I'm watching the show and their trainer is trying to help a dog that is scared. So she has people jump out and tell him bad dog then throw him a treat. Is this going to send the dog mixed signals? Wouldn't jumping out on a scared dog trigger aggresion? Just curious

Certainly sounds counterintuitive to me.

I'm not watching the show, so it's hard to say, but if I had to take a stab in the dark, I'd guess they were trying to desensitize an abused dog.

Probably NOT the way I'd go about doing it, but I can see how a misguided person might come up with that approach.

The dog associates jumping/quick movements and the words "bad dog" as preceeding abuse and torture, so instead, recondition the dog to associate the two with good things, i.e., food.

To answer your question though, yes, it could definitely trigger fear-based aggression, which can be the most dangerous.
It can also reinforce the dog's distrust of humans, and could even precipitate food aggression problems.

BUT I would imagine that they are pressed for time, and trying to do as much as they can in as little time as possible, so that the dog can go to a home and not be PTS.
There are better ways than this, but the approach they're using is probably the fastest.


If they're wrong, and the dog isn't abused, but just has bad nerves (which is often the case in many situations), they're just screwing the dog up even worse, with absolutely no chance that it will work.

Edited by (09/20/2008 10:16 PM)
Edit reason: Added

The dog was pulled from a home and was injured in a domestic dispute. Prior to that don't know if he was ever abused. The dog seemed friendly when the officers were there but I think became fearful after he was injured. I would think putting a dog in a more relaxed setting with people rather then scaring then rewarding would help and be less stressfull.