Dog Behavior Article

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Your Dog's Mental Health

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..."You won't believe this. We came home from work and found a gigantic hole through the drywall leading from the garage into our kitchen. The beast literally chewed his way into the house through the garage wall..."

..."Our dog has been housebroken since he was a puppy. He's 5 years old now, and last week out of nowhere he started urinating and defecating in the house: For no apparent reason! And he's doing it mostly in our bedroom and the kids' bedroom...."

..."I've had it! Our boxer tore up the sprinklers in the back yard, chewed the wood siding off of our Jacuzzi deck and began digging humungous holes in the yard. Not only that, but he's chewing his front legs and feet raw. The vet put him on steroids..."

From Larry's case files: "Joey," The Depressed Siberian Husky:

FILE # 95-6611014
DOG'S NAME: Joey
BREED: Siberian husky/shepherd mix
AGE: 2 years
PROBLEM: Severe depression and weight loss

In April of 1995, I made an appearance on the Orange County News Channel (OCN) to discuss dog and cat behavior problems. Just prior to my segment, the station ran a piece describing a Siberian husky named Joey who had been at a local animal shelter for more than six months. Like many dogs -- as with people who are imprisoned -- Joey was exhibiting signs of being confined in a highly stressful environment. He was not eating, he was withdrawing, he appeared lethargic, and he was losing weight. The veterinarians determined that nothing medically was wrong with Joey. His weight loss was due to depression and his depression wa s due to his chronic incarceration.

In the field of psychology, symptoms of depression -- which include lethargy, sleep disturbances, slowness in intellectual processing, loss of appetite and the like -- are referred to as neuro-vegetative symptoms. A human's or dog's physiology can be altered or affected by their depressed mental state. In Joey's case, being in the concrete slab confinement of the shelter, with the absence of a stable home and the stress of dozens of dogs barking, led to his depression. Joey would be diagnosed as having a Major Depressive Disorder, characterized by at least five of the following symptoms:

Depressed mood most of the day, nearly every day.
Markedly diminished interest or pleasure in all or almost all activities.
Significant weight loss when not dieting.
Insomnia or hypersomnia nearly every day.
Psychomotor agitation or retardation nearly every day.
Fatigue or loss of energy.
Diminished ability to concentrate.

In addition, when a person is depressed, they frequently hold three perspectives or cognitions that feed and maintain their depressive state. These are:

A negative view of oneself.
Interprets ongoing experiences in the environment in a negative way.
Holds a negative view of the future.

Because dogs don't think abstractly, the first and third negative items do not apply. The second one, however, clearly applied to Joey.

The video images of Joey broadcasted that day on OCN were heartbreaking. He didn't look like a husky anymore. Emaciated, head hung low, walking methodically, the dog looked pitifully depressed. In the studio with me was a still photographer who worked for the cable television station and who shared my reaction. Derek Arita and I began talking and what resulted was plan to help Joey. Derek agreed to temporarily care for Joey in his home, removing Joey from the noxious elements of confinement that were causing his depression. I would donate my services and come out to his home and work with Derek, his wife, their schnauzer, a cat, and Joey.

A Dog's Emotional Needs

Dogs do experience a psychological identity. They can relate to time and do put in priority what is important to them. One of the most important things for canines is their pack -- their family! Dogs are pack animals just as their wolf ancestors. The two most important things pack animals do are eat and sleep together. Isolating a pack animal such as a dog, and insisting on it maintaining a solitary lifestyle, is akin to taking a human member of your family and placing him in solitary confinement. The human, like the dog, will go nuts! Of course, we're familiar with how people go nuts: they get depress ed, have nervous breakdowns, start hearing voices or go on shooting rampages. Dogs react a bit differently.

When dogs "go nuts" or experience overwhelming anxiety – especially what we call "isolation-induced anxiety" – might exhibit one of a number of troubling behaviors to try and relieve that anxiety: they become aggressive, they hide, they submissively urinate, they uncontrollably shake, they display neurotic repetitive behavior such as obsessive tail chasing, incessant nuisance barking, digging or destructive chewing. Dogs will indeed, chew through drywall, patio furniture and Jacuzzi decking. Some dogs mutilate themselves to relieve anxiety by chewing their front paws raw.

Isolation

If your dog is "outside," and you work all day and you sleep all night, then out of a 24 hour period, that only leaves roughly three to four hours of intermittent contact with your dog. That's not enough for a dog. In our opinion, it is emotionally abusive and cruel to leave a family dog alone day and night with only three hours of intermittent contact a day. Why have a group-dependent animal? Such limited contact is more appropriate for a goldfish or canary. A group-dependent animal like a dog needs quality and quantity time with its pack.

Failure to properly integrate the dog into the family accounts for about half of Larry's in-home consultations. The various disruptive or destructive behaviors exhibited by the family pet are a direct result of its isolation and loneliness. It's a human-caused problem.

Socialization

The other half of Larry's in-home cases result from inadequate socialization of the dog. If dogs aren't introduced in a positive manner on a repeated basis to other dogs, cats, and people, the dog will become estranged to these populations and view them as threatening. This can lead to a fearful or angry-aggressive response by the dog. It is the responsibility of the breeder, and then the recipient family, to adequately and positively socialize their puppies with a variety of people and with other vaccinated and safe dogs.

Dogs first need to be gently and positively socialized with human beings between the ages of four and seven weeks. Then, after the puppy is purchased or placed in a new home, it is crucial it be gently and positively introduced to a variety of people of different genders, ages, sizes and races. (Introductions to small children need to be very closely supervised.) If this is done over the first several months of its life, and the dog is neutered or spayed around six months of age, then the developing dog usually assimilates appropriately into its family and the community.

When a person meets your dog, especially for the first time, have the person crouch down (making themselves smaller and less-threatening to the dog), avoid direct eye contact and extend their hand for your dog to sniff.

Give the person some dog treats to give your dog while they are in this position. If this goes well, the person can progressively pet your dog UNDER its chest area and gradually rise to the full standing position. The person should not reach his hand over the dog's head and try to pet it there.

This approach to meeting a new dog also applies when you meet a dog for the first time. Running up to a dog you don't know; or reaching quickly or suddenly toward an unfamiliar dog's face will provoke a defensive response. This defensive response can take the form of either fearfulness or counter attack, both of which can lead to biting. This will then establish a phobic or traumatic experience for the dog and can adversely affect its mental health. In addition, directly staring in a dog's eyes, especially a dog you do not know, communicates a threat and challenge to that dog and may also provoke an aggressive response.

Teaching young children these safety rules and the appropriate ways in meeting dogs would save many dog bites from occurring. Dog bites in this country disproportionately involve children. This can leave severe physical scars in addition to emotional scars or dog phobias for a young child.

Proper Training

Of course, one of the chief ways to protect your dog's mental health and make it feel good about itself is by enrolling a non-violent and non-abusive obedience class. (Contact the Association of Pet Dog Trainers, P.O. Box 385, Davis, CA., 95617, or call 1-800-PET-DOGS). This cannot be emphasized too much, because abusive force-method training (as described in the previous chapter) can harm your dog and actually create mental disorders.

Frequently, human owners, unaware of the dog's need to be with its pack or it's need to be adequately socialized, seek quick-fix solutions offered by pet shops or force-method trainers. Their "solutions" often focus on the symptoms and not the underlying causes of the behavior problem. Our disposable-society mentality coupled with the typical dog trainer's mindset of symptom control leads people to try to "fix" their dog's misbehavior through cruel and abusive means. The dog's overall anxiety levels are raised, not lowered, and the symptoms (like barking, chewing, digging, and self-mutilation) worsen – and new ones appear.

Some examples of abusive attempts at symptom control are: Attempting to stop the dog from barking by using an electric-shock collar; attempting to stop the dog from digging by filling holes with water and practically drowning the dog in them; attempting to stop inappropriate chewing by muzzling the dog, removing its teeth, or drugging it into a stupor. Don't fool yourself for minute that dogs somehow don't experience pain and sensations as we do. All mammals with nerve endings going up and down the spinal chord feel pain. Being shocked, hit, punched, and drowned hurts and is abusive and cruel for both people and their pets. The end result of such idiotic treatment is that too often, after the dog has had its vocal chords cut out, or i s muzzled, or is drowned, or is zonked out on doggy tranquilizers, the family ends up giving the dog away or euthanizing it anyway, because it just didn't work. Everyone is bummed out and depressed. And everyone has lost. A sad ending for both dog and family.

Combating the Underlying Cause

Most canine behavior problems are not terribly mysterious once you know what to look for. With the exception of inherited brain damage or illness, most behavioral problems in dogs have been accidentally induced by owners (by isolation and lack of socialization), or reinforced/rewarded by the owners (they look at, speak to, feed, pet, or let in or out, their dog when it exhibits the problem behavior in question). If one looks at the dog's living conditions, the amount of exercise it receives, and the techniques of discipline used in the dog's home, one can quickly ascertain and diagnose why the dog is doing what it is doing and what needs to be done to fix it.

As described earlier, fixing it often entails making changes in the dynamics of the entire family system. If the relationship between the dog and its people is estranged, distant, or rigid (the dog is isolated), then, as in human family therapy, the behaviorist needs to increase emotional contact between owners and dogs and create a more permeable emotional boundary. If the relationship between the dog and its people is enmeshed, indulgent, and smothering, (the dog is growls around food the owners back off) then the behaviorist is likewise duty bound to help the owners become more firm in their emotional boundaries. If the dog is being used as an emotional scapegoat, or triangulated, in a relationship conflict between the owners ("He does do that." "Oh, no he doesn't!"), then the behaviorist has to bring that out in the open, make appropriate referrals, and/or suggest finding a different home for the dog.

Throughout this book, we outline in detail modern, non-abusive behavior-modification techniques you can use to successfully treat your anxious, aggressive or depressed dog. By employing them, not only will you help your dog recover and maintain its mental health, you actually can help it achieve even higher levels of emotional wellness.

POSTSCRIPT :

Within three months, Joey was unrecognizable from the wretched cur we had seen on videotape. While living with Derek's family he had gained back his weight, he had become animated, he was wagging his tail and he had sparkle back in his eyes. Once we implemented a plan to have Joey become accustomed to the Arita's cat, "Mac," things turned out quite well. The Aritas reiterated, however, they were only temporarily foster caring for Joey.

In February 1996, I made another appearance on OCN and saw Derek. He told me that he and his wife had had a change of mind – and heart -- and decided to permanently keep Joey. For Joey, it was a dream come true.

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