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My dog won't listen, I need to fix the behaviour now!!! It is important to heal a dog's emotions instead of focusing on fixing their behaviour because behaviour is often a symptom of an underlying emotional issue. If a dog is exhibiting unwanted behaviour, it usually means they are feeling anxious, stressed, frustrated, or fearful. Simply correcting the behaviour without addressing the emotional root cause may lead to temporary improvement, but the underlying emotional issue will remain. This could result in the dog developing other unwanted behaviours or the original behaviour resurfacing in the future. This is also like someone correcting you for a fear of spiders or feeling anxious about a situation. It isn't humane, so it isn't right to do this to a dog. When you do this, your dog will either go into shut down, learn you are not a support system and feel that they have to escalate themselves. Leaving them in a state of learned helplessness. Healing a dog's emotions involves identifying and addressing the underlying emotional issue. This can be done through learning about healing the emotions, desensitisation and counterconditioning, creating a positive and safe environment, and providing the dog with plenty of exercise and mental stimulation. By addressing the emotional issue, the dog will naturally begin to exhibit positive and desirable behaviours. Ultimately, healing a dog's emotions not only helps them feel better and lead happier lives, but it also creates a stronger bond between the dog and you. When a dog becomes over threshold, it means that they have surpassed their threshold for stress and arousal. At this point, their emotional state has taken over, and they are no longer able to process information and respond to cues. From a holistic perspective, this can be explained by the complex interactions between a dog's physical, emotional, mental, and well-being. When a dog becomes over threshold, their sympathetic nervous system takes over, triggering the "fight or flight" response. At this point, the dog's body is flooded with stress hormones such as adrenaline and cortisol, which can impair their cognitive function, cause physical changes such as increased heart rate and blood pressure, and limit their ability to focus and learn. Their body is also becoming physically drained at this point and something not often considered or widely known is that your dog can become poorly and need medical care due to being in situations which cause their body to go through so much stress. Which is why it is so important to move away from the ideology of fixing the dog and instead healing the dog. To prevent a dog from becoming over threshold, it is important to understand their individual triggers and manage their environment and emotional state. This can involve creating a calm and predictable routine, providing plenty of exercise and mental stimulation, using positive reinforcement training methods, and avoiding situations or stimuli that are known to trigger stress and anxiety. Overall, a holistic approach to understanding and managing your dog's behaviour includes considering their physical, emotional, mental, and well-being as interconnected and vital to their overall health and happiness. By addressing all aspects of a dog's well-being, it may be possible to prevent over threshold responses and help them learn and respond to cues more effectively. Guardians, listen to your dog's communications because it is the only way to truly understand your dog's needs and emotions. Dogs communicate in a variety of ways, including body language, vocalisations, and behaviour. By paying attention to these communications, guardians can develop a deeper understanding of their dog's personality, likes and dislikes, and needs. Some common dog communication signals include tail wagging, barking, growling, displaying teeth, licking, yawning, and avoiding eye contact. For example, a dog that is wagging their tail while their ears are pressed back and their body is stiff may be communicating anxiety or fear, rather than happiness. Similarly, a dog that is growling or displaying their teeth may be communicating discomfort or aggression, rather than being "mean". By learning to read their dog's communication signals, you can better meet your dog's needs and avoid situations that may be overwhelming or stressful for your dog. This can help build a stronger bond between you and your dog, and lead to a happier and healthier relationship. Additionally, listening to a dog's communications can help reduce the risk of dog bites or other aggressive behaviours. By recognizing when a dog is uncomfortable or anxious, you can take steps to prevent a situation from escalating and avoid putting yourself, them or others in danger. In summary, listening to a dog's communications is essential for understanding their needs and emotions, building a strong and healthy relationship, and reducing the risk of unwanted behaviours. Understanding that your dog doesn't need fixing, they need healing. This is the first step in truly understanding your dog and their needs. If you work on healing your dog, the rest will follow. Image description: cream background with Wolfdog puppy asleep, held in the arms of a person with a purple hoody in the centre. To the left is a title underlined which says: fix the behaviour Underneath this is a paragraph: Fixing dog behaviour has an attitude of the dog needs "fixing" creating a negative environment and connection. Under this is a checklist with the title: Fix the behaviour why? The checklist has red crosses in each box. Bothered what others think Don't like the behaviour Don't understand the behaviour There is red underlining underneath this. To the right of the image: The title: Healing the emotion for better welfare with a checklist with green ticks reading: Healing the emotion for better welfare Understanding of species behaviour Understanding the expression of a behaviour Understanding their emotions Healing focused The final text on the bottom right reads: Identify the need of your dog and why you want to "fix" their behaviour with green underlining. 
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Classical conditioning and habituation What do these words mean and why does my trainer/behaviourist insist I practise at home? The problem isn't at home. If you have a dog who struggles with their emotions in any context, the answer is simple, we change the emotion related to the trigger. How do we do this? Classical conditioning and habituation. If your dog is struggling it's no good trying to teach your dog a new concept outside. Why? Because of the language barrier. You will just be barking cues at your dog, setting you both up to fail, your frustrated, your dogs frustrated and your dog doesn't understand what on earth you're asking. Working indoors means that you can teach your dog a new behaviour. Such as look at that by Leslie McDivett of Control Unleashed https://youtu.be/1kulQ0AGj3w You begin with an inanimate object, why because you want your dog to learn the cue and the behaviour and pair the word with the cue of the behaviour. This becomes a simple way to communicate with your dog with no stressors. You and your dog have begun a conversation. When your outside and your dog is feeling overwhelmed they cannot learn or process anything you are asking right now. They have one agenda and that is to retreat to safety or go into fight mode to protect themselves. Keeping arousal indoors at an optimum level means that your dog is going to be excited to learn. You do this with their functional reinforcer. This is the high value reward your dog communicates to you is their reinforcer, not what you choose. If you don't know here's a test, grab a toy, grab a piece of chicken. See which one they go for, repeat to see if it was a fluke. No food or toy drive? No problem, go to Tug-E-Nuff - https://www.tug-e-nuff.co.uk/ every purchase comes with a free play guide! High quality tug toys which are super high value for your dog, whether learning the mechanics of play, puppy mouthing redirection or predation substitute training. This shop is amazing! Discount code - Miyagis I haven't met anyone yet whose dog has not been obsessed with the fur chasers from Tug-E-Nuff. You can also try troubleshooting games for play. https://youtu.be/jzawF6AA5FA https://youtu.be/aeccuja_pBY https://youtu.be/BXsaVri15zQ https://youtu.be/cP-e2jLHWSg Your dog's functional reinforcer becomes their reward system for your conversation. This is just step one. Then you begin to work on the new cues indoors and open a conversation and move to the garden and so on. Yerkes- Dodson law explains through the inverted graph that we need eustress, good stress to learn simple tasks. Anything beyond that curve of the highest point is where learning cannot take place, too low arousal also means there is simply no arousal or interest in learning. “As the difficulty of discrimination is increased, the strength of that stimulus which is most favourable to habit-formation approaches the threshold” (Yerkes and Dodson, 1908). If you constantly force a dog to face anxiety, for example make them go for a walk even though you know that you will both become frustrated or anxious, they will begin to predict and expect anxiety every time you grab the harness and lead. This means your dog is at the far side of the u graph and unable to learn. We want a bubbly and excited dog ready to go for a walk and engage with the environment, so they can engage in normal behaviours and process their environment whilst remaining in the optimal area of the u graph. We know this from (Mendel et al, 2010). They formed a correlation of discrete emotions and core effect. How the dogs emotional state affects behavioural output. Which then means we can measure the welfare of the dog and begin to compare their emotional state learning indoors vs outdoors. This enables us to then better your dogs welfare through assisting you. We don't want to use operant conditioning where the dog is punished for expression of an emotion or withdrawing something pleasurable because of an emotion. We need to recognise the emotion, meet the need and help our dogs by bringing arousal back down and helping our dogs to have a neutral emotional state to other dogs, traffic or people for example. We cannot do this if we attempt to teach a new behaviour outdoors with no previous conversation and learning. This is why it is so important that we learn about our dog. We learn about what gets them excited and motivated, what makes them calm and sleepy, what drives them and also what causes them to be in a state of distress (bad stress) and unable to communicate. Our learning is developing all of the time as an industry. It's important to learn about your dog, meet their needs, offer them rest and recovery time and work with them within their optimal learning states. Not as and when it suits us. It's also not ok to punish an emotion. This is why we ask you to practise at home, open that conversation, set yourselves up for success. It's a marathon, it's not a race. Enjoy the learning journey and meet your dog. References Yerkes, R.M.; Dodson, D.D. The relation of strength of stimulus to rapidity of habit-formation. Psychol. J. Comp. Neurol. 1908, 459–482. Mendl, M.; Burman, O.H.P.; Paul, E.S. An integrative and functional framework for the study of animal emotion and mood. Proc. R. Soc. B: Biol. Sci. 2010, 277, 2895–2904. https://www.mdpi.com/2076-2615/3/2/300#B28-animals-03-00300 Image description: inverted U graph. White background. Title: Yerkes - Dodson law in black open dyslexic font. The graph has the title on the left of performance and the bottom line has stress. The colour of the inverted U is separated into: pastel pink and orange with the title over the colours in black open dyslexic font: inactive, laid back, too little stress. The next colour is blue with black open dyslexic font with the title - optimum stress. The next colour is green - to the far side to the right the title in black open dyslexic font says: exhaustion. The next colour in bright pink - to the far side in black open dyslexic font says - burnt out. The final colour is red - in black open dyslexic font the text says - anxiety/ frustration. The text at the bottom of the graph says - Optimum stress is where learning can take place before frustration,hyper arousal or anxiety - before the height of the curve. Second image description is a black and tan and cream infographic. The top is black. In white open dyslexic font the title reads - Classical conditioning - Ivan Pavlov. The next row is tan with black open dyslexic font which reads - Learning of association between two previously unrelated stimuli to change behaviour. The next box is cream and has a bone with the text underneath in black open dyslexic font which says - food then in the centre equals and a golden retriever puppy paying attention with the text underneath which reads salivation. The next cream box is a golden bell, with bell written underneath and then equals in the centre and the golden retriever puppy with his back to the screen with his head over his shoulder looking disinterested. The text reads - no response. The next light tab box has a golden bell and a bone with the text - bell and food then equals salivation with the puppy showing interest again approaching the screen. The final darker tan box then has a golden bell and the text bell underneath, then equals in the centre and the golden retriever puppy facing the screen again, showing interest.
 Fear and fear relapses in dogs
Lots of people don't understand why their happy go lucky puppy becomes fearful as an adolescent and why fearful behaviours suddenly develop without a negative experience. We have discussed this before in previous blogs, as well as trauma incidents that can take place without being aware of the incident at the time. 1.https://www.facebook.com/Miyagisdogtrainingandbehaviouristservices/posts/733493378573118 2.https://www.facebook.com/Miyagisdogtrainingandbehaviouristservices/posts/719448776644245 3.https://www.facebook.com/Miyagisdogtrainingandbehaviouristservices/posts/683802623542194 4.https://www.facebook.com/Miyagisdogtrainingandbehaviouristservices/posts/670293268226463 The mothers experience during pregnancy can affect fearful behaviours developing through unborn puppies, the DNA can alter due to fear, or genetically be passed on trauma. And still a previously fearful dog was selected for breeding. Behaviour has a major genetic component and many traits are both phenotypically and genetically related. Salonen, M. et al. 2020 (1) So when we ask if the parents were seen and how the parents appeared to be in their behaviour, potential puppy guardians are seeing either mother in her own safe home and not in the world and possibly a photo of father or they see both, but again in the safety of their own home. So it can be hard for the guardians to fully understand this information or lack of and correlate their dogs behaviour with that of their parents. This can be distressing for guardians, many guardians feel embarrassed or don't feel equipped to help the dog and feel lost. Many guardians who work really hard with their dog can feel emotional and some even disconnected from their dog, due to feelings of pressure from onlookers or feelings of being overwhelmed. These are all very normal and valid feelings, as humans we can contextualise this and say lovely and supportive things. When we flip this and apply this feeling and reassurance to a dog and say "Hey, I get it, anxiety sucks dude, wouldn't wish it on my worst enemy. Yes, it is a scary world out there. But you've got this and I'm going to support you." But be genuine and not use toxic positivity. Essentially that's what we're doing, we are supporting our dog and validating their feelings. I've actually had deep conversations with my youngest around his anxiety and he's made more progress than myself with my own anxiety! It's OK to have a nervous or fearful dog, it's OK if they relapse, so if they suddenly become fearful again, they are not alone. Many humans can go through fear relapses, myself included after prolonged therapy treatments. So it makes sense that a dog can too. It doesn't mean you have failed, it just means that fear is so powerful that it is life changing as it changes the brain and DNA of a dog and us. Secure attachment, having a loving and secure relationship with your dog goes beyond just obedience. It establishes a bond of mutual trust and understanding between you and your dog, which ultimately leads to a much healthier and fulfilling relationship. Securely attached dogs have been shown to show less fear due to feeling secure in their relationship and of course for rescue and adopted dogs this secure attachment has to be built slowly. Vieira de Castro, A.C. et al. 2021 (2) This is why we encourage guardians to stick with behaviour healing and remedies through learning, I recently said in one of my recent blogs, how we take information from human psychology and apply this to dogs. Here we are again. Researchers found that people with a severe fear of flying by the end of their treatment were able to fly without feeling fearful, however once they stopped attending therapy and had to face flying again, they became fearful again. Craske, M.G. et al. 2014 (4) This can also be dependent upon changes within the environment such as moving home (relocation stress and loss), or the environment becoming stressful and the dog feeling like they cannot escape the stress. In humans we see this too whereas in stressful situations the person feels that they can control slightly and shows less impaired function. Hartley. T et al 2013 (5) This is why within holistic and positive reinforcement it's important that we are careful in how we help to modify the behaviour and address the emotions of a dog who is fearful. When we change the context from the dog being reactive, to let’s break down the emotions and find out what emotion is driving the behaviour we can much better support the dog, reactivity as a label is far too large of a spectrum to label a dog and can be unhelpful. When we fully attempt to understand the emotion, we can better support the dog. Instead of saying “reactive dog” we can say my “dog struggles!” So let’s talk about the methodologies that have been applied to dogs with fearful behaviours, we know that we learn from human psychology and apply this to dogs which means that we as humans have also experienced these methods, within therapeutic settings. We can also reapply what we have learnt from dogs to humans within psychology. We know extinction isn't helpful for humans or dogs overall, exposure therapy can be extremely harmful to both humans and dogs and has been found to typically cause a fear relapse. For example, would you do something that would terrify you for an amount of money? The incentive is the financial reward, not the removal of the fear. As well as being harmful and causing further frustration and emotional distress in dogs and doesn't actually address the emotion of the fear. Extinction can also fall foul to renewal, where many of us say that training in one place such as a board and train facility does not address the fear in the dogs natural environment, so when they go home the fear is renewed because it may have been extinct at a facility away from home. So we see upset guardians who feel even more frustrated as well as the dog as the emotion has not been addressed. You may or may not have heard the term "spontaneous recovery" which is such a misleading term used by psychologists as with the word recovery, we would typically associate this with recovery. This term however means spontaneous recovery of the fear. The human or dogs fear has naturally returned. Because fear is a powerful thing that alters the brain and DNA structures. A great example of this is trauma. Due to dogs also having memories and nightmares just like us they may go through fear relapses due to the memories coming back to them of the training that they went through to become conditioned to the fear. These terms are known as reacquisition and reinstatement. Goode, T.D. and Maren, S. 2014 (6) So what can we do to help? Holistic behaviour modification through healing, focused on helping the dog from a team of professionals to support you and your dog. Coming back to the blog series of "Considering your dog holistically" looks deeply into the team that would support your dog as well as helping them through their biological needs to address emotions. https://www.facebook.com/Miyagisdogtrainingandbehaviouristservices/posts/674992084423248 https://www.facebook.com/Miyagisdogtrainingandbehaviouristservices/posts/675783994344057 https://www.facebook.com/Miyagisdogtrainingandbehaviouristservices/posts/676485464273910 https://www.facebook.com/Miyagisdogtrainingandbehaviouristservices/posts/677148814207575 https://www.facebook.com/Miyagisdogtrainingandbehaviouristservices/posts/678032940785829 https://www.facebook.com/Miyagisdogtrainingandbehaviouristservices/posts/678844610704662 https://www.facebook.com/Miyagisdogtrainingandbehaviouristservices/posts/679682080620915 Guardians can also: 1. Secure attachment: Having a loving and secure relationship with your dog establishes a bond of mutual trust and understanding between you and your dog, which ultimately leads to a much healthier and fulfilling relationship. A secure attachment with your dog means that your dog feels safe and comfortable when they're around you, and they trust you to take care of them. This trust and security leads to a healthier relationship with your dog, as and a secure basis for them meaning they're less likely to exhibit fearful behaviours. 2. Create a calming environment: dogs are sensitive to their environment; therefore, creating a calm environment by reducing loud noises, using calming scents, and providing adequate lighting can help ease tenseness and anxiety, as well as Doggy Enrichment Lands which is a couple of blogs down that prevents dogs from being woken or disturbed by traffic in the home. 3. Nutrition, a healthy digestive system is the foundation of well behaviour. A dog's behaviour is not only controlled by the environment, but also by genetic, cognitive and physiological factors. Miklosi. A, (2014). Physiological factors in turn can be affected by nutrition. Bosch. G, et al, 2007 (7) The brain is full of an amazing communication system and within this communication are neurotransmitters and hormones and both of these components can be affected by the nutrition that a dog receives and when the brain is affected negatively or positively we can see these effects manifest through behaviour. In looking at the dogs welfare this is why it is so important to ensure that our individual dog is receiving the best possible nutrition that they can receive. The gut microbiome is the most important area of looking at the dogs diet as this area is needed to remain as undisrupted as possible, a healthy guy microbiome means that the brain communication system should be working well. When the gut microbiome is affected, the healthy balance is disrupted and many changes can occur such as inflammation, infections and the production of serotonin 90% of which takes place in the small intestine can be affected. Tizard. I. R, et al 2018 If you are concerned about your dogs nutrition, speaking to a nutritionist can really help to identify your dogs individual needs. 4. Use natural remedies: There are several natural remedies for calming dogs, including chamomile, lavender, and valerian root. These can be given as supplements, or used as aromatherapy or in diffusers. Pet remedy is a fantastic natural remedy for fearful dogs and Andrew Hale of Dog centred care is the behaviour consultant for pet remedy. You can go straight to the website here and see exactly how it works, https://petremedy.co.uk/how-it-works/ if you would like to learn more about Pet Remedy, you can send an email directly to [email protected] 5. Exercise and physical activity: Physical activity and exercise are essential for dogs to maintain good mental health. Playing and walking your dog daily can help release stress and anxiety. When we look at physical activity and play it's important to be mindful that walks are based on sniffafaris rather than a human centred walk around the block or going places that dogs can find stressful such as social gatherings, markets and shows. Physical activity can also be enrichment within the home too! 6. Identify triggers: Identifying the dog's triggers and avoiding such situations may help mitigate fear responses. Rather than subjecting the dog to flooding or working through the behaviour. When guardians view a dogs fear like this, this is disabling the dog and causing the fear to become worse, show signs of shut down, learned helplessness or feel that they have to defend themselves. Working with a gentle and positive approach and focus on healing within a behaviour modification programme is going to be the foundation of helping your dog with their fear and recovery. 7. Integrative support: If the fear is severe, medication may be necessary or supplements. Consult your holistic or integrative vet for appropriate treatment that suits their needs. Integrative and fear free vets have a fantastic understanding of fear and addressing the emotions of the dog and how to help them within a multidisciplinary approach seeing the dog as an individual. Combining a multidisciplinary approach both at home, in your daily lifestyle and working with a multidisciplinary team can guide your dog to feel supported and secure in their attachment to heal the fear. In conclusion, remember that your dog hasn't failed if they do have a fear relapse, it's normal. Remember if you cannot place a trigger or a trauma to identify the fear, genetics can contribute. Work with a certified behaviourist to help you and your dog, remember holistic practitioners focus on a multidisciplinary team for supporting your dog, it isn't about ripping you off by sending you to all of these professionals but it is about helping your dog in the very best way possible to address their individual needs and support them. This will set you both up for success and offer long term support and recovery with less risk of a fear relapse. References Salonen, M. et al. (2020) Prevalence, comorbidity, and breed differences in canine anxiety in 13,700 Finnish Pet Dogs, Nature News. Nature Publishing Group. Available at: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-020-59837-z Vieira de Castro, A.C. et al. (2021) “Improving dog training methods: Efficacy and efficiency of reward and mixed training methods,” PLOS ONE, 16(2). Available at: https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0247321 Hiby, E.F., Rooney, N.J. and Bradshaw, J.W.S. (2004) “Dog training methods: Their use, effectiveness and interaction with behaviour and Welfare,” Animal Welfare, 13(1), pp. 63–69. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1017/s0962728600026683 Craske, M.G. et al. (2014) Maximising exposure therapy: An inhibitory learning approach, Behaviour research and therapy. U.S. National Library of Medicine. Available at: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4114726/ (Accessed: April 23, 2023). Hartley T; Lever C; Burgess N; O'Keefe(2013) Space in the brain: How the hippocampal formation supports spatial cognition, Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences. U.S. National Library of Medicine. Available at: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/24366125/ (Accessed: April 23, 2023). Goode, T.D. and Maren, S. (2014) Animal Models of Fear Relapse, Academic.oup.com. Oxford Academic . Available at: https://academic.oup.com/ilarj.../article/55/2/246/642875... (Accessed: April 23, 2023). Bosch, G., Beerda, B., Hendriks, W.H., van der Poel, A.F.B., Verstegen, M.W.A. (2007). Impact of nutrition on canine behaviour: current status and possible mechanisms. Nutrition Research Reviews, vol. 20, pp.180-194. Tizard IR, Jones SW. The microbiota regulates immunity and immunologic diseases in dogs and cats. Vet Clin North Am Small Anim Pract. (2018) 48:307–22. doi: 10.1016/j.cvsm.2017.10.008 Image description: titled if your dog is having a rough time. Light blue background with a spider web of text in white bubbles which reads… Breathe: Calming yourself and breathing can help you to equip yourself to help your dog Evaluate: Evaluate what's going on, any triggers or changes, use a multidisciplinary approach Rest & recovery: Allow them time to rest and recover, depending on the individual dog this can be a few days to a week Seek help: It's OK to ask for help and seek a professional, it doesn't mean you have failed. If needed seek help for yourself too! Make a plan: Forming a plan can be the best way to battle your own anxiety moving forwards Top right hand corner a girl with brown plaited hair cuddles a grey dog. The girl is wearing a green top with orange trousers. In water colour style. The left hand corner has a boy with black hair cuddling a black small dog near his lap. He is wearing a blue green t-shirt and has red trousers and black shoes. The bottom left hand corner is the same style watercolour, with an arm and hand with the flat to the dogs paw which is brown on a side view. Fear and fear relapses in dogs Lots of people don't understand why their happy go lucky puppy becomes fearful as an adolescent and why fearful behaviours suddenly develop without a negative experience. We have discussed this before in previous blogs, as well as trauma incidents that can take place without being aware of the incident at the time. 1.https://www.facebook.com/Miyagisdogtrainingandbehaviouristservices/posts/733493378573118 2.https://www.facebook.com/Miyagisdogtrainingandbehaviouristservices/posts/719448776644245 3.https://www.facebook.com/Miyagisdogtrainingandbehaviouristservices/posts/683802623542194 4.https://www.facebook.com/Miyagisdogtrainingandbehaviouristservices/posts/670293268226463 The mothers experience during pregnancy can affect fearful behaviours developing through unborn puppies, the DNA can alter due to fear, or genetically be passed on trauma. And still a previously fearful dog was selected for breeding. Behaviour has a major genetic component and many traits are both phenotypically and genetically related. Salonen, M. et al. 2020 (1) So when we ask if the parents were seen and how the parents appeared to be in their behaviour, potential puppy guardians are seeing either mother in her own safe home and not in the world and possibly a photo of father or they see both, but again in the safety of their own home. So it can be hard for the guardians to fully understand this information or lack of and correlate their dogs behaviour with that of their parents. This can be distressing for guardians, many guardians feel embarrassed or don't feel equipped to help the dog and feel lost. Many guardians who work really hard with their dog can feel emotional and some even disconnected from their dog, due to feelings of pressure from onlookers or feelings of being overwhelmed. These are all very normal and valid feelings, as humans we can contextualise this and say lovely and supportive things. When we flip this and apply this feeling and reassurance to a dog and say "Hey, I get it, anxiety sucks dude, wouldn't wish it on my worst enemy. Yes, it is a scary world out there. But you've got this and I'm going to support you." But be genuine and not use toxic positivity. Essentially that's what we're doing, we are supporting our dog and validating their feelings. I've actually had deep conversations with my youngest around his anxiety and he's made more progress than myself with my own anxiety! It's OK to have a nervous or fearful dog, it's OK if they relapse, so if they suddenly become fearful again, they are not alone. Many humans can go through fear relapses, myself included after prolonged therapy treatments. So it makes sense that a dog can too. It doesn't mean you have failed, it just means that fear is so powerful that it is life changing as it changes the brain and DNA of a dog and us. Secure attachment, having a loving and secure relationship with your dog goes beyond just obedience. It establishes a bond of mutual trust and understanding between you and your dog, which ultimately leads to a much healthier and fulfilling relationship. Securely attached dogs have been shown to show less fear due to feeling secure in their relationship and of course for rescue and adopted dogs this secure attachment has to be built slowly. Vieira de Castro, A.C. et al. 2021 (2) A Salonen, M. et al. (2020) (3) This is why we encourage guardians to stick with behaviour healing and remedies through learning, I recently said in one of my recent blogs, how we take information from human psychology and apply this to dogs. Here we are again. Researchers found that people with a severe fear of flying by the end of their treatment were able to fly without feeling fearful, however once they stopped attending therapy and had to face flying again, they became fearful again. Craske, M.G. et al. 2014 (4) This can also be dependent upon changes within the environment such as moving home (relocation stress and loss), or the environment becoming stressful and the dog feeling like they cannot escape the stress. In humans we see this too whereas in stressful situations the person feels that they can control slightly and shows less impaired function. Hartley. T et al 2013 (5) This is why within holistic and positive reinforcement it's important that we are careful in how we help to modify the behaviour and address the emotions of a dog who is fearful. When we change the context from the dog being reactive, to let’s break down the emotions and find out what emotion is driving the behaviour we can much better support the dog, reactivity as a label is far too large of a spectrum to label a dog and can be unhelpful. When we fully attempt to understand the emotion, we can better support the dog. Instead of saying “reactive dog” we can say my “dog struggles!” So let’s talk about the methodologies that have been applied to dogs with fearful behaviours, we know that we learn from human psychology and apply this to dogs which means that we as humans have also experienced these methods, within therapeutic settings. We can also reapply what we have learnt from dogs to humans within psychology. We know extinction isn't helpful for humans or dogs over all, exposure therapy can be extremely harmful to both humans and dogs and has been found to typically cause a fear relapse. For example, would you do something that would terrify you for an amount of money? The incentive is the financial reward, not the removal of the fear. As well as being harmful and causing further frustration and emotional distress in dogs and doesn't actually address the emotion of the fear. Extinction can also fall foul to renewal, where many of us say that training in one place such as a board and train facility does not address the fear in the dogs natural environment, so when they go home the fear is renewed because it may have been extinct at a facility away from home. So we see upset guardians who feel that their needs have not been addressed. You may or may not have heard the term "spontaneous recovery" which is such a misleading term used by psychologists as with the word recovery, we would typically associate this with recovery. This term however means spontaneous recovery of the fear. The human or dogs fear has naturally returned. Because fear is a powerful thing that alters the brain and DNA structures. A great example of this is trauma. Due to dogs also having memories and nightmares just like us they may go through fear relapses due to the memories coming back to them of the training that they went through to become conditioned to the fear. These terms are known as reacquisition and reinstatement. Goode, T.D. and Maren, S. 2014 (6) So what can we do to help? Holistic behaviour modification through healing, focused on helping the dog from a team of professionals to support you and your dog. Coming back to the blog series of "Considering your dog holistically" looks deeply into the team that would support your dog as well as helping them through their biological needs to address emotions. https://www.facebook.com/Miyagisdogtrainingandbehaviouristservices/posts/674992084423248 https://www.facebook.com/Miyagisdogtrainingandbehaviouristservices/posts/675783994344057 https://www.facebook.com/Miyagisdogtrainingandbehaviouristservices/posts/676485464273910 https://www.facebook.com/Miyagisdogtrainingandbehaviouristservices/posts/677148814207575 https://www.facebook.com/Miyagisdogtrainingandbehaviouristservices/posts/678032940785829 https://www.facebook.com/Miyagisdogtrainingandbehaviouristservices/posts/678844610704662 https://www.facebook.com/Miyagisdogtrainingandbehaviouristservices/posts/679682080620915 Guardians can also: 1. Secure attachment: Having a loving and secure relationship with your dog establishes a bond of mutual trust and understanding between you and your dog, which ultimately leads to a much healthier and fulfilling relationship. A secure attachment with your dog means that your dog feels safe and comfortable when they're around you, and they trust you to take care of them. This trust and security leads to a healthier relationship with your dog, as and a secure basis for them meaning they're less likely to exhibit fearful behaviours. 2. Create a calming environment: dogs are sensitive to their environment; therefore, creating a calm environment by reducing loud noises, using calming scents, and providing adequate lighting can help ease tenseness and anxiety, as well as Doggy Enrichment Lands which is a couple of blogs down that prevents dogs from being woken or disturbed by traffic in the home. 3. Nutrition, a healthy digestive system is the foundation of well behaviour. A dog's behaviour is not only controlled by the environment, but also by genetic, cognitive and physiological factors. Miklosi. A, (2014). Physiological factors in turn can be affected by nutrition. Bosch. G, et al, 2007 (7) The brain is full of an amazing communication system and within this communication are neurotransmitters and hormones and both of these components can be affected by the nutrition that a dog receives and when the brain is affected negatively or positively we can see these effects manifest through behaviour. In looking at the dogs welfare this is why it is so important to ensure that our individual dog is receiving the best possible nutrition that they can receive. The gut microbiome is the most important area of looking at the dogs diet as this area is needed to remain as undisrupted as possible, a healthy guy microbiome means that the brain communication system should be working well. When the gut microbiome is affected, the healthy balance is disrupted and many changes can occur such as inflammation, infections and the production of serotonin 90% of which takes place in the small intestine can be affected. Tizard. I. R, et al 2018 If you are concerned about your dogs nutrition, speaking to a nutritionist can really help to identify your dogs individual needs. 4. Use natural remedies: There are several natural remedies for calming dogs, including chamomile, lavender, and valerian root. These can be given as supplements, or used as aromatherapy or in diffusers. Pet remedy is a fantastic natural remedy for fearful dogs and Andrew Hale of Dog centred care is the behaviour consultant for pet remedy. You can go straight to the website here and see exactly how it works, https://petremedy.co.uk/how-it-works/ if you would like to learn more about Pet Remedy, you can send an email directly to [email protected] 5. Exercise and physical activity: Physical activity and exercise are essential for dogs to maintain good mental health. Playing and walking your dog daily can help release stress and anxiety. When we look at physical activity and play it's important to be mindful that walks are based on sniffafaris rather than a human centred walk around the block or going places that dogs can find stressful such as social gatherings, markets and shows. Physical activity can also be enrichment within the home too! 6. Identify triggers: Identifying the dog's triggers and avoiding such situations may help mitigate fear responses. Rather than subjecting the dog to flooding or working through the behaviour. When guardians view a dogs fear like this, this is disabling the dog and causing the fear to become worse, show signs of shut down, learned helplessness or feel that they have to defend themselves. Working with a gentle and positive approach and focus on healing within a behaviour modification programme is going to be the foundation of helping your dog with their fear and recovery. 7. Integrative support: If the fear is severe, medication may be necessary or supplements. Consult your holistic or integrative vet for appropriate treatment that suits their needs. Integrative and fear free vets have a fantastic understanding of fear and addressing the emotions of the dog and how to help them within a multidisciplinary approach seeing the dog as an individual. Combining a multidisciplinary approach both at home, in your daily lifestyle and working with a multidisciplinary team can guide your dog to feel supported and secure in their attachment to heal the fear. In conclusion, remember that your dog hasn't failed if they do have a fear relapse, it's normal. Remember if you cannot place a trigger or a trauma to identify the fear, genetics can contribute. Work with a certified behaviourist to help you and your dog, remember holistic practitioners focus on a multidisciplinary team for supporting your dog, it isn't about ripping you off by sending you to all of these professionals but it is about helping your dog in the very best way possible to address their individual needs and support them. This will set you both up for success and offer long term support and recovery with less risk of a fear relapse. References Salonen, M. et al. (2020) Prevalence, comorbidity, and breed differences in canine anxiety in 13,700 Finnish Pet Dogs, Nature News. Nature Publishing Group. Available at: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-020-59837-z Vieira de Castro, A.C. et al. (2021) “Improving dog training methods: Efficacy and efficiency of reward and mixed training methods,” PLOS ONE, 16(2). Available at: https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0247321 Hiby, E.F., Rooney, N.J. and Bradshaw, J.W.S. (2004) “Dog training methods: Their use, effectiveness and interaction with behaviour and Welfare,” Animal Welfare, 13(1), pp. 63–69. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1017/s0962728600026683 Craske, M.G. et al. (2014) Maximising exposure therapy: An inhibitory learning approach, Behaviour research and therapy. U.S. National Library of Medicine. Available at: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4114726/ (Accessed: April 23, 2023). Hartley T; Lever C; Burgess N; O'Keefe(2013) Space in the brain: How the hippocampal formation supports spatial cognition, Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences. U.S. National Library of Medicine. Available at: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/24366125/ (Accessed: April 23, 2023). Goode, T.D. and Maren, S. (2014) Animal Models of Fear Relapse, Academic.oup.com. Oxford Academic . Available at: https://academic.oup.com/ilarj.../article/55/2/246/642875... (Accessed: April 23, 2023). Bosch, G., Beerda, B., Hendriks, W.H., van der Poel, A.F.B., Verstegen, M.W.A. (2007). Impact of nutrition on canine behaviour: current status and possible mechanisms. Nutrition Research Reviews, vol. 20, pp.180-194. Tizard IR, Jones SW. The microbiota regulates immunity and immunologic diseases in dogs and cats. Vet Clin North Am Small Anim Pract. (2018) 48:307–22. doi: 10.1016/j.cvsm.2017.10.008 Image description: titled if your dog is having a rough time. Light blue background with a spider web of text in white bubbles which reads… Breathe: Calming yourself and breathing can help you to equip yourself to help your dog Evaluate: Evaluate what's going on, any triggers or changes, use a multidisciplinary approach Image description: Rest & recovery: Allow them time to rest and recover, depending on the individual dog this can be a few days to a week Seek help: It's OK to ask for help and seek a professional, it doesn't mean you have failed. If needed seek help for yourself too! Make a plan: Forming a plan can be the best way to battle your own anxiety moving forwards Top right hand corner a girl with brown plaited hair cuddles a grey dog. The girl is wearing a green top with orange trousers. In water colour style. The left hand corner has a boy with black hair cuddling a black small dog near his lap. He is wearing a blue green t-shirt and has red trousers and black shoes. The bottom left hand corner is the same style watercolour, with an arm and hand with the flat to the dogs paw which is brown on a side view. |
BlogFor Mutts & Mischief If you enjoy my blogs and
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Or are you looking for support and would like to get to know us better?
If the answer is yes then click the image below to join my free facebook group. What is Mutts & Mischief Community?
So it is what it says on the tin! Its a community that is international of clients and colleagues with the most supportive and friendly people on the planet. Dog Trainers and behaviourists from all over the world!
Why did I set up such a mammoth group?
I wanted to have a group exclusively for clients. For support and build on friendships from classes or individual consults. I want clients to see you are not alone with your dog and the problem you maybe having that you are not the first and won't be the last! I wanted a safe place where clients could trade stories good and bad in one place for free!
I also wanted a safe place for the trainers and behaviourists I mentor too.
Why do this for free?
Because when I say I offer an holistic service I really do. It isn't about the money it is about you and your dogs. You and your dogs are all that matter.
So I wanted to encourage people to do homework and build better quality relationships with their dogs. So 5 years ago I had a mad idea and set up the 100 days of dog training challenge in 2019. Once a day people would spend 5 minutes plus training their dog. Recording it and uploading their video onto the community. Every participant recieved a certificate.
What I didn't count on was how many professionals wanted to join and how fast word would spread. So in 2020 I set up a 366 days of dog training challenge.
We have clients in America, Greece, Norway, Denmark and Spain. We have Trainers from Greece, Norway, Isle of Wight, America and many more countries. As well as dog trainers and trainee behaviourists: I mentor all over the world.
So yes this group is free. It is still primarily for clients and for people to get to know me but we now have Pawsitive Wednesdays running, where I share a narrated free video tutorial for you to try with your dog and all are welcome to upload their video to the group for support from members!
What are you waiting for? Come and join us!!
So it is what it says on the tin! Its a community that is international of clients and colleagues with the most supportive and friendly people on the planet. Dog Trainers and behaviourists from all over the world!
Why did I set up such a mammoth group?
I wanted to have a group exclusively for clients. For support and build on friendships from classes or individual consults. I want clients to see you are not alone with your dog and the problem you maybe having that you are not the first and won't be the last! I wanted a safe place where clients could trade stories good and bad in one place for free!
I also wanted a safe place for the trainers and behaviourists I mentor too.
Why do this for free?
Because when I say I offer an holistic service I really do. It isn't about the money it is about you and your dogs. You and your dogs are all that matter.
So I wanted to encourage people to do homework and build better quality relationships with their dogs. So 5 years ago I had a mad idea and set up the 100 days of dog training challenge in 2019. Once a day people would spend 5 minutes plus training their dog. Recording it and uploading their video onto the community. Every participant recieved a certificate.
What I didn't count on was how many professionals wanted to join and how fast word would spread. So in 2020 I set up a 366 days of dog training challenge.
We have clients in America, Greece, Norway, Denmark and Spain. We have Trainers from Greece, Norway, Isle of Wight, America and many more countries. As well as dog trainers and trainee behaviourists: I mentor all over the world.
So yes this group is free. It is still primarily for clients and for people to get to know me but we now have Pawsitive Wednesdays running, where I share a narrated free video tutorial for you to try with your dog and all are welcome to upload their video to the group for support from members!
What are you waiting for? Come and join us!!
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