Avoidance strategies
One, or rather THE central problem in educating dogs is the avoidance strategies that are frequently observed.
While fear is always accompanied by curiosity, anxiety leads to avoidance or aggression – in both dogs and humans.
It is therefore impossible for dogs to overcome their anxieties on their own, as they always react to supposedly threatening situations with avoidance or aggression. And therefore cannot learn that the situation in question is not dangerous at all.
They need an ” important other ” whom the dog can trust and look to for guidance in order to overcome their anxieties.
However, if the human has anxieties in the same situations as the dog and therefore also displays avoidance behavior, then compensatory education is not possible.
Education as “imparting knowledge about the world” also includes knowledge of what is really dangerous and what is not. This imparting can only take place with dogs in the respective situations. These situations in which the dog reacts with fear/aggression/flight are precisely the situations in which you can free the dog from its anxieties. If you avoid these situations, in whatever way, then compensatory education becomes impossible. So if the human reacts with anxiety and resulting avoidance behavior because the dog reacts aggressively, for example, the dog cannot overcome its anxieties and cannot become a confident dog .