Now they must decide how to cope with the situation.

They may choose to run, they may stand their ground, they may put up with the thing but feel terrible while it's near them. They may wait for you to pick them up and remove them from the situation.

They might think biting the thing (person, animal or object) is the only way to make it go away.

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The best solution is to teach our dog children that the thing they thought was scary, is in fact, a lot of fun. Yes, it's actually possible.

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What is your dog afraid of?

Is the thing a real threat? If possible, remove it from the dog's life. If the threat is another pet, let's get that pet in training and repair the relationship.

If it's a phobia, that is, the dog "thinks" it's a threat but it's actually not, let's communicate with your dog. Everything is fine, the vacuum is not going to eat you, and we can prove it by using individualized reward-based training with is called positive reinforcement, and counter-conditioning.

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By the way, positive reinforcement is not enforcement as in how police enforce laws. It's from traditional behavior science and means a technique that makes a behavior more likely to happen again. It's teaching a more appropriate behavior the dog can choose to do instead of the behaviors associated with fear such as lunging barking, nipping biting. It's about behavior.

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Counter-conditioning is helping dogs feel happy or neutral about the thing they are afraid of. It's about emotions.

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