Animal Sciences Commons^™

Does The Manipulation Of Tail Position Facilitate Extinction Of Canine Phobic Behavior?, Rebecca A. Zarate

Theses and Dissertations - UTB/UTPA

The phobic behavior of interest is tail tucking which is indicative of submission. In this study the tail was physically manipulated by the use of a custom made harness to hold the tail up in a dominant position to ideally extinguish phobic behavior through reciprocal inhibition. The harness did not hold the tail up the entire duration of the interventions, although it still held the base of the tail up. The intervention did not appear to have an affect on the two of the five subjects. The three more phobic canines did display some behavioral changes, although the changes noticed …