Escalator

I like to expose my foster dogs to the escalators here at work. My goal isn't to make them want to ride on them, but rather to be comfortable with the noise and movement. The more we socialize our dogs in a safe, positive fashion the more we help them be comfortable with novel stimuli. I hadn't yet exposed Cody to it, but one day we walked up to it and Cody raised his hackles, leaned back heavily into his haunches, and let out deep-chested woofs. I had the other two dogs with me, so instead of trying to counter-condition at that point I move away from the stimulus and left it for another day.

The next day I took the camera, a bag of treats, and and planned to video myself counter-conditioning him to the escalator. Instead, over the course of 24 hours he went from hackling and barking at the escalator to....

Why did it change? Hard to tell. Only Cody knows and he likes to keep his secrets. This was a different escalator, one further from the street and lower trafficked. Perhaps the change in environmental appearance did the trick. Perhaps after barking at the escalator he had time to process the event and when exposed to the stimulus again it wasn't as scary. He may have had an "off" day that first time and the escalator was spookier than it normally is. Or, the second day may have been an exceptional day and next exposure I will have to counter-condition it to have him even step on the metal.

No matter what, my responsibility is to respond to where he is right now, at this moment. Dogs have good and bad days like we do, and anytime we go into a training session we have to work with how they are currently, not how they were yesterday or a week ago.