4 Levels of Emotional Trauma in Dogs
Bruised, Wounded, Injured and Damaged
Two things came up this week which prompted this post.
First, a member of the Natural Dog Training community who was in New York to visit friends, dropped by my Rescue Dog Owners Support Group. We’d met once before a few years ago. In the course of our conversation she described her own rescue dog’s behavior and the various attempts at treatment she’d given the dog. The dog has been helped a great deal, but she’s not totally “fixed,” and may never be. That doesn't mean the dog isn’t capable of giving and receiving love. But she does require a lot of management.
The second thing came up while I was browsing through Facebook and found this assessment on the nature of fear from Maureen Backman, a self-identified “positive trainer” living in San Francisco.
On her website, Mutt About Town, Backman writes: "When I meet with clients, we discuss how small daily adjustments help dial down the stress:
Giving the dog a safe space in the home away from noise and triggers.
Providing puzzle toys and games to give the dog moments of joy during the day.
Moving walking routes to a less stressful location.
Teaching coping skills to help the dog stay calm in stressful situations.
None of these adjustments “fixes” fear. And, as we know … fear is easy to install and difficult, perhaps impossible, to fully extinguish.
Fear = Feeling Off Balance
First, I would say that “extinguishing” fear depends on two things: 1) the kind of therapeutic approach being used. (I wouldn’t describe this process as attempting to “extinguish” the fear but rather helping the dog release the fearful feelings that are stuck in his body.) And 2) how deeply stressed, emotionally wounded, or traumatized the dog is.
Beyond that, I’d add that all fear—whether in dogs or humans—is based on a feeling of falling or losing one’s balance. So puzzle toys and “coping skills” (whatever those skills might be) will have little or no effect on helping the dog become more balanced physically and emotionally unless they address this underlying issue. Puzzle toys might help the dog focus on something else momentarily, but they won’t dissipate his fears; they’ll continue to stay lurking beneath the surface.
On the other hand, there are certain training exercises specifically designed around the idea that fear = a feeling of losing one’s balance, and thus are generally able to extinguish a dog’s fears completely. This is why tug-of-war is so therapeutic; it involves repeatedly losing and regaining one’s balance while at the same biting down hard on the tug toy: the ultimate tension release for dogs.
That said, I do agree that in extreme cases some fears are difficult if not impossible to overcome. With that in mind, I think it’s helpful to understand the 4 levels of emotional trauma/distress which are analogues of physical trauma and distress: 1) bruised, 2) wounded, 3) injured and 4) damaged.
4 Levels of Emotional Trauma
While physical bruises can be painful they usually heal on their own, in time. Emotional bruises can usually be healed in the same way.
Just as physical wounds don’t heal as easily as bruises do, and thus, need some form of treatment, emotional wounds also take time to heal.
Just as physical injuries require even more care and treatment, the same is true for emotional injuries.
At the far end of the scale comes physical and emotional damage, neither of which can be undone except in very rare cases.
None of these dogs should be thought of as “defective” or unworthy of our love. Inside of every “bad dog” is a good dog who’s been subjected to some form of trauma or mistreatment (which can also include situations where the owner has given the dog too much positive attention).
This doesn’t mean that emotionally “injured” or emotionally “damaged” dogs shouldn’t be loved, cared for, and taken care of as much (or even more) than dogs who haven’t been subjected to such deep physical or emotional trauma. And it doesn’t mean that owners should give up on their dogs. It just means that the owners of such dogs have to be more careful and realistic.
Backman writes: “Viewing training for fearful dogs through the lens of ‘fixing’ is unhelpful; fearful dogs are not ‘broken…’ They have the capacity to learn, to form new neural connections, to develop new associations with the environment, and to communicate via body language.”
The 5 Core Exercises
Actually, just as a dog’s bones can be broken, so can their psyches. Plus, with very severe cases of physical and emotional trauma it’s almost impossible for a dog or human to form new neural connections. That’s because each time a fearful, traumatic memory is re-triggered, the dog re-lives the event as if it were happening again for the first time. When this happens, the dog’s brain is flooded with stress hormones, which is part of what makes emotional disturbances such an insidious problem to solve. The dog’s brain shows a signature similar to that seen in the brains of people with traumatic brain injury, causing significant long-term changes in brain connectivity, making treatment and recovery more difficult than with other behavioral/emotional problems.
“PTSD, depression, and other psychiatric disorders cause what is called ‘negative neuroplasticity,’ including activation of abnormal circuitry in the brain, and strengthening of those circuits over time. They also cause shrinkage … and decreased connectivity between parts of the brain.” —David J. Hellerstein, M.D.
This often results in actual, physical—and sometimes irreversible—brain damage.
Backman: “Fearful dogs gain confidence and feelings of safety on their own timelines. Their internal states ebb and flow depending on body chemistry and the environment. What separates fearful from non-fearful dogs is not the fact they are broken, but the fact they need specific tools and management to exist with a little more ease and a little less fear.”
I would suggest that what separates fearful from non-fearful dogs is the amount of physical or emotional trauma, abuse, or neglect they’ve suffered.
As for tools and management, they should include the 5 Core Exercises of Natural Dog Training: 1) Pushing for Food, 2) Collecting, 3) Barking on Command, 4) Deep Tissue Massage of the Shoulders, and 5) Bite and Carry: playing tug (90%) and fetch (10%), where the dog always brings the toy back for another round.
The main thing to realize is that even dogs who’ve been subjected to serious forms of physical abuse and trauma still have loving hearts. They just have serious trust issues.
LCK
“Life Is an Adventure—Where Will Your Dog Take You?”
