Dog Training: How to Be Your Dog's Stress Buffer
Step One: Make the Dog Feel Safe
Originally published in slightly different form on May 1, 2012 at PsychologyToday.com.
Understanding Aggression for What It Is and What It Isn’t Dogs with behavioral problems have two issues that need to be addressed: fear and aggression. This is especially true of some, though not all, rescue dogs, However, in my view almost all aggression is based on fear. As a result, one of the first steps in creating a therapeutic, healing environment for aggressive rescue dogs is to see these traumatized dogs primarily as being scared and nervous, not mean or vicious.
It’s also important to realize that there’s a spectrum of aggressive-type behaviors, but that real aggression involves actual biting of another dog or person. Lunging, barking, growling, etc., are signs of aggression but true, outright aggression is defined as actual biting. (Biting squirrels, birds, etc., or humans on bicycles, roller blades, skateboards, etc., is usually considered predatory aggression.) There’s also a difference between aggressive behavior and dominance. Personally, I don’t think the urge to dominate others is ever a real impulse in canine behavior. In fact, in nature dominance seems primarily to be a by-product of stress. In wolves, particularly, there seems to be a strong correlation between environmental stressors and dominant behaviors.[1] The same is true for many of the dogs I’ve worked with. I’ve known quite a few who’ve been saddled with the “dominant” label, but found that if they’re given an outlet for their internal stress, their dominant tendencies quickly disappear. That said, moving to a new home is third or fourth on the list of most stressful experiences for human beings (after the death of a loved one, a divorce, and losing a job). So imagine how stressed a rescue dog—who’s either been dropped off at a shelter or abandoned by the side of the road—must be. Dominance and Aggression Are Not the Same Thing Since there’s a great deal of confusion about dominance, both in the popular media and even in scientific inquiry, it’s probably important to deal with one of the more popular proponents of this mistaken idea, Cesar Millan.
In an April, 2012 blog post at PsychologyToday.com Dr. Marc Bekoff rightly expressed his objections to a video showing Cesar Millan using a harsh technique to “rehabilitate” an aggressive Siberian husky. Often called “hanging,” this old-school technique is just a matter of lifting up on the dog’s collar with enough pressure to raise his front paws off the ground because without the stability of all four paws planted firmly beneath him, the dog has less force at his disposal when trying to bite his owner, handler, or another dog This is not a training technique, nor is it therapeutic. It’s only a management tool, one that in my opinion should never be used except in an emergency, and even then only for a second or two, and solely to prevent injury, and never as a form of punishment. “Would you do this to a child?” some have asked. The way I described it, yes. If a small child were about to step off the curb in front of an oncoming car, you might have to grab him by the collar to prevent him from being hurt, though of course you wouldn’t keep the pressure on his collar once the danger passed. You might also grab the collar of a furious, out-of-control child who is about to hurt someone. Besides the fact that Millan keeps stringing up the husky, repeatedly, the real problem for me is Millan’s belief that the dog was acting dominant and had to be taught who’s the pack leader, an unfortunate yet common outgrowth of the idea that dogs and wolves form social hierarchies. Because Millan firmly believes in this outdated idea, he didn’t use this technique the way it should be used, as a very brief and momentary means of keeping the dog from biting you or someone else. To review: So-called dominant and submissive behaviors are actually by-products of stress. If your dog has a direct approach to life in general, and becomes stressed, he will likely exhibit what are mistakenly called dominant behaviors. If he has an indirect approach and becomes stressed, he'll appear to be fearful or submissive.
Rescue dogs are often stressed to the max. So when you see what is often perceived as dominance in a rescue dog, it is, without question, stress-related. But when people see what they think of as submissiveness in a rescue dog, they're much less likely to use harsh physical punishments to “solve the problem.” So the best way to deal with all rescue dogs is to act in as non-threatening a way as possible. This means it's much more important to be a stress buffer for your dog than it is to be his or her supposed pack leader. Safety First! So now that we’ve outlined what aggression is and isn’t, how do you start working towards a cure? I think there are 5 basic steps.
Management: Human safety trumps the dog’s safety. This means that if a dog’s behavior is pegging the meter more toward the aggressive side of things, you need to use management tools to prevent him or her from harming another dog or a human being.[3] Routine: All dogs like knowing “the skinny,” having a routine. Rescue dogs are no different. Your dog’s routine should include lots of outdoor exercise, preferably hard, vigorous outdoor play in a secure location.[4] 5 Core Exercise s : Every rescue dog should be hand fed all his meals outdoors, using what’s called The Pushing Exercise. (Follow the instructions carefully.) This is one of 5 Core Exercises used in Natural Dog Training. The other four are: the collecting exercise, playing various versions of fetch and tug-of-war, teaching the dog to speak on command, and pleasurable deep-tissue massage, primarily of the dog's shoulders, topline, and haunches to induce the dog into a relaxed down. Impulse Control: Use the pushing exercise to teach your dog to jump up on command, then teach him by contrast to only jump up when the command is given first. “The Eyes” exercise, developed by Kevin Behan in the late 1980s, can also be a good impulse-control game. (If you’re already familiar with “Watch Me,” switch to doing the original “Eyes” exercise instead and you’ll see a remarkable difference in just a few days.) Slowly teaching the dog to hold a long down/stay is another good exercise. Outlets: Your dog will need some sort of outlet for his aggression in order to heal emotionally. Tug-of-war, fetch, and any games that satisfy some aspect of your dog’s predatory sequence are the best outlets. Please be sure you obey the rules concerning tug-of-war: always (or almost always) let the dog win and praise him for winning, if your dog becomes the slightest bit distracted either switch to playing another game he likes or quit playing altogether for the time being, and always quit before the dog gets tired or bored with the game. However, if you dog doesn't know it's just a game, don't play until you've smoothed out some of the rough edges of his personality through some of the previous steps. If the dog won’t play with you, don’t worry. Keep doing the other core exercises and his reluctance should start to slowly fade away. Rome Wasn’t Built in a Day As you work with your dog, and develop a trusting relationship, there may be long stretches of emotionally sunny days when things seem to be going amazingly well, and you start to think the dog might be getting close to being cured. But then come those other days, the days and weeks of doom and gloom when you feel like you haven’t made any progress at all. This is normal. Just keep four things in mind during these ups and downs.
First, Rome wasn’t built in a day. This means that the relationship with your dog will last a lifetime. And, in all likelihood, things will be very different than what you might see happening on a 30-minute TV show, meaning the problem won't be solved in a single episode with a lot of editing and dramatic music to heighten the drama. The slower you go, the faster you'll get there, and by "there" I mean to a full resolution, not just to an outcome that looks good on TV yet doesn't hold in the long run.
Second, truly aggressive dogs are dangerous. Don’t let the affection you have for your dog, and that she has for you, blind you to this fact. No amount of affection is likely to cure aggression on its own. The dog needs structure, a predictable routine, the ability to learn impulse control, and to be given a safe and acceptable outlet for his or her aggression. A little physical affection is fine. But if overused it can get in the way of the healing process. The third thing to keep in mind is that except in extreme cases, no matter how aggressive a dog is, there’s almost always a calm, stable, friendly dog inside who’s just longing to be let out to play. Finally, remember that all dogs are good dogs at heart. LCK “Life Is an Adventure—Where Will Your Dog Take You?”
Footnotes: 1) David Mech, for example, wrote in 1999 that in 13 summers of studying the wolves at Ellesmere Island he saw no dominance displays. Yet in studying the Ellesmere wolves in the winter he seems to have reversed himself, saying now that dominance is a common characteristic of pack behavior. The packs he observed during those 13 summers were small, organic family units. The wolves he’s been observing recently, in the winter months, are much bigger in size, with up to 20 wolves in one pack. Perhaps too large to sustain their size, creating more stress on the individual pack members. 2) Management tools include a crate, a sturdy leash and collar, perhaps even a prong collar in some cases, depending on the dog’s size. (You should never use a head halter.) If it’s necessary, a good sturdy muzzle may also be in order. I prefer the “basket” kind. Another management tool is the NILIF program, short for Nothing In Life Is Free. However, this structured routine was created by William Campbell in his book Behavior Problems in Dogs. Campbell called it the No-Free-Lunch Program, and one of his rationals for using it was to prove the unscientific nature and ineffectiveness of the dominance paradigm. It has often been applied incorrectly, as a way of showing the dog who’s dominant, etc. It's really about bringing out the sweetness, stillness, and resilience in dogs.
