What is it, why don’t we support it, and how can we avoid it?
Flooding is presenting a stimulus at a fearful level without a means to escape.
The most common example is wrapping a cat a in a towel and petting until “they get used to it.” However, a degree of flooding is also occurring in less obvious situations such as when we simply sit in a room with a cat who is subtly asking us to leave, hand feeding meals, petting during meals, sitting nearby during meals, using objects like long sticks to pet, etc. If a cat isn’t actively providing a “yes” signal for what you’re doing, you do not have their consent, and ride a fine line between flooding and actual desensitization or counter conditioning.
“But I’ve used flooding techniques in the past, and they’ve worked.” This is true; flooding can and has worked well, especially for young kittens, with a higher fail rate in adults. BUT it comes with the risk of potential sensitization instead of desensitization AND there is a more kind technique that works every time instead of taking a chance. So let’s end the days of attempting poor quality, out dated techniques.
An example of flooding backfiring and leading to sensitization would be if I closed a person with arachnophobia into a room full of spiders. Instead of them getting used to spiders, they will likely instead leave that room with a heightened sense of phobia mistaking something as harmless as a crumb or spec of dust as a spider to bring them anxiety with the sense that spiders are now everywhere and they’re not safe anywhere.
Clearly we don’t want to take the chance of subjecting already fearful kittos to potentially more trauma and heightened fear. So how do we avoid it? We learn to observe cat body language and behavior in order to determine whether or not we have received consent for our actions. We utilize considerate approach, classical and counter conditioning, positive reinforcement, and incremental desensitization while ensuring consent and stopping when consent is no longer provided. Consent based techniques combined with meeting a cat’s basic needs are sure to lead a cat on a successful socialization journey.