top of page

Let's talk about stress, baby. Let's talk about you and me. Let's talk about all the good things and the bad things that may be. Let's talk about STRESS!

Writer's picture: Simon WoolerSimon Wooler


For those of you reading this who live with fearful or anxious dogs, it's not going to be a learning moment when I say that dogs like yours experience high levels of stress in their lives, sometimes for extended periods of time. It is also not going to come as too much of a surprise that such levels of stress can be both debilitating for the dog and obscure the sight of the path to progress for you on the human side of the relationship, It can be hugely frustrating to see slow or no apparent progress and as stress grows in both you and your dog, the opportunities for learning and growth together diminish. So, what's to be done? The good news is that as we come to understand more about stress in dogs, its cause, its purpose, how to harness its benefits (yes, there are some) and reduce its downsides, the more we come to understand how to set our dogs and ourselves up for success.

 

But let's take a step back and talk first about the different kinds of stress that we might encounter in life. It's not all bad. Stress has a purpose. The hormones that are produced in the body when we experience stress, are designed to support our need to survive. They are essential to the fight or flight response that I'm sure many of you are familiar with. That burst of adrenaline (epinephrine) that comes just prior to the exertion needed to repel boarders or hightail it out of there. And let's not forget that those same hormones and chemicals we rely on to deal with danger are precisely why we can endure, even crave, challenging sports or to appear on stage. It's not all bad by any means.

 

When you’re under stress, your body and your brain obligingly calls on all of those functions that you need for dealing with crisis and puts everything else on the back burner until the crisis is averted and everyone can quite literally breathe more easily.

However, when stress goes bad it can go spectacularly bad. What do I mean by bad? Well, bad is when things mis-fire. When the situation being faced doesn't represent a clear and present danger, but the perception is that it does. All of the systems designed to maintain a controlled response to the situation at hand, fail. The President, so to speak, is evacuated to the bunker and all the missiles in the silos go to Defcon four, everyone starts wildly running around or hiding under tables and before you know it, civilization collapses into panic and chaos.

Such excessive stress responses are known as chronic or toxic - long term and extreme, if you will. Certainly damaging. What it boils down to is an inability to cope. Coping is the whole story in truth. Coping is what differentiates between good stress and toxic stress. We can't avoid stress in our lives, but we can evaluate it (either spontaneously or over time) and respond in a manner appropriate to the severity of the circumstance we face.

But when there’s a misfire, that evaluation is lacking. If you have ever experienced mental health problems in your life or know someone who has, you'll very well understand how isolating and paralysing it can be. It’s easy to end up in a perpetual cycle where the symptoms of anxiety get in the way of finding a way through.

 

Chronic or toxic stress can have very significant implications in terms of health and welfare outcomes in dogs, not to mention effects on behaviour, be that a tendency to withdraw or shutdown or even the adoption of aggressive or defensive behaviour.

 

What causes the stress and when are we likely to encounter it? There seem to be a number of potential sources and you might as a dog parent come across it in a puppy or an adolescent or senior rescue. Stress in canine mothers can impact puppies even when they’re in the womb. With adolescent dogs, adopters will often liken the behaviour they witness to that of human adolescents and it seems fair to conclude that some of the stress responses we see in adolescent dogs are the result of normal hormonal changes. But for others, the stress responses may be the consequence of earlier practices such as prolonged periods separated from the mother, too early permanent removal from the family unit or social isolation from other dogs because the encounters are too challenging. Adolescence is a tough gig that's for sure. It's tough for the animal of course but it's also tough for the caregiver or parental figure. Adolescent play can be disorderly and their expression of frustration can be bombastic at the best of times. Even a better understanding of what's happening and an acknowledgement that there is no real mal-intent, the frustration can build in both parties and that does nothing to mitigate the impact of climbing stress levels. Adolescent dogs tend to need the very things that their caregivers find difficult to both navigate and police efficiently: access to and play opportunities with other dogs, play and enrichment with their humans even when that can be boisterous.

 

With senior dogs, the original source of stress may be lost in the mists of time, but it can have an aggravating effect on health conditions so reducing it is no less important than for younger dogs.

 

All of this can start to sound like something of a mountain to climb but, of course, many dogs establish perfectly workable coping mechanisms and, before everyone runs out of the door screaming, there is hope, indeed optimism that these things can be overcome.

In truth, in this respect, it’s time that we in dog training started doing a better job of stepping up to the plate and helping you as loving dog parents with the pressures of living with a dog with chronic or toxic stress. We need, perhaps, to acknowledge that rather than offer ‘fixes’, the right thing to do is to help these dogs help themselves: give them the tools to build coping mechanisms and manage better in stressful situations by engaging, connecting and playing with them before being concerned with confronting the "trigger" itself. Our role as trainers should be to offer the techniques, but then to make the time to provide realistic support throughout the journey when progress is slow or seems to stall. We should be showing the way by giving mini goals and milestones to watch for, celebrating small breakthroughs to keep morale up. In short, we should be building up resilience in you, the humans, as you work to do the same for your beloved dogs.

611 views0 comments

Recent Posts

See All

Comments


© 2024 by Sociable Dog. Sociable Dog is a trading name of East Braes Consulting Ltd

  • Facebook Social Icon
  • Twitter Social Icon
bottom of page