Behind the Behavior

Christine Hibbard, CTC, CPDT

Please come and join us for Catapalooza at The Humane Society for Seattle/King County on Sunday, August 10th from 10:00am to 5:00pm. Catapalooza is a celebration of everything cats! In addition to cat adoptions, there will be educational booths, demonstrations, and presentations on cat behavior and cat issues. Dr. Jim Ha will be giving presentations on cat behavior at 12:45 and 3:00. We’ll also be staffing the “Ask the Trainer” booth where you can ask any cat related questions. Companion Animal Solutions will have a booth at this event, so stop by and say “Hello”!

The Humane Society for Seattle/King County is located at: 13212 WE Eastgate Way in Bellevue, WA 98005. If you’d like more information, you can contact us at info@companionanimalsolutions.com, 206-953-0703.

Jim Ha, PhD, CAAB

I just got back from a three week vacation in the Florida Keys. Even on vacation, I am involved in animal behavior. I grew up in the Keys and left there when I was about 14 years old, returned several times in the ‘70’s while I was in college on the East Coast, but in 2002, I had not returned since a brief visit in 1982. In 2002, with a wife and a nine year old son who had never seen Florida, much less the Keys, we returned, and we all fell in love (again, for me) with the string of 142 islands extending south of Miami to Key West, a mere 90 miles from Havana (130 miles from Miami!). It’s got a laid back Caribbean attitude, the feeling of small towns and islands (those who love the San Juan Islands will know what I mean: I get the same island feeling there), beautiful weather, and yet, U.S. amenities, currency, domestic airfare status, language, and all of the other good (and of course, bad) things that go with being part of the United States.

And it has the best all-around fishing in the world. I grew up fishing the Keys, of course, where you catch something within minutes (seconds, even) of dropping your line in the water, where you never know what you’ll catch (snapper or grouper one second, a parrotfish the next, and the next, a shark). There are at least four fundamental styles of fishing from which to choose: flats (the shallow warm-water home of bonefish, permit and sharks), backcountry (fishing the mangrove swamps of the Everglades for redfish, sea trout, and groupers), the reef (home of snapper, grouper, jacks, and barracuda), and off-shore (the big-game fishing of Zane Grey and Ernest Hemingway for dolphinfish, sailfish, tuna, and marlin).

My wife and son and I enjoyed our first fishing so much, from bridges throughout the Keys, that we bought a 17-foot boat that we keep in dry storage in Marathon, our favorite part of the Keys. We have begun to improve our proficiency at reef fishing, the type of fishing which requires the least skill and specialized equipment. I view, in many ways, fishing as simply aquatic applied animal behavior. You have to know your species, their typical behavior patterns and haunts, well enough to be able to predict how they will react to certain stimuli, like oh, say, a live shrimp or a feathered lure dangled in front of them. You need to know a lot about their sensory systems, movement patterns, food habits and triggers for feeding behavior, and of course, you need to apply this information appropriately to be successful. The same can be said of hunting, or of wildlife photography (another hobby of my son’s). For a professional animal behaviorist who loves his work, what’s not to like.

So for my recent 50th birthday (aaah, that’s a big one), I promised myself that I would begin to move my fishing expertise to a new level, by hiring a guide(s) to explore some other kinds of Keys fishing on my next visit; indeed, to plan our next trip around some serious fishing experiences. And thus, three weeks in the Keys, with an emphasis on fishing. We got our boat in the water, of course, and had a blast fishing the reefs of both the Atlantic Ocean and Florida Bay: snapper of three species, houndfish, grunts, chubs, and more. Even my mother, in her very spry 70’s, came out and fished (although she says she was along just to watch the sunsets!). But the big treats included an off-shore trip on a 28-foot twin outboard powerboat rigged with multiple trolling rods and lures, where we did what is called ‘run and gun’ for offshore species like dolphinfish and tuna. This involves heading out beyond the reef, about nine miles offshore, and watching for ocean birds which have located schools of baitfish. Where the birds are attacking the baitfish from above, there are usually big-game fish attacking from below (aha, more applied animal behavior!). We spent six hours from 9-18 miles offshore in the Gulf Stream, in 5-8 foot swells, straining our eyes at the horizon to see feeding birds, running to meet up with them, and trolling our (hopefully enticing) lures nearby. The result: seven dolphinfish and five small tunas, all 6-8 pounds each and all great eating. There is NOTHING like tuna salad made with truly fresh tuna!

Two other mornings were early ones: flats fishing, the epitome of stalking in which you are positioning yourself on flats that are 2-3 feet deep, and watching for visible signs of fish to move across the flats: bonefish, rays and skates, permit, redfish, sharks, even tarpon over 100 pounds, all on the flats to feed on shrimp, crabs, and clams and snails. My experience flats-fishing the Keys in my next blog.

Greta Kaplan, CPDT, CDBC

Some time ago, I received an email from someone who wanted to enroll her dog in my Feisty Fido class.  The dog was a young adult, male gundog mix.  I talked to Mrs. Owner, and determined that the dog had inflicted one significant puncture bite to another dog, so I decided he probably was not a good candidate for the class. We made a private appointment.  What a learning experience this turned into!

Mr. Owner came to the first meeting of the class, upon invitation, as it’s a good introduction to a lot of the concepts we’d be using in our private work.  He indicated that he knew how to train a dog, and the dog was trained, but they needed help with this dog aggression problem.

When I went to see the dog at his home, I was met at the door by Mrs. Owner and the dog.  The two young kids were also there.  The dog was nervous at the door, approaching me slowly with his weight shifted to the rear, ears back, big eyes.  I pretty much ignored him as I introduced myself to the family.  After a couple of minutes, the dog realized I had treats and approached to get one.  He relaxed a lot and engaged with me readily.  I introduced him to the clicker and he was a very quick study, obviously enjoying the interaction.  He was a very sweet, bright, pleasant dog once he got past that initial caution.

Later in the session, I brought my dog in with me.  She doesn’t particularly like meeting other dogs, but is happy to work if they don’t greet her.  We put the dog on leash and had them do down stays several feet apart.  My client dog appeared nervous, turning his head away from my Aussie, flicking his tongue, and then, as she got a little closer, lifting his lip.  He gave plenty of quiet warnings to express his discomfort.  We gave the dogs a break from each other and I talked to Mrs. Owner (Mr. Owner was absent).

First, I asked her if she had seen that her dog was uncomfortable. She said no!  I asked if she had observed his ears – no.  How about the head turn?  Nope.  And the lifted lip?  Not that either.  Then I asked if she noticed that he’d been afraid of me when I came in the house.  No!  She thought of him as very enthusiastically friendly to people and had never noticed the (to me) obvious caution in his body language when a stranger came through the door.

I brought my dog back over and repeated the approach.  I told her to stare at her dog’s head, eyes, ears and lips and not to look at me or my dog at all.  When I glanced up at her, I could see understanding flooding her expression.  The signs were there, and they weren’t even that subtle, but she had just never been looking at her dog when he gave them.

We talked about the incident where he had bitten another dog.  Here is what happened.  Mr. Owner had taken the dog on a hunting trip with a couple of other guys and a couple of other dogs, Labs.  One of the Labs was younger than my client dog, and had been very interested in socializing.  He’d initiated play many times as the hunters hiked toward their destination.  Finally, several hours into the first day, my client dog snarled and snapped at the young Lab.  Mr. Owner was angry and unhappy, so he flipped his dog onto his back and had the young Lab brought over to stand over my client dog.  At that point, my client dog broke Mr. Owner’s hold, lunged up, and bit the Lab on the mouth, slicing open his tongue.  The bleeding was bad (tongue injuries bleed terribly) so the men cut short their trip and headed home to get vet care for the young Labrador.

There is no doubt in my mind that my client dog had some normal social sensitivity to proximity before this incident.  The Lab probably had gotten on his last nerve by the time my client dog snarled.  Then, he was trapped into a confrontation; he must have been terrified!  I’m sure he thought he was fighting for his life by that point.  Yet, all the blame was laid at the feet of my client dog, who was the true victim in this situation.  No wonder he’d developed more reactivity to other dogs!

This case has a happy ending.  Once I explained that (a) their dog was just a bit nervous, and that they could see it all coming by watching him, that (b) his fear had been greatly and justifiably increased by the hunting trip incident, and that (c) his social caution was normal, they agreed to let him have his space.  They contacted me later to exclaim over how obvious it now was to them that he was nervous when visitors entered!  They chose to give him a safe space when the kids had friends over, instead of insisting that he cope.  The dog relaxed hugely and is now a loved, accepted family member.

All I did for these folks, when it comes right down to it, is this.  I had them watch their dog.  Ten seconds of watching his face did all the work!

James Ha, PhD, CAAB

Here’s a question for all of you dog trainers (and that should be just about everyone who has a dog)… how often should you train a dog? Many of us in this business would, of course, say, “as often as possible… please!” But that is not quite what I mean: from a scientific point-of-view, what is the optimum frequency of dog training… once a day, once a week, once a month? Again, many of us would answer, “as frequently as possible, within the attention span of our dog.” But surprisingly perhaps, there is very little information in the scientific literature about the optimum frequency for training, especially for dogs.

A few trainers like Bailey (1995) and Abrantes (2000) have provided some guidelines, generally “from once to several times a day” but provide no scientific evidence for such statements, which seem to me to fall into the “well, the more often, the better seems to make sense” category. And this issue would be a challenging one to test experimentally because most such research is done with dogs from widely varying rearing and training backgrounds, so that very large sample sizes would be required to determine accurately the answer to such a simple question.

In other species, like rats, horses and humans, there is some evidence that in almost all cases (with some interesting exceptions), more widely spaced training (say, weekly training sessions) are more effective (that is, fewer training sessions are required) than “massed” training sessions (multiple/day). The exceptions have to do with training certain behaviors in yearling horses, and in the decline versus the reoccurrence of fear behavior in humans, where prevention of reocccurrence is decreased by spaced training.

So what about dogs? In a recent paper in the journal Applied Animal Behavior Science, Dutch researchers Iben Meyer and Jan Ladewig tested laboratory beagles, all raised in a very similar fashion (thus removing the differential rearing confounding variable from the mix), on a simple standardized learning task. This task, broken into four stages, was to move one meter from the trainer and touch a pad on the floor with a front paw. The trainer used a clicker as a secondary reinforcer and a food treat as a primary reinforcer, very much as we do in a lot of our behavior counter-conditioning work. Eighteen beagles were divided into two equal groups: one group trained once per week, and the other trained for five days per week. So which group learned the task, to 80% accuracy, in the least amount of time, and which group learned the task in the fewest number of training sessions?

Well, somewhat surprisingly to many trainers and owners, the once-per-week trainees learned the task equally well but in signficantly fewer training sessions, an average of 6.7 sessions, than the 5-times-per-week group, who achieved proficiency in an average of 9.0 sessions. But if the difference in training rate is five-fold (once per week to 5-times-per-week), that should mean that the more-frequent-training group took fewer total days to learn their task: more training sessions but fewer days overall. That was indeed true: once-a-weekers took a total of 46.7 days and more frequent trainees took only 11.4 days, on average.

So this work reinforces, in dogs, some of the basic conclusions that have been demonstrated in rats and horses. It eliminates a huge potentially confounding rearing background problem by using one breed all reared in the same way, but of course, tells us nothing about possible genetic differences among breeds or the longterm implications: do dogs trained over a longer time period (in fewer training sessions) retain that learning better or worse than dogs trained more intensively? We would suggest from limited information from other species (but using a model of common evolutionary descent among mammals) that spaced training should produce longer, better retention of learned material. But we will have to wait for the research study to be done and published to know for sure.

Jim Ha, PhD, CAAB

Behavior has many causes: this is a general statement that many people believe is true, and it often causes people to extend the conclusion to one that suggests that we can never understand behavior, that it will always remain a black-box mystery. But of course, as professional animal behaviorists, academic or clinical, some of us have set ourselves the goal of understanding the causes of, and therefore the modification of, just that behavior that seems so complex.

Of course, as is so often true, the answer that we see depends on the focus that we bring to the question. To a professional animal behaviorist (let’s use the more modern name for one who studies animal behavior: an ethologist), the answer for the cause for a behavior depends on the level at which you want an answer. Let’s start simple today, a higher, broader level of analysis. For an ethologist, behavior has two possible causes, and is most often caused by an interaction between these two: genes and the environment. This is the old nature/nurture controversy that we still occasionally see raise its head, but as we well know now, all behavior is, at some level, a result of both genetic predispositions and the effects of the environment. And when we say ‘effects of the environment’, we really mean learning: all of the behavior modification that has occurred through the learning that an animal has experienced throughout its lifetime. We know now, for instance, that for all animals, there are four types or forms of learning, and that every modification of behavior gained throughout the lifetime of an animal has happened through one of these four mechanisms. But the four forms of all learning is a topic for another blog: today I want to mention some new literature that once again points to the role of genetics in the behavior of our canine companions, and of course, suggests a similar role for genetics in the behavior of cats, parrots and even ourselves.

What color is your dog? The color of your dog can tell you something about the genetic predispositions for its behavior. Now, let’s be careful: I phrased that sentence with some thought. The color of your dog tells you something about predispositions for behavior, not the behavior of a specific animal. Why? Because, as we said above, the behavior of a specific animal is determined by both its genetic predispositions and the effects of its lifetime environment. This is why the extensive history that we take at each one of our clinical appointments are so important: that history, and every part of it, has had an influence on your pet. But likewise, the scientific evidence is quite clear that genetics is important too.

So what about color? Well, we all agree that color is genetically determined by genetics (not entirely, but largely) and we know that almost all genes control more than a single characteristic (in fact, each gene controls many characteristics), so the color of your dog can tell you something about its genetic code, and therefore, something about its genetic predispositions. Really? Yup, for instance, researchers just this past year showed quite clearly that, in Labradors, occurrence of problem behaviors like barking, chewing, and digging, were related to coat color: gold dogs showed significantly higher levels of these behaviors, even after numerous environmental factors were removed. This supports a 2001 study, in which researchers at Cornell University’s Veterinary Hospital showed that chocolate-colored Labradors were less likely to present with behavior problems than other Labradors, and that gold/yellow Labradors were significantly more likely to be reported with aggression problems.

How about other breeds? Well, there is very little research in applied animal behavior (anyone looking for a philanthropic opportunity?), but a study in 1996 showed that red or golden English cocker spaniels were more likely to show aggressive behavior than black ones. Interesting, huh?

And now, with the completion of the Dog Genome Project, we have a complete map of the domestic dog DNA. With this tool, we are rapidly gaining more information about the role of genetics, and genetic interaction with learning, in determining the cause of our dogs’ behavior.

Greta Kaplan, CPDT, CDBC

My colleague Christine blogged recently about herding with her Aussie, Conner, and about dogs’ instinctive behavior as modified by human breeding decisions. She mentioned the frequency of dog-dog aggression among pit bulls. This topic has been on my mind lately, and frankly, I’m getting angry.

A very nice woman contacted me recently about bringing her dog to my flyball class. She asked if she could come and watch. Visitors are always welcome to watch my classes before deciding whether to sign up; I encourage it! So she brought her dog with her yesterday to watch class. In her introductory email, she described him as a terrier mix, about 40 lbs and muscular. I wrote back and said it sounded like he had some pit bull in him, and that this was not a problem for me, and she didn’t need to hide it. She responded that he must also have some other terrier in him, as well as pit, hence her description.

She brought her dog in before class started while I was working on go-outs with my Border Collie. He did indeed appear to be some kind of multi-terrier mix, with clear pit bull presence, and was a little shy but sweet with me. We then let the dogs meet and play, and after a few minutes, Mellie discovered that she had found a friend who would chase her; she loves this. They zoomed around quite happily together.

Then I heard a car door; someone had arrived for class. Just as this happened, the poor terrier suddenly realized he needed to poop. He had a little diarrhea, so there was quite a mess to clean up and his owner was rushing around with paper towel and enzyme spray trying to get the floor clean. I looked out the window and realized that the new arrival was my assistant. I knew she would have her recently adopted reactive dog with her, so I opened the door to call her not to bring him into the building, as there was a strange dog in here.

My excuse is that I had not been feeling well for a couple of days, and also had been in a horrible traffic jam on the way to my first class, so I just was a little ruffled. But really, I just dropped the ball and I feel terrible about it. In any case, when I opened that door, I forgot for a moment that the visiting terrier was loose and his mom’s hands were full of poopy paper towel! The terrier rushed out the door and made a beeline for my assistant’s leashed, reactive dog. My assistant’s dog immediately became defensive, and lunged and snapped while the terrier just chest slammed him. The situation escalated, with the terrier circling and lunging, dodging the human hands that were trying to pull him out of the melee. It took several very, very long seconds to lay hands on the terrier’s collar and pull him away. His behavior during this episode is what I can only call “gamey.” “Gameness” in a hunting terrier is the determination to get the prey no matter what, and to come back with twice as much effort if the prey tries to resist. Unfortunately, in dogs bred to fight other dogs, that gameness is turned on dogs: If a dog resists, the terrier’s response is typically “you and what army???” And that’s what happened here. I shouldn’t have been surprised… but this dog had just been playing beautifully with my own dog, and I was surprised for the first few seconds.

We let the terrier watch the beginning of class and sure enough, by now he was high as a kite, screaming and lunging to get to the running dogs. After a while, his mom put him into the car. I was just getting to the point of suggesting this when wisely she did it on her own.

I set my students to doing some calming exercises and went to talk to the terrier’s owner. She had teared up and was trying to recover her composure. I told her that her dog was not ready for a flyball class. I mentioned that he was “gamey” and she had never heard that term. She was not really clear on what she was seeing; I spelled it out for her. I said he was a very nice dog, who had good dog skills when he was not aroused, and was obviously smart and charming. I suggested that some very low arousal classes (no running or jumping!) made more sense so he could get better at ignoring other dogs in a class situation before we increased arousal in a sports class. She agreed, and took her dog home.

I’m angry! She adopted this dog at about six months. The pit bull ancestry, the terrier background, is unmistakeable. Yet no one explained to her what that might mean genetically. No one ever told this very kind woman what “gameness” was, What kind of behaviors he might start exhibiting at one to two years of age. What this might mean for her, for his life, for the old dogs he lives with.

Shelters, rescues, and breed advocates who continue to insist that all bad pit bulls are a result of bad owners who teach the dogs to fight, or who abuse them, are doing a terrible disservice to pet adopters. I see many clients with pit bulls or pit mixes who actually have no idea that there is a genetic basis for gameness (toward traditional prey or toward dogs). Who believe that by loving their dog and never abusing him, they can guarantee he will never be one of those “bad” pit bulls you read about on the news.

Plenty of dogs have plenty of behavior problems, and “terrier gameness” is not the worst of them. However, it’s predictable, and the amount of mythology about it is intense and emotional. People who adopt herding breed dogs should always be educated about what can go wrong when a dog is really smart, or really driven to chase moving things, or extremely concerned about guarding things. People who adopt terriers should always be educated about gameness, and about what can go wrong if the dog turns his “you and what army” feelings onto other dogs. In fact, in an ideal world, everyone who buys or adopts any dog should be educated about how real dogs behave! They need to hear that real dogs may eat poop, bite people, guard the sofa, kill cats, chase skateboards, or fight with other dogs. That some of this behavior is very hard-wired and fixing it can be hard!

The pit bull problem is just one aspect of this, but it is a big one because there is an active campaign of disinformation about this breed type. Plenty of people love them anyway and make great owners because they are prepared, and have backup plans, and are good at management and training. They’d rather have some gameness or dog aggression than, say, a dog who has a heart attack when you drop a metal pan on the floor, or who is so visually prey-driven that he has to be on a leash forever; and this is a perfectly reasonable choice. It’s just that it should be an educated choice, and far too many owners are not given the option of making an educated choice because someone is eager to hide the truth. The truth is that some pits and pit mixes are going to become dog aggressive. Know that in advance. Make wise plans.

Jim Ha, PhD, CAAB

I recently attended a conference of companion animal behavior practitioners and researchers, held in New Orleans this past March (see earlier blog entry). One of the most interesting, and most important, presentations at the three-day meeting was titled, “Assessing Behavior and Training Methods Using Physiological Measures.” This was a summary, and a very interesting demonstration, of the work by Nancy Williams, Peter Borchelt, Alice Moon-Fanelli, and Megan Bulloch that has suggested that heart rate, a relatively easy measurement in awake (ie, behaving!) animals, can provide insight into the activity of the brain.

The logic comes from some similar work in humans, and goes like this: good, healthy behavior is flexible behavior, that is, behavior which exhibits an appropriate selection of responses to stimuli, and that shifts as appropriate. This sort of behavior suggests that if a brain function known as inhibition is working properly: the dog or cat can turn behavior on and off.

The area of brain that is responsible for inhibition is connected to the heart via the vagal nerve, where it helps to control heart function. Heart rate variability (HRV) is the increase and decrease of heart rate in reaction to the changing environment, and HRV reflects the degree of inhibition that has developed in the brain. Thus, high HRV (a very responsive heart/brain) is good. Low HRV in humans is associated with increased mortality, and the likelihood of diabetes, depression and suicide, epilepsy, alcohol abuse, stress, panic disorders, and Generalized Anxiety Disorder. Thus, the brain is important in behavior and HRV is a way to monitor brain (inhibitory) functioning. Neat idea, huh?

So what are the findings: how is HRV and behavior associated in dogs? The work is only in its very earliest stages, but Dr. Williams and her colleagues have found that low HRV is associated with both aggressive and stress behaviors in dogs. She feels that by recording HRV in client dogs, we might gain a much stronger insight into the causes of problem behaviors, and ultimately, the effectiveness of our behavior modification tools. And with the advent of new tools for recording heart rate data, adapted from the sports and fitness business, like the $370 Polar Watch, we can record this kind of data in active animals under natural conditions. Don’t be surprised in the near future if we ask you for permission to fit your dog with a strap-on Polar Watch while we observe their behavior or expose them to behavior modification procedures!

Jim Ha, PhD, CAAB

I am sitting in the New Orleans International Airport, waiting for my (much delayed) flight to Atlanta (severe weather!), and on to home in Seattle. The purpose of my travel to the Big Easy, and specifically, to a small hotel with conference facilities in the French Quarter, was to attend something called the Interdisciplinary Forum for Applied Animal Behavior (IFAAB). IFAAB brings together, by invitation only, no more than 30 of the top Certified Applied Animal Behaviorists (CAABs) and Board-certified Veterinary Behaviorists in the country. Each attendee must make a presentation to their colleagues, presentations designed to stir up discussion and even dissension as much as simply being lectures on new discoveries. I have attended IFAAB in the past, in addition to more traditional meetings for a professional animal behaviorist with interests in both the research and clinical ends of our field. These more traditional meetings include 25 consecutive years of attending the meetings of the Animal Behavior Society (the certifying body for CAABs) as well as attendance at several meeting of the International Ethological Congress, the American Society of Primatologists, and others too numerous to count.

But the IFAAB meetings are different: animal behavior is a longstanding academic discipline dating back to Charles Darwin’s work and well before, but the clinical side is very new. Both CAAB and vet-board certification for behavior was established only in the 90’s, and to this day there are only about 50 of each in the country. There is very little research in applied animal behavior, and because of this, so much of what we do has had to be learned by trial-and-error (which is not necessarily a bad way to do it, just not always the most efficient or accurate), and handed down to new entrants in the field through avenues like IFAAB and the internship program that CAS is establishing with the University of Washington.

Given that much of what we have learned has been very personal, one-on-one, and very much in a vacuum, it is also not surprising that we don’t always agree on what it is we have learned. So these IFAAB meetings are always interesting: it is a group of people who realize that we all have a single-minded passion to help companion animals and their owners, and who have learned that they need each other and the knowledge that we have learned collectively. And yet, we come from a wide range of backgrounds, and as I have said, we have in some cases learned different things, different ways of accomplishing our task.

The upshot of this is that outsiders, newcomers or invited guests like equipment makers (we had a [very successful] inventor looking for new ideas at this meeting: fun!), always marvel at the degree to which we pound tables, argue, mutter, and disagree during the day-long presentations, and then all head to dinner together perfectly happily, supporting one another in the recent loss of a beloved herding dog, or the latest troubles with a teenager, all evening. It’s a fantastic meeting, an important opportunity to learn and to support each other. And a way to rationalize a little sunshine in March too!!

What did we discuss this year? Well, many of the topics will be showing up in blog entries here in the near future, but here’s a short list: the ability to train dogs to increase the variety in their behavioral repertoires, the effectiveness of new devices for cat environmental enrichment and dog leash control, several presentations on how to increase the amount, and improve the quality, of research in clinical animal behavior (one major factor: $$$ and how to raise funds), a new socialization program for fearful cats, competitive foraging in dogs, reading micro-expressions and what they tell us about emotional state in humans and dogs, assessing training techniques using heart rate, how the training of military and police dogs differs from pets, and the proper role of inhibition devices in training. Whew! And that still left time for the arguments.

So exhausted and ready to get home, but feeling reinvigorated about our field and the opportunities to help our clients, I await the call to board that delayed flight to Atlanta and on to home!

Christine Hibbard, CTC, CPDT

I went to a place called Fido’s Farm with my Aussie named Conner: http://fidosfarm.com. We went for an “instinct test”. I had no idea what to expect since I know absolutely nothing about herding.

The instructor did a wonderful job of explaining what she was going to do with Conner and what to expect. She introduced the “flag” to him and explained to me how its used. Her timing was impeccable. She showed him the flag and when he did his typical Conner “yeah, so?”, she jiggled it. He took a step back and she took the flag away with a “gooood dog”. Lovely!

We went into the round pen and she had me hold Conner on leash. She walked over to the sheep and had the sheep follow her. I’ve never seen Conner so over the top for something (he’s a laid back guy). Then she told me to drop his leash. I was expecting him to crash into the sheep, send them flying, and then chase them around gripping their butts, but I dropped the leash and stepped back.

He went flying towards the sheep and then veered off to the right and began circling and barking. The instructor walked the sheep from one side of the pen to the other with Conner circling the entire time. I was AMAZED! I actually teared up for a minute. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. She used the flag to get him to circle in the other direction. When one of the sheep ran away from the flock, Conner took off! It was like I could see a thought balloon over his head that said, “not on my watch you furry critter”! With zero training, my Aussie knew how to apply just enough pressure to bring a rogue sheep back to the flock appropriately. Again, I’m totally stunned. He opened his mouth near the sheep’s neck, but never bit down at all. This dog had never been trained to herd, he just knew how to do it instinctively.

All too often, we underestimate the power of genetics on a dog’s behavior. This can be a tricky subject because breed characteristics can lead to breed biases. Not all Aussies have herding instinct; it depends on their breeding lines, but the herding tendencies are prevalent. Not all pit bulls are dog aggressive, but that characteristic is certainly prevalent in that breed. Sadly, some of these characteristics don’t manifest themselves until a dog hits a certain age and by then, the owners are attached to the dog. Most often, we don’t know a dog’s genetic lineage. Sometimes we know a dog’s lineage, but we don’t know about the behavior issues or health issues inherited from the parents and passed onto the offspring. We often can’t keep track of a dog’s siblings to know whether what we’re seeing in a dog’s behavior is being influenced by genetics. So we do the responsible thing when working with client dogs, we take breed into consideration, but also look at the “whole” dog. We evaluate the dog’s living environment, critical developmental periods and learning/reinforcement histories.

Dr. Jim Ha, CAAB (Certified Applied Animal Behaviorist)

Most pet owners are familiar with the situation: your dog or cat is upset about something, perhaps has been challenged or even attacked. But rather than an understandable response in which the animal lashes out at the challenger, or turns and runs, it will turn and attack someone, or something, else. That is, it will exhibit an appropriate behavior but toward an inappropriate target.

In my house call cases, I frequently see this behavior in cats: they are frightened by a strange or new cat, and will turn and attack… the owner! This is frequently also the situation in inappropriate urination situations. The cat dislikes something about her litterbox, and urinates… in a different location.

In dogs, redirected behavior frequently manifests itself in social relationships. Dogs, more so than cats, have a social hierarchy, and if confronted by a more dominant animal, dogs will frequently redirect their aggressive response towards a different target, usually a dog lower on the social ladder. Some wags have suggested that this sort of behavior is frequently exhibited in the corporate world: passing the “aggression” right on down the corporate ladder.

But redirected aggression may exhibit itself in less obvious ways as well. A novel or escalating stress situation can be the trigger for redirected “aggression” towards objects, resulting in the destruction of shoes or furniture, which are unlikely to have elicited an attack themselves. It becomes very much a matter of “I know I am not supposed to growl or bark at that new baby, so I will tear up the sofa instead.”

Redirection of a behavior is one of three forms of conflict behavior seen in animals, and humans. The other two forms of conflict behavior are “approach-withdraw” and “displacement behavior,” which I’ll discuss in future blog entries. But all three of these behaviors are methods for resolving internal conflicts: a hungry dog, faced with a bowl of food and an aggressive canine owner of the food might express any of these three ways of resolving a conflict between approaching for food and fleeing the aggressive owner of the food.

The difficulty for pet owners, and specialists treating their pets, is recognizing redirected behavior. It is a frequent mystery when your dog turns and attacks you, or another member of your “pack” when you or they have done nothing to deserve it. Determining whether this is truly a change in behavior, a change in the relationship, or simply the sign of a redirected behavior is critical to the assessment and treatment of the situation. It frequently takes a skilled behavior observer to establish the difference.

Some situations are quite obvious: if your dog gets into a fight with another dog, and you intercede and get bitten by your own dog, this is an obvious case of redirected behavior: an appropriate behavior for the situation directed at an inappropriate target in the heat of the exchange.

But other situations are much more difficult to establish, like a situation that I saw in a behavior case. A cat named Milo (all names have been changed to protect the furry) was reported to have suddenly and without provocation begun chewing and tearing up curtains. The curtains had not been changed, nothing in the room had been changed, and Milo was in good health. Milo was housebroken, using a litterbox correctly, and had remained social with the owners and other cats in the house. Upon a lengthy investigation, it was discovered that another one of the cats in the house had recently been ill, had spent a night or two in the veterinary hospital, and had come home a day before the first curtain “attack.” The two cats had never interacted much but Milo hated visiting the vet, and when the sick cat came home smelling like the vet office, Milo started attacking the curtains instead of the cat. By using positive (food) counter-conditioning to reduce Milo’s anxiety, and therefore aggression, in the presence of the other cat, we eliminated the behavior within a few days.

So, being attentive to the possibility that a behavior might be a form of redirection is an important part of the behavioral assessment. It’s an obvious idea, the need to channel conflicting behaviors into something that is less dangerous, but in its myriad subtleties, it can be tricky to diagnose and treat.