DIGGING, CHEWING, CHASING, BARKING: INSTINCTIVE DRIVES YOU LOVE OR HATE?

by Beverley Courtney (Victoria Stilwell’s “Positively”)

Instinctive drives are hard-wired behaviours with which we all come equipped. The most obvious one would be eating. We all have to eat. And trying to suppress that desire will only drive it underground. If someone’s hungry and is prevented from eating, they will steal food. If you try to control something that strongly embedded, you’ll get evasive and deceitful responses.

So too with many of the behaviours we see in our dogs. Taken to excess, these compulsions would become annoying or even dangerous. But if you can accommodate them – by giving your dog an outlet for his natural inclinations – you’ll have no trouble with them. Don’t fight nature!

The Four Instinctive Drives People Struggle With

There are four instinctive drives that people tend to complain about most. Contrary to popular perception, all dogs don’t do all these things. It’s not something you have to resign yourself to when you get a puppy. Many dogs will indulge them just a little, some just during puppyhood, and some not at all. But they can all be modified without taking the dog’s enjoyment and basic needs away from him!

Here are some ideas to get you started.

1. DIGGING
Particularly evident in earth dogs – terriers, ratters – though by no means confined to them. Provide digging opportunities for your digger.

• Half-bury old bones, plastic bottles and such like in a part of the garden you earmark for digging. Don’t leave your dog outside unattended – telling him off after the event is a waste of time. As soon as he starts digging, run excitedly to your dig-spot and start digging yourself. Encourage him to dig himself to a standstill!

• Indoors you can play “Dig for the Toy (or Person) Under the Duvet” games. Be sure to protect the person’s face from those ravaging claws. This exciting game usually results in much laughter all round! Let them dig their bed to bits. Instead of one boring piece of padded bed, give them lots of cushions and blankets they can rearrange and tunnel into. They enjoy the release of energy in ferocious digging, so they need to be able to do it. So what if they damage their bed? It’s their bed. And you can get a new one if they shred it.

• Digging often wanes with age. My Border Collie Rollo used to pounce on the grass and dig as a puppy – clearly he could hear something creeping about in the earth. He lets the underground traffic of mice and beetles carry on unheeded now. I captured the entertaining pouncing action though, and he’ll still rear up and dive when I say “Rabbit!” Cricket the Whippet enjoys digging so much that she is encouraged to dig her bed, and we’ve kept that behaviour of frantic digging going – long past puppyhood!

2. CHEWING
If you don’t want her to chew your things, then you need to supply her with plenty of her things that she can chew.

• Large bones she really has to stand on and fight with are the very, very best and most popular chew toys. Choose raw beef bones – ribs or larger. She’ll soon strip off anything fleshy and happily gnaw the clean bones for months. I have a multi-dog household and there are never any bone-fights.

• Rawhide chews are not the natural product you may think them to be. They’re heavily processed and may have lots of additives and junk.

• Food-toys are great to soothe anxious chewers and occupy those jaws safely. You can use anything you have handy to fill them: squeezy cheese, liver pate, peanut butter (additive-free), last night’s left-over pasta and sauce. Freezing them makes them last longer. Kibble works well in containers that have to be rolled or wobbled to give up their bounty.

• All discarded containers (like cereal boxes, toilet roll middles, plastic bottles, for instance) can become food toys. The dogs are welcome to shred them and rip them apart to reach the goodies inside. Ripping and tearing is enormously satisfying for them.

• I would not want to give my puppy anything to chew now that I didn’t want her to chew later. Old shoes, old jumpers, best Jimmy Choos, favourite blouse: how can she tell the difference? You can launder and recycle old clothes into plaited dog ropes.

3. CHASING

Chasing – you or dog-friends – in a safe area is fine. Hurtling across a road chasing a squirrel is not.

• Equal chasing – taking turns to chase each other – makes for great excitement. In a good game dogs will adjust their pace to suit their playmate. They take turns at being chaser and chasee. The game can be fast, but not intense.

• Flat-out, head-down chasing – leg-biting, flank-grabbing, frustrated barking – are not good. You’ll end up at the Vet with a dog needing stitches. Teach your frustrated chaser to hold a toy in his mouth when chasing. Hanging on to the toy gives him something else to focus on and bite down onto. It muffles the woofs too! If he can’t chase nicely, with or without a toy to hold, then he doesn’t get to chase live things – dogs, people, cats, etc. Some herding dogs and sighthounds need to learn how to chase safely, without nipping or grabbing.

• Chasing crows. As long as the area is safe I’m happy to let mine chase foraging crows off the ground. They’ll never catch them, so the birds are in no danger. This tends to be a puppy thing, as they give up the unequal contest after a number of failures. But it gives the dog an outlet for that very rewarding surge of energy and focus that comes with a good chase.

• Teach your dog to chase with rules. A flirt pole is ideal for this. He may not grab it from the air or your hand – he has to wait till you release him to pounce on it. You can build up to this level of self-control. To begin with it will be a massive outlet for his chasing desire. It will also wear him out very fast – great for days when there’s too much energy and too little opportunity to get out and use it up. Regular play with the flirt pole gives my whippet an outlet for her very strong rabbit-chasing instincts, making recalls off rabbits a snap.

• “You can’t catch me!” A chase game round the garden with a toy reward can be great fun and use up a lot of energy (for both of you!). As long as your dog will come right to you when you want to hold her collar, playing Keep Away is fine.

4. BARKING
Some breeds or types of dog are very barky. It’s pointless to attempt to suppress this barking. You will lose. Try channelling it instead.

• Teach your dog to bark on cue. “Woof!” followed by “Quiet!”, repeat till your ears are ringing.

• Pair “Thank you” with a treat. Then thank your dog for alerting you to the serious danger of the mother pushing her pushchair down the road past your house, or the terrifying prospect of invasion from the postman. Reward her for coming to you when you say Thank you – every time. Quite soon you’ll have a dog who draws breath to bark, thinks again and comes trotting to you for a treat. Be sure to reward her mightily for this excellent decision!

• As soon as your dog starts barking, toss some hard treats or kibble at a hard surface (door, hard floor, cupboard door). She’ll scurry across to gobble them up, and probably look at you for more. Now you have silence and her attention! And all without shouting, yelling, or barking yourself.

• On our own in a huge forest or an empty beach is the place where my barkers are encouraged to bark themselves silly.

If you choose to share your life with a dog, you have to take the rough with the smooth. But I’ve just given you a load of sandpaper to smooth off the rough edges a bit, without suppression, judgment, or bossiness. Use your dog’s instinctive drives as a starting point for new and exciting games you can enjoy together.

Key takeaway? Enjoy your dog as he is, not the perfect dog you thought you wanted when you got him.

Much more to learn at www.brilliantfamilydog.com. And if your dog is chasing or barking aggressively, head to www.brilliantfamilydog.com/growly

https://positively.com/contributors/digging-chewing-chasing-barking-instinctive-drives-you-love-or-hate/

Naturally fearful dogs: not all ‘scaredy’ dogs have been mistreated

by Karen London, PhD

“She must have been abused,” is a comment I hear with alarming regularity. When a dog cowers and shakes or barks and growls at a person wearing a hat, it’s natural to think that the strong reaction is proof of previous harsh treatment by someone wearing a hat. It’s easy to conclude that a dog who’s scared of children was teased by the neighborhood Dennis the Menace. Similarly, it’s logical to assume that a dog would only react aversely to a broom after having had terrifying experiences with one.

Without a doubt, far too many dogs suffer abuse, but not all dogs who seem to have been abused have been treated badly. Some are fearful because they were inadequately socialized, or have a genetic tendency to be fearful, or both. As often as not, a history of abuse is not a factor.

The most common scenario that leads people to conclude that a dog has been abused is the dog who’s fine with women but scared of men. In these cases, while it’s possible that a man abused the dog, the fact that a dog is afraid of men doesn’t prove the theory. Typically, dogs who have fearful tendencies are more scared of men than of women. I’ve met hundreds of dogs who were only scared of men, but exactly two who feared women more. The fact is, dogs who are fearful have a natural propensity to be more afraid of men. Nobody knows for sure why this is, but it’s likely that men’s larger size, broader shoulders, deeper voices and facial hair make them more intimidating.

Another reason that dogs might be more afraid of men was suggested by a study reported in Current Biology,“Correlated changes in perceptions of the gender and orientation of ambiguous biological motion figures.” When motion was detected only on pointlight displays*, observers perceived an interesting difference between male and female movement. Figures considered masculine in gait seemed to be approaching, while both feminine and gender-neutral gaits were seen as heading away. Fearful dogs are typically most frightened when something scary moves toward them—no wonder they find men more alarming than women.

Scent may also be a factor. A recent experiment, “Olfactory exposure to males, including men, causes stress and related analgesia in rodents,” reported in Nature Methods, showed that mice and rats react differently to male and female experimenters because of differences in the way that they smell. That means that all studies of these rodents’ behavior may have been influenced by the gender of the people conducting the study. The test animals became highly stressed and exhibited decreased pain responses in the presence of human males; even T-shirts worn by men (but not those worn by women) caused this reaction.

The rodents were similarly stressed by odors from males of a range of species, including dogs, cats, guinea pigs and even other rodents. Males release certain pheromones in larger concentrations than females, and these fearinducing chemicals are shared among mammals, which means that dogs could also be affected by them. Scent differences could very likely affect dogs and cause them to be more frightened around men.

The assumption that fear of men indicates a history of abuse by a man is not the only one that may be erroneous. Many people are sure that dogs who react negatively to people with hats or backpacks proves past abuse by a person sporting those same objects. While again, this is possible, it’s more likely that the dog is simply unfamiliar with the objects themselves and the way that they change people’s appearance. Many react fearfully to a changed silhouette, becoming frightened, for example, by the sight of someone they know and love wearing a hat. Once the person removes the hat, the dog switches to happy greeting behavior.

Another commonly misunderstood area relates to the fear of children. Many dogs are skittish around children because of their erratic behavior, especially if they were not well socialized to them at an early age. After all, from a dog’s perspective, kids behave in peculiar and unexpected ways. They change direction suddenly, roll on the ground, move at variable speeds, make weird noises and are generally high-energy, bipedal whirling dervishes. Dogs who are naturally fearful may find excitable, loud humans in motion to be unpredictable, which is frightening. (On the flip side, there are fearful dogs who do fine with kids, but are terrified of adults. Usually, such dogs have had positive experiences with children and are used to their erratic behavior.)

If a dog’s fearfulness toward specific types of people or certain everyday items doesn’t necessarily mean that the dog has been abused, how can you tell if your dog suffered from abuse in the past? The honest answer is that— unless you have the dog’s full backstory— you can never know for certain. However, some clues may help you make an educated guess. Abuse is less likely as an explanation for a dog’s fearfulness if the dog’s reactions fit the pattern associated with dogs who are naturally fearful. The most common pattern is for such dogs to be cautious around strangers, especially men, and to be worse around tall, deep-voiced men with beards, or anyone carrying things—garden implements, brooms or mops, or a clipboard, or wearing sunglasses, a backpack or a hat. Dogs with a generally fearful approach to the world often react most vigorously when unfamiliar people approach, look directly at them, stand up from a sitting position or reach down to pet them.

If the dog has sustained multiple injuries, such as broken bones or teeth, or has scars on the face and body, abuse is more likely. Of course, those injuries could be a result of accidents, and some forms of abuse leave no scars. Still, a dog with unexplained evidence of physical trauma is more likely to have been a victim of abuse than a dog without it.

If a dog’s fear is highly specific, it is more likely to be based on trauma, which could have come in the form of abuse. So, if a dog is afraid of freckled, redheaded children with glasses in the age range of 10 to 12 years, but fine with all other kids, it’s more likely that a negative experience with a child of that description caused the fear. On the other hand, if a dog is only okay with children who are older than about 16, my bet would be that the dog lacks experience with a wide range of children and is only comfortable with children who are more adult-like in size and behavior. Similarly, if the dog is okay with men unless they are wearing loafers with a buckle, I would be inclined to suspect abuse. Specificity of fears is more likely to indicate abuse, because dogs who are generally fearful are usually set off by a wider range of triggers.

Even in the case of a specific fear, we have to be careful about assuming that abuse was the cause. For example, I had a client whose dog was fearful of and aggressive toward only one person. Sounds like that person might have beaten the dog, right? Not in this case. The man the dog was afraid of was the neighbor who had saved the dog’s life during a house fire; the wonderful man went into the house and carried the dog out before the firefighters arrived. Until then, the dog liked this man, but was terrified of him after the fire, presumably because he associated the man with the horrible experience.

While anyone who loves dogs wants to know if a particular dog has been abused, the same process is used to help a dog overcome fears of any origin. Classical conditioning, desensitization and patience will serve people and dogs equally well. It’s critical not to force a frightened dog into situations that provoke fear, but instead, to protect the dog from scary circumstances. Be gentle and kind and refrain from using punishment. Feel free to comfort any dog who is scared without worrying about the common (but misplaced) warning that this will reinforce the fear. Accept that many fearful dogs never become gregarious, go-with-the-flow types, and love them for who they are rather than who you think they should be.

Some people seem relieved when I tell them that their dog may not have been abused, while others seem disappointed to give up the “feel good” story of adopting a dog who was mistreated. I empathize with both groups.

I can understand the relief, and I can also understand how gratifying it feels to give a loving home to a dog who only knew cruelty before. And while I certainly can’t say definitively which dogs with unknown histories have been abused and which haven’t, I agree with other progressive trainers and behaviorists that abused dogs are not as common as one might think.

Many wonderful clients whose dogs are fearful and reactive have said to me, “People are going to think we’ve abused her, but I swear we’ve never hurt her.” It’s a pleasure when I can reassure them that I do believe them, and for very good reason.

http://thebark.com/content/naturally-fearful-dogs

Why do dogs like to shred tissues?

by Stanley Coren Ph.D., F.R.S.C.
“Canine Corner”

Certain sensations trigger a genetic desire for dogs to tear and shred

I recently got a note from a woman who was concerned about the fact that her miniature white Poodle was continually picking used tissues out of her bathroom or bedroom wastebasket and chewing them up. Sometimes this behavior amused her, since, when she had been using the tissues to clean off her makeup, some of the reddish colored pigment would transfer to the dog’s lips making the white dog look as though it had applied a thin line of lipstick to her mouth. However picking up the shredded paper remains was not fun and she worried if there was something wrong with her dog who seem to be obsessed with tissue paper.

I actually laughed out loud when I read this note since I am currently dealing with a 16-week-old puppy who just recently discovered the roll of toilet paper in our bathroom. He took the dangling end of the roll in his mouth, and liking the feel of it he chomped down and ran out of the room pulling much of the roll of toilet tissue with him. We found the remains scattered through several rooms throughout the house.

What is going on here is not particularly pathological nor is it unexplainable. Dogs, particularly puppies, explore the world, first with their noses, and then with their mouths. Somewhere encoded in the canine genetic makeup is some kind of memory or preference for certain touch sensations such as the feel of fur or of feathers in their mouths. Such touch sensations seem to give dogs a thrill and can trigger a desire to mouth, tear, and shred things associated with those feelings. You can experience this for yourself if you take a clean facial tissue or a piece of toilet paper and place it in your mouth — it feels like a combination of fur and feathers — those totally irresistible feelings for a dog. Dogs seldom actually swallow much of this tissue paper since, when it gets wet, it turns into some mushy thing which no longer is of much interest.

While the dog’s predisposition to mouth and chew tissues can be annoying, it is easily solved by using wastebaskets that have lids, and keeping the door to the bathroom closed. However there is something good which can be derived from the knowledge that the desire to shred things that feel like this is encoded in the dog’s DNA. Specifically it gives us a clue as to how to create the perfect dog toy.

Obviously a dog toy should not be made out of paper tissue since that would not last very long. The cloth that best mimics the feeling that a tissue does in the dog’s mouth is flannel, which might then make the perfect covering for a dog toy. A near approximation of this, in terms of sensory feeling, would be the soft, deep weave found in some cotton socks, particularly those called “sweat socks” or “athletic socks” (which is why chewing on socks is close behind tearing at tissues when dealing with complaints about inappropriate things that dogs do with their mouths).

Now the trick is that once the dog is attracted to the feel of the flannel or cotton knit in his mouth, to be the perfect dog toy one needs something which will keep the dog working at the toy. This means that the toy should do something, and again, harkening back to the dogs evolutionary heredity as a predator, doing something should involve some kind of action or noise that results as a function of the dog biting at it (much the same way that a small prey animal might respond when caught).

So here is the perfect (and inexpensive) dog toy. Take a deep cotton knit sweat sock (or a flannel sock if you have one) and then take one of those small plastic bottles that water is sold in. When empty these bottles make a crackling sound when they are crushed. Take the empty bottle and insert it into the sock, then tie off the end (or sew the end if you are feeling ambitious) and toss this new toy to your dog. That’s it! Your dog will be attracted to the sock toy, and once in his mouth, the fact that it now responds with interesting noises when he bites hit it makes this a very desirable thing for him to play with. The dog will work on this toy, intermittently, for many hours, making this a wonderful diversion for him — if you can put up with the crackling noise going on around you while he plays with it. Just remember that for our favorite domesticated predator it is the fact that toys can be bitten and torn that makes them fun (for more about that click here)

Stanley Coren is the author of many books including: The Wisdom of Dogs; Do Dogs Dream? Born to Bark; The Modern Dog; Why Do Dogs Have Wet Noses? The Pawprints of History; How Dogs Think; How To Speak Dog; Why We Love the Dogs We Do; What Do Dogs Know? The Intelligence of Dogs; Why Does My Dog Act That Way? Understanding Dogs for Dummies; Sleep Thieves; The Left-hander Syndrome.