What effects does flooding have on animals?

Answer 1

For example take an aggressive dog and expose it to as many other dogs as possible in an enclosed environment. In time the dog's anxiety around other dogs will decrease because the body cannot keep up a stressed state of alarm forever. The desired result is that the dog finally relaxes in the presence of the fear as it realizes that other dogs won't hurt him.

In some cases flooding can work, but this therapy is controversial because the likelihood of failure is so high. In the majority of cases flooding makes a dog more anxious and forces the dog to adapt different coping mechanisms such as fighting, or shutting down and becomes numb to the environment. While flooding may help in some mild cases, when it does not, they may turn into an emotional wreck and be prone to sensitization, which causes an increase in fear. It is argued that other approaches give higher rates of success.