[nagdu] stress, how much is too much?

Wed Nov 14 17:58:26 UTC 2012

Tracy,

Well, that's what makes the stress question so tricky. A sure fire sign 
for one dog is just something another dog does without having to be 
stressed. Once you begin to learn your dog's signals, it gets easier. 
Mostly. /smile/

So Mitzi sniffs at one level just because it is rewarding. I do give her 
sniff breaks when I stop for a break for myself, since it keeps her 
happy and why not? So long as she is not being a sniff monster when she 
is guiding me along, then it's all good. It's a heretical approach, I 
know, but it's my approach. /lol/

Then again, if she turns obnoxious sniff monster when I'm not giving her 
a sniff break, she's telling me that something is amiss. This would be a 
good time for me to stop and figure out what it is. If I miss the 
message, being too caught up in carping and whining about all the 
sniffing, then she has other ways to get my attention. Monster guide! 
She seems to keep me safe, but my way in life can get pretty unpleasant, 
nonetheless. So I stop finally to get a grip on my temper and it 
suddenly occurs to me to wonder what could possibly be up with this low 
down scurvy cur I thought it was a good idea to bring along. /lol/

The problem isn't necessarily stress, and sometimes it's me. I will 
still occasionally have back spasms that cause one leg to go numb and I 
become unbalanced. But since it's numb, I don't notice. She does. Once I 
figure it out and either work the spasm and get my spine back into place 
or just adjust now that I know I'm not as coordinated as I think I am, 
her head comes off the ground and she whips off slick as can be with a 
big, smug poodle grin! Funny girl.

She shows me other signs of more major stress, and it's a good idea for 
me to pay attention when stressful situations might be affecting her. 
She's really pretty easy to jolly along if I catch the signs early and 
just do those little bits and pieces and rituals that make her day. Of 
course, when it's my stress (good, bad or ugly) she's picking up on, I'm 
just not paying attention as I should or am skipping our rituals or 
whatever. So I can find myself suddenly taking time out of my busy life 
to bring her back to good. A stressed out poodle is a sad thing indeed, 
and can reach total meltdown if it gets too bad. I live to keep that dog 
happy!

At longer events, I do need to watch for certain signs and take extra 
measures to coddle that wonderful but oddly delicate poodle temperament. 
Of course, at those events, I also want to run around meeting and 
greeting and chatting and attending and all the things we humans do at 
such things, and I just want a perfect, no fuss guide while I'm doing 
all this. My guide wants more fuss and reassurance and attention and 
reward and all... If I remember to give her what she needs, things go 
pretty well. If I get too caught up in my own rush and expectations, my 
guide becomes increasingly not perfect. It's a balancing act, and you 
think I would learn to just make sure I'm doing the little things as we 
go. Hasn't happened! Really, all I have to do is be happy with her and 
make sure she knows that. She's a complicated lady, but she's really 
very easy.

Boredom is also a bummer for us... I can hear her, too, thinking "Brain 
the size of a planet, and she has me..." /lol/ She loves to get out and 
go and adventure and discover. This going to the grocery store to walk 
up and down the aisles... Not so much. Boh-ring! /lol/

Tami

On 11/14/2012 08:46 AM, Tracy Carcione wrote:
> 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
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> nagdu mailing list
>> nagdu at nfbnet.org
>> http://nfbnet.org/mailman/listinfo/nagdu_nfbnet.org
>> To unsubscribe, change your list options or get your account info for
>> nagdu:
>> http://nfbnet.org/mailman/options/nagdu_nfbnet.org/carcione%40access.net
>>
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> nagdu mailing list
> nagdu at nfbnet.org
> http://nfbnet.org/mailman/listinfo/nagdu_nfbnet.org
> To unsubscribe, change your list options or get your account info for nagdu:
> http://nfbnet.org/mailman/options/nagdu_nfbnet.org/tami%40poodlemutt.com
>