an interest in training. Not only can this create a connection between client, pet, and practice, it can also increase revenue through technician muzzle-training appointments and product sales. The technician can teach this behavior to pets in private appointments or coach and demonstrate the behavior so owners can work with the dog at home. Regardless, scheduling appointments to check progress is crucial to making the end goal a reality.

Final Thoughts

Muzzle training using a marker gives the patient a choice to engage at their own comfort level. This also allows us to reinforce behavior at smaller criteria increases and change the way the pet feels about each step along the way. Muzzle training can be a life-saving behavioral investment for your client. They just need to have the right support and recommendations from staff like you!

This article was reviewed/edited by board-certified veterinary behaviorist Dr. Kenneth Martin and/or veterinary technician specialist in behavior Debbie Martin, LVT.

Rachel Lees, a Level 3 Fear Free Certified Professional, is a veterinary technician specialist in behavior, a KPA certified training partner, and lead veterinary behavior technician at The Behavior Clinic in Olmsted Falls, Ohio. She loves helping people create and maintain a strong human-animal bond.

Fear Free at Home: Helping Dogs With Separation Anxiety

Rachel Lees RVT, KPA CTP, VTS (Behavior)Every year, many pets are relinquished and sometimes euthanized for a variety of behavioral concerns. Among them are separation related issues. Dogs with separation-related diagnoses make up 10 to 20 percent of the cases referred to veterinary behaviorists.

Cases range from mild–showing minor body language changes during the owner’s departure–to severe–dogs injuring themselves and destroying the home by chewing through drywall and jumping out windows. Regardless of severity, it is important to obtain a diagnosis and begin treatment to not only keep these patients safe from anxiety and self-injury and the family’s home undamaged, but also to keep intact the human-animal bond.

Beginning Treatment

Obtaining a diagnosis from a veterinarian is the first step toward treatment. The patient should be medically worked up and assessed as there may be underlying medical or anxiety-related concerns that will exacerbate this issue. After a medical workup, the veterinary medical team can assist the owner by reviewing the veterinarian’s treatment plan, including safety, prevention, management, and behavioral therapy.

Depending on the diagnosis and severity of the problem, the veterinarian may also prescribe medications to reduce patient stress and anxiety during departures. The veterinary medical team can discuss trialing medications and potential side effects on a case-by-case basis.

Eyes in the Sky: Videotaping Alone Time

With advances in technology, we have a variety of ways to watch pets who are home alone. For a potential separation-related issue, it’s vital to recommend that the client have video and camera accessibility to the pet during departures. Not only can we evaluate the pet’s distress levels during departures, but this can be an important tool for the veterinarian in determining a diagnosis. We may find that the patient is not always distressed during departures and that an outside stimulus is causing the dog to panic. The veterinarian would diagnose and treat this problem very differently.

Lonely No More: Avoiding Alone Time

For severe cases where self-injury and destruction in the home are concerns, the veterinarian may recommend avoiding leaving the pet alone. This is not a long-term fix but can help keep the pet safe during treatment and behavior modification. Owners may have a pet sitter stay at the home during work hours or use boarding facilities or daycares.

Changing the Meaning of Time Alone

Part of behavioral therapy for separation distress is to change the way the patient feels about being alone. A great way to start this process is with high-value food for the patient to enjoy during departures. A lickable item is easy to ingest and easy for a pet to focus on when distressed. Think peanut butter, cream cheese, spray cheese, cheese spread, canned pumpkin, yogurt, mashed potatoes, and canned dog food. Food-enrichment items such as food bowl mazes, Kongs, plates, bowls, and muffin tins can be used to administer these treats.

Another benefit of using food is that we can monitor the patient’s stress level. If a patient is a peanut butter Kong fanatic when the owner is home, but that same patient will not touch the peanut butter during a departure, this tells us the patient is too stressed and anxious to enjoy the food enrichment offered. Relay this information to the veterinarian so the treatment plan can be altered.

Long-Term Success

Medications can help to reduce the patient’s anxiety, but behavioral therapy is crucial to long-term success. A treatment plan should include the following:

Shaping relaxed and independent behaviors: The goal is to teach the patient that calm, cool, collected behavior brings reinforcement. Positive reinforcement and clicker training can be helpful in implementing this step.
Creating a non-stressful and consistent departure routine to reduce overall anxiety: Instruct the owner to start working on short departures with the pet showing limited signs of stress and anxiety. The home will be set up in a consistent, predictable way while food enrichment is offered. “Safety cues” (bandanas on the door, scents, etc.) can be added to communicate to the pet that the owner will be back momentarily.
Changing the meaning of current departure cues: Departure cues are common indicators that owners will be leaving the home: putting on shoes, picking up keys/purse, or putting on a jacket. Owners should perform these cues during times when departures are not taking place. With repeated exposure, the pet will not always associate these cues with departures. Positive reinforcement can also be added in with the cue to create an even more positive association.

Medications and Supplements

Combining behavior therapy with psychotropic medications and supplements can improve the prognosis for separation anxiety. Primary medications such as fluoxetine (Reconcile) and clomipramine (Clomicalm) are licensed for use for in dogs with separation anxiety.

Other as-needed, event, or triage medications can be used for the departure itself to help reduce panic and stress. Some of these medications include Trazodone, Clonidine, or benzodiazepine(s) and are off-label use. The prescribing veterinarian will select these medications on a case-by-case basis. Pheromones (Adaptil) and supplements such as Zylkene (milk casein), and Anxitane (L-theanine) may also be suggested.

Consider referring severe cases to a veterinary behaviorist to help prevent the problem from becoming worse. For more information about separation anxiety, see or refer clients to the videos on separation anxiety at FearFreeHappyHomes.com.

This article was reviewed/edited by board-certified veterinary behaviorist Dr. Kenneth Martin and/or veterinary technician specialist in behavior Debbie Martin, LVT.

Rachel Lees, a Level 3 Fear Free Certified Professional, is a veterinary technician specialist in behavior, a KPA certified training partner, and lead veterinary behavior technician at The Behavior Clinic in Olmsted Falls, Ohio. She loves helping people create and maintain a strong human-animal bond.

As Seen on TV? What to Know About Punishment

Rachel Lees RVT, KPA CTP, VTS (Behavior)

A variety of animal training programs appear on cable and streaming networks. Some of the concepts depicted in these programs are appropriate for veterinary behavior cases and some are questionable. This article is not written to insult any of these programs, trainers, or networks but instead to discuss the learning theory and training philosophies demonstrated and review why veterinary behavior professionals are using alternative protocols.

Whether you are a veterinary team member working in general practice or are interested in behavior, it is important to recommend the most Fear Free and up-to-date information for patients and clients. Giving outdated information can potentially damage the human-animal bond between client and patient, potentially ending with the patient being rehomed or in some cases euthanized.

Punishment: May the Odds Be in Your Favor

Punishment is a technique used to weaken a behavior. For a stimulus to be “punishing,” the learner must find that stimulus aversive or undesirable enough to eliminate the behavior. Punishment is difficult to use properly and does not teach the learner to perform the correct behavior. Most important, using punishment can be a liability for veterinary professionals recommending this technique because it can put the safety of the owners and pets at risk.

The American Veterinary Society of Animal Behavior’s position statement on punishment reviews the many side effects of using this training method. Using remote punishment collars as well as choke and prong collars can cause physical damage such as damage to the skin, neck, and trachea area, an increase in intraocular pressure, upper airway obstruction, and nerve damage. For punishment to be effective, it must provoke a fear response from the learner, which can unfortunately be generalized to other stimuli in the learning environment. Consequently, this can make the animal become more fearful, anxious, and stressed in these contexts and situations.

Take the owner who is walking down the street with a 7-month-old Labrador Retriever puppy. The puppy shows a loose posture, wide tail wag, and becomes excitable on seeing people, sometimes jumping. For the owner, the dog’s jumping is undesirable. The trainer suggests using a remote “shock” collar for this issue. The owner is coached to shock the puppy for any jumping when interacting with people. The handler may be specifically punishing the pet for one behavior (jumping), but the puppy may begin to be concerned when people approach him because when this occurs, he receives a shock.

In the above example, the puppy may begin to show fear, anxiety, or stress with the approach of unfamiliar people. Using punishment, there is a risk that the learner (puppy) will associate the punishment (shock) with people approaching instead of the punishment (shock) being associated with the unwanted behavior (jumping on people).

Punishment needs to occur within 0.5 seconds of the start of the undesirable behavior. Therefore, the puppy would have to be shocked the moment his shoulders start to lower in anticipation of jumping to associate the punishment with the jumping behavior. Even with perfect timing, there is still a risk that the puppy may not associate the punishment with jumping.

Punishment Fails

Punishment can work to eliminate unwanted behaviors. The challenge is that it does not eliminate the motivation or give the learner a more appropriate behavior to perform.

In another instance, an owner was coached to use a remote collar to eliminate growling and aggression toward family members. If a family member approached the dog while he was eating a coveted bone and the dog growled, the family member was to correct the dog immediately with a shock. The growling behavior may be reduced, but it does not change the anxiety and concern related to the bone. The owners have now given the dog information that the approach of the owner is associated with a shock, which can increase the pet’s anxiety, fear, and stress. Long term, the pet may suddenly display with aggression but give only limited warning signs because the signals were suppressed with the remote collar. The animal was, in effect, told not to give this information. This makes this specific patient more dangerous and could put the family at greater risk.

In the above situation, the growling behavior is not a desirable response, but to the dog it was probably completely appropriate; he communicated his anxiety regarding the owner’s approach. Using punishment made that specific pet more dangerous. Avoiding these situations and confrontations are the first step in addressing this issue. A veterinary behaviorist may recommend specific behavior modification to change the way the pet feels during this interaction.

Veterinary behaviorists recommend that animal training should focus on setting up the environment, so the pet is more likely to perform desired behaviors, reinforcing desired behaviors, removing the reinforcer for undesirable behaviors, and addressing the emotional state of the learner. The use of punishment can slow learning, suppress behavior, increase fear and fear-based aggression, create damaging and unintended associations with owners and other environmental stimuli, and damage the human-animal bond.

Even though these techniques may be seen on TV, remember that you are the veterinary professional and your clients value your opinion and recommendations. Giving them the most up-to-date information regarding behavioral training can be lifesaving. Observe training classes that you may recommend to confirm that they use recommended Fear Free techniques. For more information, see resources from AVSAB on “Finding a Trainer” as well as the “Position Statement on Use of Punishment.” The Fear Free Level 3 course for professionals provides the tools to address typical dog and cat behaviors using Fear Free methods.

This article was reviewed/edited by board-certified veterinary behaviorist Dr. Kenneth Martin and/or veterinary technician specialist in behavior Debbie Martin, LVT.

Rachel Lees, a Level 3 Fear Free Certified Professional, is a veterinary technician specialist in behavior, a KPA certified training partner, and lead veterinary behavior technician at The Behavior Clinic in Olmsted Falls, Ohio. She loves helping people create and maintain a strong human-animal bond.