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As a pet owner, you probably spend lots of time touching, cuddling, and petting your furry friend. But do you spend time touching their feet and toes? Do you focus on manipulating their ears and tail during your cuddling sessions? If you try to clip your dog's nails, do they pull away? When you try to clean your dog's ears, do they cower and hide?
These type of negative reactions are called body sensitivity. Body sensitivity is when your dog is uncomfortable or fearful with parts of their body being approached, touched, and/or manipulated. It is super important for every dog to be comfortable with body handling, because at least once in their life, they will need to experience some form of it. But what exactly is body handling?
Body handling is actively touching, manipulating, and restraining any body part of your dog. It is not just petting or hugging your dog (passive handling). For example, many dogs have no problem with their paws/legs being passively touched, but can't handle getting their nails trimmed. Body handling can look like being restrained for medical procedures, undergoing a veterinary exam, getting groomed, or getting at-home husbandry. Nail clipping, ear cleaning, brushing/clipping, bathing/drying, getting oral medications administered, etc. are all common forms of body handling a dog can experience multiple times in their life. Less obvious forms of body handling and body sensitivity could be:
a stranger petting your dog's head/face or body in public
a dog being touched anywhere if they are scared, anxious, or stressed
a dog being moved around or grabbed by the collar or harness
a dog being touched or grabbed when they are sleeping
a dog shying away when you're putting a harness or collar on (head shy)
a dog shying away when you manipulate their ears or try to clean them
a dog pulling away or being "squirmy" when you try to clip their nails
Even the healthiest pet dog will have to experience some form of body handling at least once in their life.
Why is Being Able to Tolerate Touch Important?
A dog with little to no body sensitivity will remain calm and stress-free when their body parts are touched and manipulated (by people the dog knows and by strangers). However, a dog with high body sensitivity and no body handling experience will quickly become stressed and fearful. Dogs generalize fear very quickly, so a dog that may have aversions to being touched on one body part will come to the conclusion that being touched anywhere else is scary. If a dog has moderate aversions to touch, they can also easily become aggressive and turn into a dog that can no longer be handled (especially if steps aren't made to change how they feel). One nail clipped too far or one painful tangle brushed through is all it takes for a dog to develop fears of body handling. Minor or major discomfort with being handled isn't something that will magically go away or get better with time - it's something that will gradually get worse.
I Think my Dog is Uncomfortable with Some Forms of Touch!
If your dog displays any sort of aversion, fear, stress, anxiety (or even aggression) when parts of their body are picked up, touched, held, restrained, etc. then they have body sensitivity. More examples of body sensitivity can include, but are not limited to:
dog freezing up body when you touch or pick up body part
dog pinning it's ears back and/or showing whites of eye when you bring nail clippers close to nails
dog leaning away during brushing or clipping
dog giving off stress signals during bathing, grooming, or other husbandry (full-body shake-offs, yawning, lip licking, ears pinned back, whites of eyes showing, panting, etc.)
dog getting the "zoomies" or picking up objects in mouth when clippers, collar, harness, etc. comes out (this is called a displacement behavior)
a dog licking your hand (or even nipping) during husbandry scenarios
My Dog has Body Sensitivity - What Can I Do?
If your dog has done any of these behaviors during body handling, or you know they are uncomfortable when being touched (by you or strangers), then your dog could benefit from counter-conditioning and desensitization. Counter-conditioning is a highly effective way to communicate with your dog to tell them "Hey, it's ok, this thing is not that scary." Counter-conditioning is a form of behavioral modification that changes the emotional response in an animal. It can be used to train many types of animals, not just dogs (it can be used on cats, rabbits, guinea pigs, birds and more!) Counter-conditioning changes your pet's negative emotional response to a stimulus to a positive one! (Ex. dog is no longer fearful during nail trims or vet exams and is now happy and stress-free during them.)
Desensitization is the slow, yet specific, process of introducing a fearful stimulus to your dog at thresholds low enough to where it doesn't produce a fear response. With lots of positive reinforcement, the intensity of the exposure is gradually increased until the dog is completely comfortable with the "scary" stimulus.
I Don't Understand Why my Dog is Uncomfortable...
Nail Clippers, His Harness, the Brush (insert other 'scary' object) aren't Scary!
You might think it's silly if your dog shy's away from the harness or jumps each time you clip a nail. But remember, everything that we expect our dogs to be OK with are neither things they would do if they were wild nor are they things that have been programmed in their DNA. Our dog's ancestors never needed to be restrained. If they were, that means they were caught by a predator and needed to fight or flight in order to survive. A wild dog would never need to sit still to have its paw held. If it was sitting still and had a paw unable to move, that means it's leg was likely trapped. How would it get out of that? Repeatedly pulling away until it was free. Today, that behavior is manifested as a dog repeatedly pulling away when your grab a paw to clip a nail. The same fearful behaviors your dog displays with mundane, harmless things are simply your dog acting on it's natural impulses. These things aren't scary to you, but they're scary to your dog.
Here's an example of counter-conditioning in humans: Other people may think it is silly, but you are scared of rabbits because you were bit by one once. There is someone holding a rabbit 15 feet away from you, and you are not stressed or scared. Now, if this person suddenly puts the rabbit in your arms while saying "It's OK! Don't be scared! You're fine! It's harmless!" you're still going to be scared, right? Now, you're probably even more scared of them after having a thrashing rabbit in your arms.
With proper counter conditioning though, the goal is to hold the rabbit without panicking. So, each day the person walks a little bit closer to you with the rabbit. Some days, they let the rabbit run around at a distance where you're not overwhelmed. Some days you feed the rabbit from a distance. Over time, you become more comfortable. Eventually (over days, or even months), you are able to hold the rabbit. At the end, you are now much more comfortable with the rabbit. You may not be willing to get a rabbit for a pet at this point, but you're able to tolerate it long enough without being thrown into a panic when it moves.
Now re-imagine this scenario with a dog and how they view nail clippers, or going to the vet, or having their ears cleaned. This is how dogs feel with stimuli that is scary to them. Forcing a scary stimulus on them isn't going to change their feelings, and will instead further traumatize them. Slow re-introduction with positives attached will (slowly) reverse any negative thinking. Since dogs don't speak or understand human language, we can pair scary scenarios with positive things that invoke happy feelings to tell them "this thing isn't actually scary, it's happy!" By pairing a super high-value treat or toy that the dog only gets when the scary stimulus is presented, eventually it will learn to associate that this stimulus (vet visit, nail trim, etc.) means good things!
How to Prevent Body Sensitivity in Puppies
When you get a new puppy, it is super important to immediately begin introducing all forms of body handling to them to prevent body sensitivity. Puppies go through a very important socialization period from 3 weeks to about 15 weeks old. During this time, it's important to positively (and safely) introduce as many sights, textures, under footings, people, animals, smells, and sounds to them. Positive introduction of body handling and husbandry procedures (teeth brushing, grooming, nail clipping, restraint, etc.) is also important to introduce and routinely practice so your puppy doesn't turn into an adult dog afraid of routine practices.
You should make sure to do this before they reach their first fear period (16 weeks old). Fear periods are when "puppies become more sensitive and aware of the world around them. They become more concerned about new objects or experiences, and even things that they previously might have enjoyed can become worrisome." (akc.org) Proper socialization, de-sensitization, and confidence building activities will teach your puppy how to cope with these experiences and teach them that the world isn't so scary. This will help create a confident adult dog and in turn, prevent any common behavioral problems that stem from lack of proper socialization and early training.
Make it a habit of taking 3-5 minutes a few times each day to work on body handling with your puppy. Pick a time where your puppy is tired (after an intense play session, after a walk, or right before bed time). You can do puppy massages nightly where you focus on gently squeezing and rubbing all parts of your puppy (nails, legs, paws, toes, tail, ears). Massage their legs, belly, and back, too. Make sure to give lots of calm, quiet praise during puppy massages and lots of treats too. (TIP: Use mealtime as puppy massage time and handfeed them their dinner in place of treats!)
Here's an example of a puppy massage session.
Quickly and gently touch a paw for 1 second.
Give calm praise and a treat.
Gently touch a paw for 3 seconds.
Give calm praise and a treat.
Gently touch paw for 5 seconds.
Give calm praise and a treat.
Pick up paw and hold for 3 seconds.
Give calm praise and a treat.
Pick up paw and hold for 5 seconds. Give a small squeeze and then praise and treat.
Pick up paw and massage and rub.
Give calm praise and a treat.
Continue building up the duration you can hold and manipulate the paw and work on slowly manipulating in more ways.
You can do this pattern of touching/manipulating, praising, and treating for any body part. You should also do this pattern when introducing light restraint. Check out this video step-by-step tutorial to properly introduce restraint to your puppy! This protocol can be used on older dogs, too!
Make sure to keep things short and sweet so you are only rewarding puppy for calm behavior. If puppy is nipping or mouthing, put a soft toy in puppy's mouth so they're mouthing on that instead of you. We want to avoid teaching the puppy that it's OK to put their teeth on skin while someone is touching him or handling him. If puppy is very wiggly, stop and quietly wait for puppy to calm down before continuing the massage.
Here is another excellent and very detailed step-by-step tutorial on how to do puppy massages and body handling. It features some troubleshooting help if you face difficulties when introducing body handling to your puppy.
How to Desensitize and Counter-Condition Older Dogs
What if you don't have a super young puppy, but have an older puppy or an adult dog? What if you didn't know about the importance of body handling until your dog was older? That's OK because you can still train your dog to accept body handling and restraint! The process will just take a little bit longer depending on how severe your dog's aversion to body handling is. For dogs with moderate to severe aversion to handling, it will take them a longer time to become comfortable since they have an established history of negative experiences with handling. Don't give up on your dog if you think they aren't learning quick enough for you. It'll take time and lots of patience on your part, but it can be done if you stay consistent, calm, and patient. Every dog has the capability to learn, as long as you give them the chance to do so!
Freeport Veterinary Hospital has an excellent, extremely thorough step-by-step guide on helping de-sensitize your dog to body handling. The guide features several tips and tricks to make the process more enjoyable for you and your pup. These exercises can be done as often as you are able to. Doing them even once a day will help put your pup on the right path to being comfortable with handling!
