When dogs scared of something that may haunt their behavior when they get into that same situation come. They may then be anxious or stressed out, with disastrous consequences. It may even happen that dogs are anxious in situations just like the situation they are initially shocked. An example (but there are countless other examples in mind) is a dog bitten by a black Labrador and then scared all black or all dogs big dogs or maybe even all dogs. All this depends on the degree of fear, how often an unpleasant experience is gained, the age at which this experience occurs, etc.

Several problems result from that conduct, such as flight behavior (beyond the control of the owner to) or aggression to other dogs. The fear response generated by these stimuli (the black dog) is actually largely created by conditioning. The dog has these stimuli associated with stressful, anxiety inducing event.

For problems which will arise again to overcome initial fears that the dog has for a given situation should be reduced or eliminated. In many cases, optical density (extinction) training to the designated mannier the dog of this fear in order to help then to a satisfactory behavior in given situations can be worked.

Extinction training is providing the stimulus where the dog is afraid of no one here, then follow up is annoying. The dog is learning something new, namely: the stimulus predicts that nothing unpleasant will happen (as opposed to what he had learned so far). It is not that the dog forgets what he has previously learned, but there is a new learning place, where the dog learns that the stimulus yields nothing more unpleasant. This is very different from forgotten. How this parcel now? In the example, you (away) many black dogs along the frightened dog can run without the startled dog is really scared. If this happens enough times (and the distance to the black dogs only slowly) then the response to black dogs are less violent and less and less fear. But it does have a number of hooks and eyes. One is when you start with the extinction training.

Should you as soon as possible after the stressful event or do not? In one study in rats showed that extinction immediately after the stressful event is not very effective. Much better to wait 24 hours before beginning the extinction training. After further investigation revealed that it was not the time who played an important role but also the degree of stress at the time of extinction training. When animals were stressed out just before the extinction training was much less than effective. Extinction training works better when it is animal is not stressed out. The success of an extinction training is therefore heavily dependent on the preparation for the dog to get relaxed. When it fails or very slow progress of the training is therefore advisable to take a good look at the amount of excitement that the training or the environment generates.