MAKING LIFE A LITTLE SIMPLER

t r a i n i n g Making Life a Little Simpler

Anna Bradley discusses the importance of management and making environmental changes as part of any training or behavior change plan, highlighting a recent case of a dog struggling to adapt to his new home

© Can Stock Photo / vauvau It can be difficult for dogs to find grip on shiny or slippery floors, exacerbating any pain they may already feel in their muscles or joints

© Can Stock Photo / gabrielabertolini A dog may growl if he is in pain or does not want a person to approach him; growling is an important part of canine communication

As professionals, when we talk about training or behavior change, we’re often talking in great depth about psychological techniques that will transform dogs’ emotional processes, thereby altering the way they think or feel about situations, triggers or events that might currently be, for example, anxiety provoking or stressful. We may look at scenarios that evoke feelings of frustration or excitement and then look at ways to slot in a newer and more appropriate way to behave and promote that rather than inadvertently reward symptoms we don’t want to continue.

In fact, we often spend a great deal of time dealing with thought processes and strategies, some of which can be difficult to formulate and apply to individual circumstances. Even before we do this, we will have been working on unravelling the sometimes very complex reasons why dogs behave as they do and the chains of reinforcement and associations involved. All of this is of course excellent, because successful resolution of behavior issues must involve a careful and strategic analysis. However, we also need to bear in mind the use of preventative strategies. This is what I want to focus on in this article because I feel sometimes these can be overlooked as simplistic or overly obvious, or even associated with a feeling of failure or letting the dog win, so to speak. But in actual fact, environmental management is a huge part of successful training and behavior modification and a huge first step that none of us should overlook.

The owners found that he would growl quite a lot ‘for no reason’ when he walked across the hallway and kitchen floor towards them. Both areas were hard surfaces. It was obvious to me that the dog found it difficult to grip the floor and that this exacerbated the strain on his hips.

Environmental Adjustments

Environmental management is a formative approach I include as part of every behavior modification plan. We want to be sure we are analyzing the exact situational context of each behavior or training concern, including where it happens, what the features of the location are, who is present (people, other animals), sensory stimulation, equipment used, what the handler is doing etc. Essentially, we’re taking a snapshot frozen in time of what happened, when it happened and how it happened, and noting every aspect. Once we’ve done that and before we think about intervention in the form of behavior modification, we’re going to think about what we can do about all those factors in the dog’s immediate environment that might be contributing to the issue – and change them for the better.

We changed the bedding in his basket from a lovely blanket to a squashy mattress. The blanket was indeed comfy, but he found it difficult to extract himself when his rear legs got tangled in it. This likely increased his pain and so he would start growling again.

Let’s look at an example I encountered just recently. A dog from overseas had been rehomed in the UK with a lovely couple and had begun to growl when the owners attempted to befriend him. There were questions over how good the dog’s hips were (possibly hip dysplasia) and he had only been with the couple for three weeks when I was called to assist. This is a typical case and one that I am very familiar with. I see and assist with many overseas rescue dogs and know that, in many cases, they take some time to adapt, depending upon the circumstances of their adoption and their background.

This particular little dog had been roaming the streets in Romania and had been seen to be quite badly abused. I spent a long time with the couple and, together, we devised a very intensive behavior change strategy. Environmental manipulation was also paramount because the way things were originally set up was simply intensifying the situation. In my opinion, if immediate steps were not taken prior to implementing our behavior change plan, this dog would have progressed from ‘red flagging’ (he was engaging in a lot of ‘please don’t come near me’ behavior) to a bite. I was very concerned about this because neither of his owners were reading his body language or understanding what he was trying to communicate.

Perceived Threat

Our first and immediate step was to back off and allow the dog to destress, taking the pressure off him completely. By simply removing the constant perceived challenge and threat from the new owners’ attempts to befriend and coax the dog out of his basket, we could visibly see him relax during our twohour session. His panting lessened, his wide/spatulate tongue decreased, his pupils were less dilated, and the harsh stare stopped. By the end of our consultation, he went to sleep, which, for me, was superb. Having to consistently monitor ‘the threat’ and be subjected to such an intense daily high arousal level was extremely stressful for him and it showed.

The next step we took was to alter the setup in the kitchen. Our little dog had entered an alien world! He barked consistently at strange shapes passing the window, noises outside, etc. So, we partially closed the blinds to the windows facing the road to give him some respite from passing traffic and pedestrians. We also rigged up some ‘white noise’ calming music to be played on a loop to help filter out some of that external stimulation. This had a really positive effect.

I was definitely concerned about possible pain because, of course, if the dog was in pain, it would most certainly affect his behavior. The owners found that he would growl quite a lot ‘for no reason’ when he walked across the hallway and kitchen floor towards them. Both areas were hard surfaces. It was obvious to me that the dog found it difficult to grip the floor and that this exacerbated the strain on his hips. The simple management solution here was to install carpet runners. We also changed the bedding in his basket from a lovely blanket to a squashy mattress. The blanket was indeed comfy, but he found it difficult to extract himself when his rear legs got tangled in it. This likely increased his pain, and so he would start growling again. Again, with these simple changes (plus the inclusion of veterinarianprescribed pain medication), the dog became increasingly more comfortable walking in and out of the hallway and getting out of his basket.

Safe Space

During this time, one of the owners was becoming increasingly concerned that the dog was guarding or protecting his basket. Indeed, if I or either of his owners walked past, he would growl and snap quite viciously. I could see, however, that this behavior was borne of anxiety and a simple relocation was in order. At that time, the dog basket was sited pretty much in the middle of the kitchen with a lot of passing traffic – if you wanted to go anywhere, you passed the dog bed! Obviously this wasn’t great for a dog who was already really uncertain about his new environment. So we relocated this bed to a spare down

Dogs may feel unsafe when in their beds if they are not located in a quiet, safe area of the house

stairs room which was easily accessible. We also filled one corner of the room with lots of large squashy cushions, so that effectively became his ‘den.’ He ended up using this as his bed more than the basket and also any time he felt threatened or challenged.

This was a case where we made lots of very simple but useful and effective environmental changes as a precursor to implementing our behavior change plan. There were several more adjustments, including eliminating the doorbell, turning the volume on the television to low, taping over the red buttons on household devices, and vacuuming only when the dog was outside. These changes were all extremely effective and you could almost see the dog breathe a sigh of relief when we implemented them.

Management

So if changes such as these are so useful and effective, why don’t we do them all the time? It’s a good question, but I do think that sometimes there is a feeling that if we don’t stick at it the way things are now, we’re giving in – I do certainly find that to be the case sometimes. Take, for example, a dog who constantly finds it fun to run to other dogs and play. It’s not ‘naughty.’ It’s perfectly normal for some dogs, but we do need to do some work to teach a more appropriate response, i.e. when it’s okay to play and when it’s not. A great way to do this is to go back to basics with some long line work.

Or what about a dog who struggles to respond or pay attention and really doesn’t engage as the owner would like, or as he did when he was a little younger? Well, it would be good idea to drop the intensity a little in order to get a great response, then work our way back up again.

In all these examples, we are not going back to square one or failing. It is quite the opposite – we are just making life a little easier for the dog so we can gradually and progressively build the success we want. In all

The owners found that he would growl quite a lot ‘for no reason’ when he walked across the hallway and kitchen floor towards them. Both areas were hard surfaces. It was obvious to me that the dog found it difficult to grip the floor and that this exacerbated the strain on his hips.

cases, we’re manipulating the setting to the dog’s advantage. It is far better to set up dogs to succeed than consistently set them up to fail and experience feelings of frustration and stress. Yet this is exactly what will happen if a dog is, for example, continually allowed to run up to other dogs and then punished for that. In such cases, we are allowing our dogs to fail because we are not teaching them to respond appropriately in environments where the competing distractions are too high. We are not being fair to them.

Ultimately, if we are conscious of the very first steps to success, i.e. those aspects of a dog’s immediate environment that may be contributing to a training or behavior problem, and seek to alter them first as a precursor to implementing a behavior change plan, we can make a long and lasting positive impact on their emotional wellbeing. n

Anna Francesca Bradley MSc BSc (Hons) is a United Kingdomebased provisional clinical, certified IAABC animal behavior consultant and ABTC accredited behavior consultant. She owns Perfect Pawz! Training and Behavior Practice in Hexham, Northumberland, where the aim is always to create and restore happy relationships between dog and guardian in a relaxed way, using methods based on sound scientific principles, which are both force-free and fun.

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