Muzzle Dissociation
There are many reasons why you might want to put your dog in a muzzle, and some of them might be different than you think.
You may want to put your dog in muzzle if:
Your dog has aggression toward people
Your dog has aggression toward dogs
Your dog struggles with people getting in his/her face
Your dog snaps at dogs who come by him/her too quickly
Your dog is aggressive toward overly friendly dogs
You want to stretch your dogs sensory threshold
You want to socialize a dog that used to struggle with aggression and don’t want to worry about anyone getting hurt
You want to work on socializing a dog with young children and don’t want to risk an accidental bite
These are just a few of the many different scenarios in which a muzzle could be helpful for your dog. And while most dogs will never love being muzzled; we can make the experience better for them if we take the time to properly dissociate the muzzle from their source of stress.
Dogs don’t like muzzles because they rest on their nose, which has a ton of nerves in it, and they prevent them from protecting themselves from things they perceive as a threat. If the dog convinces him or herself that the muzzle is the ultimate evil, they will spend the entire time you are working with them digging at the muzzle with their paws or rubbing their face on the floor. This can obviously hurt the dog, which we never want, but it also makes any training you’re trying to do during this time a little worthless. If your dog behaves entirely differently when the muzzle is on, then it’s hard to transition into proper behavior when the muzzle is off.
Not to mention that if every time the muzzle goes on they’re being forced into a situation where they feel out of control and stressed, then they’re going to panic any time they see the muzzle. When we’re training our dogs, a little bit of stress is inevitable, but we want to limit it as much as possible. Training aggression out of a dog is difficult enough for them without the added stress of panic over the muzzle. We don’t want the muzzle to be so suppressive of their natural personality that they turn into a completely different dog every time it goes on.
The key is to teach your dog that the muzzle can be associated with good things. Here are some tips on how to achieve that:
Put the muzzle on for only short periods of time at the beginning, and reward them every time it goes on.
Put whipped cream or peanut butter inside the muzzle so they can lick it off. Every time they stick their nose into the muzzle, they get a reward.
Feed them treats through the muzzle, then take it off.
Put the muzzle on and then take the dog on a nice walk (away from stressors). Give the dog treats throughout the walk to further associate the muzzle with good things.
Teach them they only get to play with a herding ball or other super fun toy if their muzzle is on. Pushing a herding ball around the dog park in muzzle can be extremely stimulating and exciting for your dog.
Essentially the trick is to teach the dog that good things happen whenever they’re in muzzle. A dog’s nose is a highly sensitive part of their body, so most dogs aren’t going to like something touching their snout. But, if you can convince them that every time they put this uncomfortable contraption on, something amazing and fun happens, then they will be less likely to develop high levels of stress or harm themselves by scratching at or rubbing the muzzle against the ground. If your dog has learned that the muzzle means he or she is going to have a fun time, they’ll be much less resistant when you bring it out. The more the muzzle is just a normal part of your dog’s day, the easier it’ll be to teach them to not need it anymore.
