[nagdu] stress, how much is too much?

[Tracy Carcione]

I find it very hard to believe that Ben sniffs because he's stressed.  I
think he sniffs because it's very rewarding for him.  He's a natural
investigator.
In situations where I think he's working hardest, like at a festival or
working through a big crowd, he sniffs very little.  The challenge makes
him really focus.  He sniffs most when he figures he can multi-task
because guiding doesn't require all his attention.  "Brain the size of a
planet, and she wants me to walk to the diner."
Tracy
Tracy

> Dogs show stress often in ways that most humans would not naturally
> recognize as stress signals.  I work with severely stressed dogs in my job
> and a huge part of what I do is educating dog owners on what their dog is
> doing and what it means.
>
>
>
> Signs of canine stress fall into a couple of different categories.  You
> have
> (in order of escalation)
>
>
>
> 1.  Displacement behaviors: sniffing the ground and/or scratching as if
> they
> have an itch.  I see the sniffing the ground commonly corrected, when
> really
> what the dog is trying to self sooth, they are stressed and so they sniff.
> Classic I see is a dog is corrected, and immediately drops his head to
> sniff
> something.  The handler mistakes this behavior for disobedience, so
> corrects
> the dog again.  When this happens I want to cry for the dog, he is being
> corrected for trying to diffuse and de-stress.  Think of how difficult an
> experience at that moment for the dog, he's being corrected, punished for
> being stressed.
>
>
>
> 2.  Calming signals: Yawning, licking lips, turning the head away, looking
> away/avoiding eye contact, walking or moving away from the
> stressor/trigger.
> There is an excellent booklet called On Talking Terms with Dogs: Calming
> Signals that discusses this subset of self-soothing behavior patterns in
> dogs
>
>
>
> 3.  Stress Reactions: panting, pupil dilation, full body shake off (as if
> the dog were wet but he isn't at that present moment), sweaty paws,
> trebling/shaking, whale eye (looking at something with a sideways stare,
> called whale eye because you see mainly the whites of the dog's eye),
> putting the hackles up (hair on the back of the dog's spine/neck)
>
>
>
> 4.  Focus: staring at trigger/stressor, stiffened body posture, freezing,
> holding breath, closing mouth/clenching jaw
>
>
>
> 5.  Preparing to defend: showing teeth, growling, barking (vocalizations)
>
>
>
> 6.  Lunging
>
>
>
> 7.  Biting
>
>
>
> Something I frequently encounter and counsel clients on is how incredibly
> dangerous it is for a person to misinterpret and punish any of the
> beginning
> or lower level stress signals.  Any dog in enough stress, if their
> threshold
> is pushed far enough will either fight or flee (in some cases 'flee'
> exhibits as an entire mental shut down, in others as complete avoidance).
> For a dog who has been corrected for showing stress, you effectively take
> away their warning system.  Dog says- I'm scared, I'm stressed, I tried to
> tell you this before and you punished me, this time I'm not going to warn
> you (and often this means dog goes directly to biting).
>
>
>
> Punishment doesn't actually long term change behavior.  Punishment
> suppresses behavior.  It doesn't actually change the beings underlying
> motives for doing said behavior.  This is often why those who rely on
> various forms of punishment to control another beings behavior (dog,
> person/child, etc) find themselves having to as time goes on resort to
> higher and higher escalations of punishment form.  To truly change a
> behavior that is occurring that you find inappropriate for whatever
> reason,
> you must address and change the beings underlying motivation for doing the
> behavior.
>
>
>
> Katrin
>
>
>
>
>
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