Why Paying Attention To Your Dog's Mental State Matters

I may actually spend more time on this blog talking about why paying attention to dog body language and other signals are important than what they are. There are a couple of reasons for that. I think observation of the dogs in your life is an important teacher. I (and other sources) can tell you what this or that behavior means in general, but I cannot tell you what it means in your dog.
I also think that paying attention to the messages our dogs are giving us is crucial. In order to live with us, dogs have to give up choices about so many things. They make our lives better. The least we can do is try to make their lives the best they can be. The way to do that is to pay attention to their needs. In particular, I think it is important to be able to tell that they aren't doing well; whether from illness, stress, or other factors; and help make things better for them.

Cheese Makes Everything Better

Contrary to the title, this post isn't really about cheese; it is about and reducing stress and relationship building. There is a lot of discussion about "emotional eating" for people, usually with the implication that it is bad. But eating really does decrease stress. We can use this with our dogs (and ourselves), the trick is to do it mindfully in a way that really does help with the stress. For myself, that means choosing something I like eating and eating it slowly. My dogs aren't very good at eating slowly. But I can feed them slowly in a calm manner that doesn't work them up. When I notice that they are having a bad day or have had a lot of stress recently, I'll sit down with them in a relaxed manner and just feed them their meal a bit at a time. They don't need to "work for it", they just get it because they need to eat in a low stress way.

What does all this have to do with the title? For Max, his favorite stress eating food is cheese. His life motto seems to be "Cheese Makes Everything Better."

Accepting "Bad" Behaviour

Just like the humans in our lives, dogs may do things we don't like, or misbehave. We don't have to like this behaviour, but we can't just unthinkingly train it away. (And we definitely don't want to punish our dogs for it, because punishment doesn't work.) But is that behaviour actually bad?

Dogs do things for a reason and often that reason is important. For instance, dogs growl as a warning and while we may not like the growl, a dog that doesn't warn people to get away could bite "without warning." (There probably are other signs, but we missed them.)

Barking is usually done for a reason too. Sometimes that is a reason that we don't agree with or irritates us, but we need to know the reason. We also need to think about when we might and might now like certain behaviours. We don't want to train a dog to never do something we want them to do sometimes. For instance, I don't really like Max barking the whole time service people are in my house, but I was sure grateful when he growled and scared off the prowler trying to get in. It is fine that he uses a particular bark to greet people he knows, but he needs to quiet down quickly, not keep going for minutes on end.

Until we know why a dog is doing something and when we might or might not appreciate that behaviour, we shouldn't teach them not to do it. Once we do know what we really do and don't want, then we can help our dogs replace behaviour we don't want to live with with something more appropriate. Or we can live with behaviour that we then realize is appropriate for dogs or our dog.

Collapsed Trachia and Stress

I've noticed that when Max gets stressed, he will show symptoms of a collapsed trachea and cough until he is recovered and can breath easily again. This isn't a sign I've seen from just stress before.  Or alternatively I haven't recognized it, because they seem to be pulling at their harnesses or collars due to over excitement when their trachea’s collapse.

Have you seen what appears to be a spontaneous collapsed trachea due to stress?

Camera Shy Dogs

Max Doesn't Like Photos

Many dogs don't like their photo taken. This includes many of the dogs you see in super cute photos. If you think about it, most photography involves looking directly at the dog - or to put it directly staring. For some dogs, a camera lens (sometimes even on a phone) feels like another eye as well. Staring is rude in dog language and that naturally makes many dogs uncomfortable. Some of the behaviours that commonly show up in photos are dogs looking away, whale eye, nose licks, various facial positions (see Max in the photo for some good examples) and holding themselves in various postures that express stress like a rounded topline.

This doesn't mean that you should never take photos of your dog, but you should work with them to make it more enjoyable.

Whale Eye

Whale Eye is the name usually used in the dog world for moving the eyes so that the white shows. This can be used for the same type of communication as when we humans roll our eyes or side eye someone. But it can also be a sign of fear or distress.

Stress Signs - Calming Signals

I previously stated that stress signals are not calming signals because while dogs may use them to calm themselves, they don't usually have the effect of calming dogs around them. However, dogs can use calming signals in an attempt to calm themselves down when stressed. In that case they are also stress signs.

Max licks his paws when he is stressed to calm himself. He will do this when stressed even if there is no dog or person to see. (He leaves evidence in the form of missing hair on the tops of his paws.)

Like other stress signs, our dogs need us to pay attention to them and intervene.

Excitement Urination

Excitement Urination, also called Submissive or Submission Urination, is when a dog gets so stimulated from positive or negative stress that they pee. Often it is only a small amount of urine, but that is influenced more by what is in their bladders than anything else. It is usually more common in small dogs and young dogs, but it is not exclusive to them. Sometimes you will see a dog cower and pee, but I have also seen dogs jump up and down with excitement and pee at the same time.

Excitement urination, like so many stress signals, can be a sign of a medical problem, so it is a good idea to check with a vet - particularly if it is a new behaviour. Punishment never helps with excitement urination, because it just ups the stress level and makes it worse. Decreasing the stress level can help a lot. For dogs who get over excited, this means controlling the excitement. Max used to excitement pee when I came home sometimes. We have reduced the excitement by creating a protocol where he doesn't get any attention when I come home until he sits. He's still allowed to run into the back yard and run in circles (this works well for me as then he pees while outside), but he has to sit to be acknowledged. He doesn't always automatically sit and he's way to excited to do it right away, but after less than a minute of excitement on his behalf, a simple "sit" from me almost always works. If not, I ignore him for a while and repeat until he does sit. After he sits, we can both be excited to see each other.

For dogs who exhibit excitement urination from fear or other negative stress, you need to not only not punish them, but ideally hide your stress and negative feelings about having to clean up. For me, that means trying to figure out where they are likely to be when that happens and making that spot as easy to clean up as possible - an easy to clean surface like potty pads or flooring scraps and a handy clean up kit.

Stress Signs - Chasing the Tail

Dogs chasing their tail are a staple of humor. However, it isn't always funny. It can be a sign of pain in the back and tail area. Max has structural issues around the base of his tail and will pull on his tail when he is overdue for a chiropractic visit. More often it is a sign of stress. It is possible that there is truth to some of the jokes and that stress may be due to boredom. But it is stress none the less.

As far as I have seen, some dogs may use chasing their tail to comfort themselves, but it doesn't seem to de-escalate or calm things with other dogs, so I would not consider this to be a calming signal.

So, check for health issues (including fleas and ticks!), but consider tail chasing another sign of stress.

Stress Signs - Smelling Bad

Another sign of stress is smelling bad, either from the coat or the mouth. I know my immediate though if something smells bad is that it is dirty and needs to be washed, but often for our dogs it is stressed and needs to be given protection and space from the stressor and time to decompress. Washing them and brushing teeth will only make things worse. Of course, your dog does need their teeth brushed, but at a time when they are relaxed and when they have been trained that it is an acceptable, if not enjoyable, thing to do. When my dogs smell bad from stress, the smell usually dissipates after they are calmer.

Be aware that often when is your dog is at the vet, boarded or groomed, they will be returned to you having been sprayed with grooming spray or another product to cover up this scent. While your dog might find any of these experiences stressful, you want to know so you can take steps in the future to reduce the stress. It is a good idea to ask for your dog not to be treated with this.

Stress Signs - Shedding

Max's Flank With Patch of Loose Hair

Some dogs, and Max is a prime example, will shed when they are nervous. Most often this will show up as a pile of hair left where the dog was or hair almost flying off a dog. But as the photo of Max's flank shows, this can also result in loose hair similar to what you would see during shedding. For Max, this is the result of having several stressful days, in this case our legal fireworks season. Like other stress signals, this type of shedding or losing hair is a signal to us that the dog is stressed and intervention on our part is likely necessary.

Why Stress Signs Matter

Why do we care about whether or not our or another dog is stressed? There are a bunch of reasons:

• Too much stress isn't fun, it is well, stressful.
• Every being deserves a life where stress and anxiety aren't the primary factors.
• Your dog can't learn if it is stressed.
• If you can't recognize stress signals, you might not realize that your dog has gotten stressed to the point of shutting down and that "good behaviour" is in fact physical and emotional shutdown.
• Stress and fear set off the fight or flight reaction and in today's world dogs don't usually have the opportunity for flight so they end up biting, fighting and exhibiting other dangerous behaviour.

While some dog behaviours can be either a sign of stress or attempting to calm the situation down (or both), other behaviours are generally just a result of stress. We'll look be looking at stress specific behaviours in future posts.

Teachable Moments

Dogs (and people) don't learn if they are under too much stress. Trainers often refer to this as being over threshold (past the learning threshold) and under threshold (still able to learn), but it isn't as simple as just drawing a line. Lower stress levels and making it interesting help our dogs (and ourselves) learn. When things get too stressful (even if it is good stress), learning is harder.

To keep things teachable, we need to stay where neither of us are too stressed and we are still having fun. If we are working on a behavioural issue like not getting along with other dogs, we need to stay far enough away from other dogs that our dogs can still focus on learning. If we can't keep the stress level low enough we need to focus on keeping our dog safe and calming them down, not trying to teach anything, because they need support not lessons at that point.

Meet Max

Max is my current dog and thus is often my muse when it comes to writing and thinking about dog related things. Max is a Chihuahua mix who came up to Oregon from LA on one of the rescue transports, which is where most small dogs in my area come from. 

Max on one of his beds

Max is a very nervous dog, but after a lot of positive reinforcement and classical conditioning, he is getting better and better able to handle the world. Much to his benefit, he is very resilient and if something startles him, he often literally shakes off the startle and then goes back to inspect it. Many people have told me something along the lines of "He's a Chihuahua, they are just like that," I believe all dogs deserve to be happy and comfortable and that we shouldn't let a stereotype get in the way of that. It is my job to protect Max and teach him to feel safe. In the meantime, he gives lots of fodder to think about with regard to dog body language and dog behaviour.

Max finds the camera scary

, so we are working on that. So almost every picture you will see of Max shows signs of stress or him sleeping. Any photos taken are part of his training or taken to document his well being for some reason.