Vincent - Foster Dog Blog - 3.5 Weeks

Well at last... He's shown he IS a true Mastino after all!

It's a little later than usual for a Mastino but today Belly (formerly Vincent) charged one of the other dogs in a definite dominance showing.

I'd observed over the last 24 hours that he was getting a little more 'clingy' than before - not wanting to settle in his half of the house at night, wanting to stay by my side at all times during the day, following me about etc. and assumed that this was just the normal bonding process for a new dog, but especially a Mastino, who form very strong emotional bonds with their chosen human if allowed to.

Yesterday I was in a very lucky position to be able to record him jumping towards another dog on the TV!  See here:

Again this gave me a clue that he was 'getting his paws under the table' and becoming more confident.  Watching his body posture but in particular his tail carriage, this wasn't 100% play either...  It has to balanced by the fact that the dog on the TV wasn't behaving in a balanced way however and I would expect most dogs to react the way Belly did in the presence of such an unbalanced dog!  What I was pleased about was the way he very quickly came back to me on command.  (Watch the vid a few times to catch all the important points!).

Then this morning...  Aha!

My 17yr daughter, Rachael, was sitting on the floor next to Bailey, our 10.5yr Great Dane.  Bailey was doing 'the Dane thing' of sitting with her bottom on the sofa and her front feet on the floor, getting some attention from Rachael.  Belly was sitting on the other side of Rachael.  The two dogs were facing each other and about 3ft apart.

Suddenly Belly lunged across Rachael and pinned Bailey to the floor with lots of noise and bluster.

I quickly and calmly got up from across the room, took Belly's collar and pulled him away from Bailey.  There was very little resistance from him, no redirected aggression, no frustration.  He immediately deferred and I took him out into the kitchen and put him behind the gate.  I was very careful not be angry or upset with him and just treated it as a completely normal act.

We checked Bailey over and - this is important - there wasn't a mark on her.  Not even a drop of slobber demonstrating that this was a gesture; a show of bluster and dominance from Belly because he wasn't happy that Bailey (for once) hadn't deferred and moved away from him in appeasement - something she always does normally.

The analysis of this between my daughter (herself an accomplished dog and horse handler) and myself was that the catalyst was her sitting on the floor between the two dogs.  Because she was stroking Bailey, she had distracted her from her normal behaviour of appeasement and moving away from Belly to keep him calm.

In fact, in Belly's eyes, Bailey was probably being exceptionally rude and almost challenging him in not giving him the space he's come to expect from her.

We are actually extremely pleased that we've seen this behaviour in him because it fills a missing piece of the jigsaw for me, i.e. why this Mastino apeared so benign and unchallenging!  The massively important aspect of this for me was that - although we would never have set this up deliberately - we know that he does not use his teeth to make his point.  Bailey was completely unmarked and unmouthed.   

N.B. A very important point to make is that we immediately went into 'happy mode' with Bailey, smiling at her, patting her cheerfully as if nothing had happened, to help her to 're-balance' again.  The temptation was to go into 'oh you poor thing...' mode as humans but DOGS DON'T DO THAT and dont understand our behaviour when we do it!  By being completely normal, cheerful, matter-of-fact with her for the next 10 minutes, she bounced back to being completely herself again...

Now we go back to square one.  As all of the dogs will have had a surge of adrenaline and may therefore be a little more reactive and 'on-edge' for a while, we'll have a couple of days of Belly being kept separate for things to calm down and more importantly, for senior dog Bailey - who is also deaf - to be able to relax in her own home.

Then we'll return to keeping him onlead in the living room again, making sure that we respect the hierarchy that THE DOGS have chosen, i.e. helping Bailey to give Belly the space that a typical Mastino demands and needs and ensuring that he doesn't slip into bullying or intimidating behaviour towards her.

It may be that we can never allow them unsupervised access together.  That's just a fact of life and we'll deal with it without 'belly-aching'!

We cannot enforce dog hierarchy.  We must help and support them while they are sorting it out and ensure and encourage that it is done as peacefully as possible and ensuring that no dogs actually get hurt (emotionally as well as physically).  While that must always mean that we are still in charge, no matter how many dogs, no matter how they organise themselves, it's important to understand that if we try and interfere too much, we actually put more pressure on them.

As an example, if we had punished Belly by alpha-rolling him, pinning him to the floor and insisting that he defer to Bailey - our oldest dog - it would have not only caused him utter confusion but would have caused Bailey stress that she doesn't want in that she is HAPPY to defer to him; she doesn't want us to make her top dog!  In the past she has been very passively dominant, but as she's got older she has been very happy to defer for a peaceful life.  Painful as it is for us to watch - our beloved dog who has been with us for years slipping down the ranks - it's the way dogs (and many other social animals) do things.

It was absolutely spot-on for a Mastino that he didn't give any warning signals like staring, growling, freezing, stiffening, standing up etc before losing his cool.  This is why they do not make ideal pet dogs for the unexperienced dog owner.

I feel that Belly has never had to deal with a dog like Bailey before and doesn't quite know how to deal with her.  He lived with a fairly passive male Basset Hound in his first home.  Bailey is bigger, is female, and, on this occasion didn't move away (which was totally our fault of course for letting OUR guard down).  He IS a typical Mastino after all... 

Lastly, and very interestingly, only a few seconds before Belly lunged, Sticky calmly moved himself off the floor and up onto a sofa away from everything.

Concidence or did he sense Belly was getting agitated?... Food for thought...

The 'D' Word as explained in my coursework!

I just got back my marked module for 'Application of Theory' for my Advanced Diploma in Canine Behavioural Management.  I thought it'd be interesting to post it here (including the tutor's comments) as an example of my level of study at the moment and also as it encapsulates my theory on 'The 'D' Word'.

"Module question 10.10 - What are your views on human and dog hierarchy? Do you think dogs that are allowed to sleep on beds or other furniture, or are fed before the family, or that rush through doorways are likely to become aggressive? Justify your opinions.

I have fairly open and flexible views about human and dog hierarchy.

I do not believe that dogs that are allowed to sleep on beds or other furniture, or are fed before the family, or that rush through doorways are ‘likely’ to become aggressive.  The reason for this is because in my home, all the dogs that have ever become part of our family throughout my entire life have done all of the above and I have never owned a dog that has ‘become’ aggressive.

However, I believe that if I were to regularly approach a sleeping dog that was on my bed or on the sofa and become agitated or aggressive myself in order to move them, or I reacted to a dog rushing out of the doorway first by hitting them or losing my temper, I would probably initiate some aggressive response, probably on a predictable basis and my dog would ‘become’ aggressive. Tutor Comment:  yes, this is quite likely.

The word ‘Dominance’ when applied to dogs has become synonymous with conflict and this is very unfortunate.  I am dominant over my dogs, and my children (grown up as they are now!) in most situations but this does not mean I am forceful or adversarial with them.  Dominant behaviour can be calm, peaceful and gentle.  As an example if my dog is sitting on a place in the sofa where I want to sit (usually in the best place for watching the TV) I will gently and calmly give the dog a ‘Move’ command and then proceed to sit down, whether they have moved or not.  On the first few occasions they didn’t move, I calmly sat down so close to them it that became uncomfortable for them to stay there so they have subsequently made the decision to relinquish that spot whenever they hear the ‘Move’ command – and often before hearing it.  The reward for this is that if they give me enough room, they will get to lie curled into my body for warmth and close social contact and even have their head stroked! Tutor Comment:  this is a good example of how you can be ‘the boss’ without aggression and force.

In wolves, aggression does NOT equal dominance.  In a two-year study on a wild population of wolves the following was noted:

“…involvement in aggressive and agonistic encounters did not show a strong relationship with rank order in either 1999 or 2000.”  (Sands, et al., 2004)

Even David Mech himself has discounted his original theories from thirty years ago where ‘Alpha’ males and females fought for dominant positions in the pack.  He now believes that this is achieved much more peacefully, by “…merely mating with a member of the opposite sex, producing a bunch of offspring which are the rest of the pack.”  (Mech, 2008)

To specify this reasoning in human / dog relationships O’Heare (O'Heare, 2003) questions the use of the term ‘dominance’ when describing aggressive behaviour:

“Why not simply say that a particular dog is intolerant of being controlled or that he has a relatively low threshold for aggression?  The dominance alternative is to postulate that the dog believes he is dominant in the relationship.”

In my professional work if owners have already allowed some ‘negotiation’ to take place and dogs are standing their ground and defending their resource successfully in the form of growling or snapping, I will still advocate peaceful, gentle, calm dominance in the form of a houseline of about 3-4ft attached to the dog’s collar or harness so that the owner can give a gentle but firm command (not  a request!) and then enforce it by using the houseline to move the dog.  As long as there is a reward for the dog for relinquishing their ‘resource’; a ‘point’ to the exercise from the dog’s point of view, I have found that peaceful resolution can be easily achieved.

Peaceful co-existence must surely be the goal of all social groups, whether they consist of conspecifics or not.  While linear hierarchy may be necessary at times to sustain order, I believe that this is best achieved through calm, cooperation and negotiation and a more ‘fluidic’ state of hierarchy rather than a strict linear one at all times. Tutor Comment:  well done, this is an excellent answer.

References

Mech, L David. 2008. "Alpha Wolf"? YouTube.com. [Online] 15 February 2008. [Cited: 11 October 2009.] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tNtFgdwTsbU.

O'Heare, James. 2003. Dominance Theory and Dogs. 1. Ottawa : DogPsych, 2003. p. 35. Vol. 1.

Sands, Jennifer and Creel, Scott. 2004. Social Dominance, Aggression and Faecal Glucocorticoid Levels in a Wild Population of Wolves, Canis Lupus. Animal Behaviour. 2004, Vol. 67, 3, pp. 387-396.