Dog / Dog Greetings

I was up in the woods today walking with Bailey & Sticky.  It was lovely – we almost had the place to ourselves for a couple of hours! 

We met up with a few owner dog partnerships though; some who had their dogs on lead, so I of course got mine back and held them to me quietly as they passed by, and some with offlead dogs who I assumed were offlead because they don’t present a problem in public areas.

We were walking towards a pair of Weimaraners who were offlead with their owner.  As we approached one of them came forward to approach us.  Sticky did the same thing but then hesitated.  He had sensed something not right.  He paused, gave some very clear ‘cut off’ signalling to the other dog/s and looked back at me.  I smiled at him and said ‘Good boy Sticks’ to reinforce his peaceful actions instead of flying upto them out of control. 

As we got closer he approached the Weimaraner pair and everything seemed pretty okay; lots of mutual bottom sniffing and wheeling around each other.  Sticks then pottered off peacefully.  By this time Bailey and I had caught up.  I always hold her collar quietly and accompany her up to other dogs just so that she approaches gently and doesn’t alarm them by running upto them.

I then became aware of why Sticky had paused.  The male Weimaraner was in an extreme state of arousal.  His pupils were almost fully dilated, his hackles were up all the way along his neck to the base of his tail, his movements were stiff and deliberate and his general behaviour was far from relaxed and friendly.

Instead of calmly scenting Bailey, he immediately launched himself onto her shoulders, pushing her down.  She responded by playbowing and jumping to appease him as she could obviously sense his ‘tone’ too.  Far from appeasing and encouraging to play, he became even more agitated, trying to stand over her, shoulder-barge her and pounding on her shoulders and neck again and again.  I then realised that the owner was not going to step in so calmly stood between them, helping poor Bailey out and providing a barrier for her as she had become stressed by this wildly inappropriate behaviour.  The owner then said ‘oh he does this – I have to be careful with him’, grabbed him and pulled him away. 

I said nothing more and simply trotted on with Bailey, wanting to help her recover quickly from this ‘thug-mugging’, which she did within a few minutes.

I have no doubt that that the Weimaraner was ‘spoiling for a fight’ and if Bailey hadn’t behaved in such an overtly appeasing manner, he would have picked one.  I know many dogs who would have objected to his thuggish behaviour with a growl or stiffness, and this Weimaraner would have over-reacted because he was already in a state of hyper-arousal.  Who knows why?  Maybe he was never socialised properly as a pup, maybe he was attacked by another thug when he was younger, maybe he is fed a high-protein ‘working dog’ food… Who knows?

The owner knows… that’s who.

She KNOWS there was a problem with this dog’s reaction to other dogs but instead of dealing with this situation promptly, calmly and with some authority, she allowed him to continue his mugging uninterrupted until I stepped in.  She KNOWS there is a problem with this dog but allows him offlead around others.

It’s this kind of owner that gives the rest of us a bad name; someone that KNOWS deep down there is a problem but is in denial, allowing their dog to practice their behaviour unchecked and without getting any kind of help.  It is the dog I feel sorry for.  One day it is going to mug the wrong dog, end up seriously hurt and it will be his owner, the one who should be guiding him and leading him through life, who must carry the blame – but she won’t.  She will blame the owner of the other dog.  Scary, isn’t it?

Car Safety For Your Pet

Car Safety For Your Pet

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News on Bailey...

Just to update everybody that has been following Bailey’s story…

She is starting to work through her anxiety and we’re seeing definite progress now.  She will now get up on her normal places to have a sleep as she slowly learns that  strangers are no longer going to appear in her home.  We’ve been very careful not to move too much furniture about or create too many changes (despite the place being very dusty now and us needing to change all the furniture covers and throws etc!) because re-establishing her behavioural stability is the most important thing at the moment (and it gives me an excuse to put off the massive early spring cleaning job!).  She is still showing some signs of cognitive impairment such as confusion and not recognising people terribly quickly but this could just be her being EXTRA careful about her environment in general so I’m putting off investigating pharmacological intervention for this problem for the time being.  It’s like caring for a beloved grandparent who needs a bit of extra help with everyday tasks, bless.  And it’s the least we can do for a member of our family that has given us so much love and devotion over the years.

We’ve also been noticing a very subtle shift in the relationship between her and Sticky…  He’s been with us about 6 months now and as all people in rescue know, it usually takes about this long for an adopted adult dog to finally get their paws under the table and understand this is where they are staying now.  We’ve been noticing some very subtle bed-hopping going on; this is a common way of very peacefully and passively establishing hierarchy in family dogs.  For example, as soon as Bailey vacates a bed space, Sticks will hop up and take the space for himself.  Bailey will come back, see she has lost her space but instead of standing there for a while to see if he’ll move, or getting up on the sofa beside him, she will now immediately look for somewhere else.

It may be because Sticks has sensed the shift in Bailey in being a senior dog now, especially with the behavioural ‘weakness’ she has shown lately and is doing the very natural thing of taking over the top dog spot.  It could be Sticky now realising he is here to stay and as a very confident little guy, deciding he would like to be top dog, or it could simply be because it’s getting colder in the house now and he wants the warmest spot!

It’s all been done in a very passive, peaceful way though and this, for me, is the correct interpretation of dominant behaviour in dogs; calm and gentle, without any aggression or angst.

Poor Bailey...

Poor Bailey…

Since my last blog Bailey has been through the mill a bit.

We had to have plumbers in the house for a few days last week and this disturbed Bailey greatly.  We dealt with it the best way we could, making sure that she could always see us but trying to keep our behaviour as ‘normal’ as possible while chaos ensued all around us.

The day after the plumbers left, there was an incident in the evening where we think Bailey accidently nudged or sat on Sticky while he was sleeping in the living room.  It was fairly dark in the room as I was working in the office next door so I can only assume that Bailey didn’t see him and he snapped at her.  For the next day or two after that Bailey found it impossible to rest.  She was continually anxious and couldn’t sleep properly anywhere.  She displayed extreme Hypervigilance (a known condition where dogs are so stressed that they are examining everything and looking everywhere) and was obviously very distressed.  I determined that this was probably due to the combination of the upheaval of the past few days and then when Sticky snapped at her, she probably didn’t even realise it was him and her anxiety had generalised to the point where she couldn’t relax at all.  Anywhere.

I decided to supplement her diet with an amino acid which helps to increase production of a certain neurotransmitter in the brain that induces a more relaxed state.  Within 12 hours of beginning this, she had her first deep sleep for days.  This could have been simple exhaustion taking over or the dietary assistance, but when she found the supplement in her food one morning and I found it spat out on the floor, I noticed that she didn’t rest much that day.

Unfortunately for Bailey, just as she was beginning to show signs of relaxing in her home again, the supervisor called today to ‘inspect the work’ (which incidentally hasn’t been undertaken properly and the plumbers need to return at some point).  I observed quite an extreme reaction of stress; panting, shivering, extreme fur shedding, paw and ear sweating.  This time as our visitor was wandering all over the house instead of sitting in the same room and reading or watching TV in an effort to ‘appear normal’, I tried a different approach…

I decided to act as Bailey’s ‘Guardian’ and stood at the doorway of the living room where she spends most of her time.  I made it very clear to Bailey by ‘blocking’ the doorway with my arms and legs that nobody was going to be getting in past me.  I didn’t move from this spot for the entire 40 minutes that the visitor was in the home and only allowed him past for a few seconds when he had to examine the radiator in the living room and even then put myself between him and Bailey calmly.

Within 10 minutes of me standing in the doorway, she lay down on her bed and relaxed a little.  This was a much better state for her than standing very stiffly in the middle of the living room panting.  She was still a little stressed but it was obvious to me that by taking obvious and clear action to ‘protect’ her space, she felt able to relax a little more than before, when we were simply behaving as normal.  I realised that, for Bailey at least, behaving normally when we have strangers in the house is not the right thing to do; she needs us to step up and convince her that she is safe by NOT reacting as if nothing is happening.  We need to acknowledge her fear and anxiety and show her that we will protect her.

This has introduced me to a different perspective that I’m going to investigate in the treatment of anxiety in dogs.  The standard advice is to ‘behave normally’ but there is now reason for me to think that there are dogs for whom this is not an appropriate response.  I will certainly be giving this more thought and exploring the possibility that there needs to be a change in the way that behaviourists deal with anxiety or fear in the home…

How Change can Affect Dogs...

We’ve just had a really stressful week in our home with contractors upgrading our heating system throughout the house. Poor Bailey, our deaf Great Dane has been really stressed with the appearance of strangers, furniture moving around, lots of ‘debris’ all over the place etc.

For a deaf or blind dog, normality is crucial but even more so in their home.  Being deaf means that Bailey needs to trust in her environment to be able to fully relax and so we keep it as predictable and normal as possible for her.  We don’t move furniture around much or have too many visitors in the house unless she has met them first outside and come in with them.  When she is asleep her sensory perception is obviously severely limited so she hasn’t been able to get much rest in her home with strangers ‘appearing’ out of nowhere or being there when she wakes up.

We have taken time off to make sure that we have always been near her so that when she wakes up, she sees us somewhere near.  As she’s a senior lady now she sleeps a lot so it’s been very time consuming!  We have been careful not to change our behaviour around her – we’re just doing something normal like reading or watching TV or working nearby on the laptop – because if we try and comfort or reassure her if she wakes with a startle reflex, this would be ‘abnormal’ behaviour from us and will unsettle her even more.  If she wakes and sees one of us completely relaxed and normal while chaos is going on in the rest of the place, it helps settle her more than if we actively try to ‘help’ her.

One sad side-effect of all of the upheaval is that she has become afraid of the dark.  Bailey has restricted vision, especially at night, and in the last few dark evenings, probably because of the equipment and tools left around the house and in the yard, she has refused to go into darkened areas, even if we are with her.

We’re hoping that now the work is finished in the house and things are getting back to normal, Bailey will gradually settle and sleep soundly again…

 

MORE reasons not to use aversive collars!

What beautiful sense this makes…

 

On choke chains, prong collars (also shock collars and spray collars!)…

 

“If your dog becomes so reactive over another dog or person, to the extend that he incapable of listening to you, he is in an aroused chemical state.  If… his air supply is shut off with a choke collar, or pain is inflicted with a pinch (prong) collar, you are not doing anything to help this animal to calm down!  A choke or pinch (prong) collar contributes to the arousal level by increasing the adrenaline level.”

 

Why oh why does this not make perfect sense to people still using these things???!

 

Source:  “Aggression in Dogs:  Practical Management, Prevention & Behaviour Modification”  by Brenda Aloff.

 

Some Common Sense...

While studying today I found this:

 

“… a comparison of 13,097 Swedish dogs of 31 breeds found that dogs bred for showing were more likely to display social and nonsocial fearfulness and were less playful and curious than dogs from working lines (Svartberg, 2005). 

 

This survey was no mere straw poll of a few hundred dogs… This was a MAJOR piece of research conducted with over 13,000 dogs.  When you find these kinds of numbers in a study, the results have to be taken seriously.

 

“Many breeders now understand the need to avoid inbreeding of very close relatives, but they often do not look far enough up the pedigree for common ancestry.  Unfortunately, some breeders still do in-breed as they strive for specific anatomical features as laid down in the breed standards.”

 

On many occasions I have asked owners whether they researched their new puppy’s pedigree thoroughly and they’ve said, ‘yes – the parents were fine’.  I have yet to meet anybody that researched FIVE GENERATIONS back to check common ancestry and the possible in-breeding of genetic abnormalities.

 

Source:  Rooney N.J. “The Welfare of Pedigree Dogs” Journal of Veterinary Behaviour, Volume 4, No 5, September- October 2009, p182-183