It’s Okay to Be a Little (or a Lot) Scared

Ok, I’m just going to come right out and ask. Do you identify with any, some, most, or all of these statements:
Your pet is exhibiting behavior that is impacting their and your quality of life.
You’ve started to work with a behavior professional and they have discussed the strategies that will help you work toward your goals.

You’re excited and ready to get started!

You start the plan.

At some point you become terrified and have the following thoughts:

• What if I get it wrong?
• What if my mistakes have a big impact and I set my pet and myself up for failure or a setback?
• What if I accidentally trigger the behavior I am working on?
• What if the consequences of the choices I make are irrevocable?
• What if…
• What if…
• What if…something bad happens?

Thought spirals are enough to make anyone feel undone but they are especially impactful for those of us who are a tiny bit scaredy cat in a world that spends billions of dollars a year to tell us we should “just do it.”

It is normal, common and pretty typical to have some built in reservations about life’s risk. Evolution has made sure that we are hard wired to, you know, stay alive, and assessing risk is an instrumental part of that. It can be a precarious dance between what is reasonable risk or tolerable risk vs. a hard ”no, that’s just too scary right now.” Jumping out of an airplane, I’m talking to you.
My goal for this blog post is for you to be able to assess and navigate risk while still supporting your pet’s progress and taking care of your own emotional well being too.

What Is Risk, Really?

In the simplest of terms, risk is the possibility of something bad happening. With risk comes uncertainty, and living with uncertainty can make any living creature hella uncomfortable both physically and emotionally.

We all do risk assessments, probably multiple times a day, even when we are unaware. Do you ever cross the street? Drive a car? Go swimming with no lifeguards on duty? Eat food that might be just a wee bit past its prime? These are just a few examples of risks we assess on any given day without even realizing that we are doing it. Let’s be honest, some risks just don’t carry the same weight or we are so used to performing certain tasks without anything bad happening, that we hardly give it any thought at all. Our learning history has steered us to a point of feeling safe enough most of the time that we continue to live our lives, which is a very good thing indeed.

When it comes to the skill of behavior modification, there are several factors that can make us feel unsure or unsafe. There is, of course, the real possibility of actual physical harm coming to us, our loved ones, our pets or even the public at large. There is also the emotional toll or the level of stress we can feel if we are concerned about getting something “wrong.” And wouldn’t it be so much easier if we only had to navigate “real” risks as opposed to the risks we imagine in our heads? Because whether a risk is real or perceived the outcome is likely the same: fear and anxiety for the individual experiencing it. If you would like to listen to a great podcast episode that goes into greater detail, give this one a go: Assessing Risk for the Safety Enrichment Category.

Why Your Fear Makes Sense

To be human is to experience some level of fear and/or anxiety. Fear is an adaptive feature of being and staying alive. It keeps us moving when we need to move away from danger. You are not weak because you are afraid. Your body was designed to notice stimuli, make a lightning fast assessment of it and then respond accordingly. This is what living creatures do multiple times per day.

But just because it is a normal feature of humaning doesn’t mean that it can’t get in our way sometimes or make us feel stuck. The hard wiring feature of making quick risk assessments can convince us that there is a bad thing lurking around the corner even if there is not. I am not going to go into all the reasons why that is, but I am going to assume that if you are still reading, you identify with some of these points.

When it comes to modifying behavior, it honestly makes sense that your fear overrides your training plan sometimes. It’s much more common than you might think. Reasonable fears include:

• Being bitten by your pet
• Your pet hurting someone else
  Your pets getting into an altercation and hurting each other
• Being judged by others as you work through the behavior modification process
• Making a mistake and setting yourself, your pet, or the plan up for a regression in behavior

Part of tackling the behavior modification journey includes being able to identify if your fears are reasonable, communicating your fears to your behavior professional, and helping them troubleshoot how to navigate and mitigate those fears.

How to Assess Risk—For Real

There is risk and then there is RISK, you know? Some risks are gut feelings or imagined and some carry significantly more weight or have evidence to back them up. Here are some quick ideas for assessing the difference between risk, RISK, or something that we conjured up by way of the amygdala hijack:

• Do you recognize within yourself a learning history or past experiences that makes risk taking more scary for you than it might be for other people? Thoughts aren’t facts and we need to be able to differentiate between the two.
• Is the fear or worry something that is a gut feeling or is there evidence or data to back it up? Evidence or data might include:
  • An actual bite history or history of injury to people and other animals
  • Patterns of behavior that happen or have happened with enough frequency to make you certain that the behavior will likely be repeated
  • Identifying and understanding your pet’s body language and thresholds and knowing what their stressors or triggers are. Multiple stressors will inherently increase the level of risk.

The next step is to do a risk assessment for yourself which can include the following strategies:

• Identifying the potential risks
• Analyzing the likelihood of them happening
• Analyzing the impact they will likely have if they do happen
• Planning for eventual scenarios so that you can be prepared with an appropriate action
• Taking calculated risks that have a low potential for anything bad to happen

Any behavior professional worth their weight in gold knows how to help clients feel empowered to make decisions that work for them and their pets. This includes navigating your current level of risk tolerance. It is extremely important to let your behavior consultant know that you are nervous about navigating the waters of behavior change so that they can help you steer the ship until you are ready to take the helm.

A good consultant will:

• Go at the pace at which you’re comfortable and not force you to do something you aren’t ready for yet.
• Know how to break skills into smaller steps to build up your confidence
  Give you a clear outline about whether you should push, drop, or stick based on how you are feeling and how your pet is responding and feeling.
• Be honest with you about how behavior change works and tell you, unequivocally, that behavior change and progress is not linear. Ever. Regressions are a normal (and expected) part of the process. Which means you aren’t failing and more than likely it’s not your “fault.” Doesn’t that make you feel better already?

Safety Plans Aren’t Failure—They’re Freedom

More likely than not one of the first things a behavior consultant will talk to you about is using management. As we say in the biz, management is a work smarter, not harder strategy. It is used to arrange the environment in such a way that it addresses safety concerns quickly and effectively. Arranging things so that an undesired behavior is less likely to occur is a win for everyone, including your pet. Management strategies can include the following:

• Using protected contact for pets who bite or cause injury
• Gates to keep pets out of areas they can’t have access to or to keep pets away from infants, toddlers and young children especially when supervision can not be provided
• Teaching your pet to love their muzzles so one can be used appropriately and effectively
  Leashes to contain pets so they don’t have access to things that they find stressful

A good behavior consultant will take you, your pet, and your household into consideration when they are helping craft sustainable management strategies. The more open and honest you are about communicating your needs and your pet’s needs, the more they can be creative in helping you create strategies that work for, not against, you.

Your Feelings Matter in the Training Plan

It’s also immensely important that your feelings and experiences are included as part of your pet’s behavior modification plan. If you find that you feel anxious each time you are trying to practice a strategy when your consultant isn’t there to guide you, please share that. Part of the job is to help you figure out a way to implement the behavior change in a way that feels comfortable for YOU, not just your pet. You are a huge part of the journey and in order for progress to be made, you have to feel confident with implementing the strategies. If fear is holding you back, there are things a good consultant can do to help you.

It is not a sign of weakness if you confide your fears or risk aversion to your consultant. If they shame or ridicule you, run far and run fast. They are not cut out for this job. Humans matter too and your feelings are just as valid as your pet’s. Being vulnerable is hard but not impossible and being brave about your experience is a good first step towards practicing calculated risk!