PART THREE - Stress

Definition: Any situation in life which places demands on the adaptive mechansisms of the body creates stress, the "the non-specific response of the body to any demand for change" (Selye, 1976). Every stressor, regardless of whether it is consciously perceived or not, produces emotional, neurological, locomotor, hormonal and immunological regulatory mechanisms; in higher organisms cognitive functions also come into play.

A little background information

The scientific term 'stress' was first used in the field of physics. Physicist and biologist Robert Hooke (1635-1703) used the term “stress” (exertion) to indicate the area in a structure in which a load is borne, and “strain” as the deformation caused by the interaction between stress and load.
Claude Bernard (1957), the acknowledged father of modern physiology, was the first to introduce the concepts of an “external environment” in which an organism is situated and its internal environment, that is, the environment in which organs and tissues live. According to Bernard, the constancy of this ’inner environment is an essential condition for life, a concept first defined by Walter B. Cannon (1915) as “homeostasis”. Cannon also described the “fight or flight” responses to acute stress”.
The first detailed studies on the biological mechanisms of stress were performed by Hans Selye (1976). Selye wrote that “the non-specific response of the body to any demand for change “ creates stress”. This fact regards both positive and negative experiences: any stimulus, be it endogenous or exogenous, physical or psychological, is a stressor, and the body's response to it is stress.

Selye used the term “general adaptation syndrome ” to describe the sum of all the reactions of an organism following a prolonged exposure to a stressor, (Selye, 1936) and made the distinction between eustress and distress, that is, physiological stress and pathological stress. The former activates an easily reversible response that is not quantitatively excessive, while the latter induces an irreversible response that is disproportionate to and prolonged beyond the actual resources of the body. Eustress is a function of an increased ability of an individual to adapt to changes in the environment.
According to Ewbank (1985), there are three forms of stress:
-Physiological stress, which is the level of stress that is entirely adaptive and is associated with the ability of an animal to return to or maintain a state of well-being.
-Overstress, which individuals are likely to adapt to but which can cause damage to the health of an animal;
-Distress. While it is possible to adapt to it, distress is nevertheless associated with harm to an animal's wellbeing, and is manifested through behaviour with negative effects not only on the animal's comfort but also on its reproductive health.
While it is possible to adapt to distress, it is nevertheless associated with harm to an animal's wellbeing, and is manifested through behaviour with negative effects not only on the animal's comfort but also on its reproductive health.
Morberg (1987) hypothesized that despite its relatively brief effects on the autonomic nervous system, the hormones released by the pituitary / hypothalamus system have a long-term effect on the body, and that the immune system also plays an important role in the response to stressors.

Acute Stress

Definition: Any event produced over a certain (generally brief) period of time, and which, if it does recur, does so only infrequently. (Burchfield, 1979).

Gray (1987) divided fear-provoking stimuli into five groups:
- unfamiliar stimuli
- intense stimuli
- stimuli associated with genetic predispositions
- stimuli that emerge during social interactions
- conditioned stimuli dependent upon the context in which they occur.

Many authors have described the following behaviours as symptoms of acute stress:
Standing or sitting with lowered / crouching posture, trembling, vocalizations, attempts to flee; if the attempt to flee is blocked, frenzy, aggressiveness toward the perceived source of pain / fear, whimpering, nose-licking, oral behaviours, open mouth, raised front paw, shaking off, uneasiness (shown through movement or barking), yawning, urinating or defecating, hunched back, tail between the legs, piloerection / hackles raised, stiffness, thigmotactic reactions (those toward or away from any object that provides a mechanical stimulus) which may include attempts to lean against or lie on the owner or objects (including the floor), lowering the head, avoiding eye contact, ears flattened, squealing or yelping (Friend 1991, Schwizgebel 1982, Beerda 1997, Lindsay 2001).

Rebound behaviours

Definition: an intensified display of a particular behaviour, after an individual has been prevented from performing it for a period of time. (Friend, 1991)

In a study on dogs, it was observed that frequency of barking increased after the dogs were forced to wear an anti-barking muzzle. (Cronin et al., 2003).
The first time I heard the term "rebound behaviour" mentioned was in a different context. I was trying to see the effect of a plastic dog on my Border Collie, who at the time was three months old. Grisou would threaten a plastic toy dog when it was in a frontal position, would approach and sniff it when it was in a lateral stance, and was ready to flee at the first reaction of what he clearly viewed as a bizzarre creature ! When I picked up this model Boxer and Grisou realized that it was just a piece of plastic, he became extremely excited and began to jump up and down, trying to grab it. At the time, an ethologist friend described this display as rebound behaviour, and I think I replied, “ah.... sure !”, then went to find out just exactly what this effect was! While I'm not sure that it exactly fits the description, for me, rebound behaviours are what we see when a dog, after having gone through a moment of extreme stress, no longer has to face the cause of its fear or worry, but still has high levels of adrenaline.

Chronic stress

Definition: “a stimulus to which an organism is continually exposed ” (Burchfield, 1979).

One of the main causes of chronic stress in animals is the impossibility to satisfy basic behavioural needs (Friend, 1991), such as the need for social interactions (Dellmeier et al., 1985; Panksepp e Beatty, 1980), movement (Dellmeier et al., 1985), play (Brownlee, 1954) and rest (Dellmeier, 1989).
An important aspect of stress-related behaviours underlined by Friend (1991) is the fact that: “Behaviours described as abnormal can often be considered as normal responses to abnormal environments”.
Behaviours such as pacing back and forth or in a circle in a small fenced-in area are an example of how the absence of sufficient space and above all of stimulation can be potentially damaging conditions for dogs. Consequently, in the presence of abnormal behaviours, the correct strategy to safeguard the wellbeing of a dog is not to modify its behaviour but rather to lok at and change the physical and social environment in which it lives.

According to Friend (1991), generally speaking, the responses shared by different species of animals in the face of these kinds of deprivation include:
- learned helplessness;
- rebound behaviours;
- stereotyped behaviours;
- lack of behaviours that would normally be expected in a given species.

In the fourth category we find behaviours such as self-cleaning of fur, play, exploratory behaviours, shorter resting time, less time spent in sleeping, less eating and drinking. Some of these behaviours can be included in the range of symptoms typical of depression (Pageat, 2000).
In a 1998 study, Beerda et al. exposed a group of 15 Beagles to a situation of confinement and isolation for a period of 6 weeks, as a model of chronic stress in the dog. The behaviour of the dogs was then compared to their behaviour over an equivalent period of time in an enriched environment, living in a group in a large area. During the period of isolation, the dogs showed an increased frequency of self-grooming (as a stereotyped behaviour), raising of a front paw and vocalizations, all of which are stress-related behaviours. An association was also found between episodes of coprophagy and these repeated behaviours. These behavioural changes were interpreted as an indicator of chronic stress, and were accompanied by an increase in aggressiveness, arousal and uncertainty. Indeed, a period of chronic stress, even if it is not particularly intense, will induce more extreme behavioural responses when other chronically stressful factors are present: an animal that previously had not suffered the effects of chronic stress will have greater reserves of energy available to rely on if faced with a situation of chronic exposure to a stressor compared to a dog which has already been subjected to the same situation.

While many dog shelters try to guarantee acceptable care and living conditions for the dogs in their care, the situation itself puts the dogs' wellbeing at risk.

Learned helplessness

Definition: Learned helplessness develops when an animal is subjected to chronic and unavoidable stress (Overmaier & Seligman, 1967).

Overmaier & Seligman (1967) demonstrated that, after dogs were exposed to chronic unavoidable electric shocks, they developed the inability to escape the shocks even when escape was possible. Repeated unsuccessful attempts to escape negative events produce an inhibition of the behaviour and provoke a state of depression.
Learned helplessness leads to three types of deficits (Seligman, 1975):
- Cognitive deficits: a perceived lack of control
- Emotional deficits: fear of certain situations and anxiety when dealing with them, along with depression, apathy and resignation in the face of (unavoidable) failures.
- Motivational deficits: loss of self-confidence.
One of the cases of learned helplessness I remember most clearly was that of Zeb, one of the pit bulls in the ENPA ex-fighting dogs rehabilitation project. When in his kennel run at the shelter he seemed to be an active and normally reactive dog, but as soon as he was leashed, he would lean against the person holding the leash, and remain passive. While in the area used for rehabilitation activities, he would refuse to eat, regardless of the type of food offered. Since he would eat voraciously if in his kennel run, my strategy was to use his bowl to give him food in the area we worked in. This strategy had worked well with a German Shepherd who had been traumatized by coercive training methods and as a result would flee as fast as possible and begin to try to catch real or imaginary flies at the sight of a hand taking a piece of food out of a bait (treat) bag. At the end of the rehabilitation program, Zeb was adopted and today is a happy member of a new family.

VIDEO

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This is Zeb, one of the pit bulls in the ex-fighting dog rehabilitation program, filmed during a behavioural evaluation. When the trainer bends over, Zeb approaches and closes his eyes, with a lowered posture, and lowers his hindquarters without relaxing his muscles, averting his gaze and avoiding eye contact.

Stereotyped behaviours

Definition: Behaviours usually provoked by a conflict, and which are them exhibited outside of the context in which they were originally exhibited; these behaviours appear abnormal because they are acute; they are displayed out of context and are often repetitive, excessive and prolonged over time (Hewson & Luescher, 1996).

Lindsay (2001) underlined the fact that stereotyped behaviours are generally ordinary behaviours expressed out of their normal context, or in an exaggerated manner, and that they occur under natural conditions involving conflict or frustration. Stereotyped behaviours are species-specific and occur in similar forms in animals of the same species. These behaviours include physical activity (moving in a circle, tail-chasing, pacing back and forth), oral behaviours (biting or licking itself, scratching biting or licking objects, polyphagia, polydipsia, pica), aggressiveness (self-directed, towards people or towards inanimate objects), vocalizations and behaviours ascribed to hallucinations (Luescher, 2002).

Stress and aggressiveness

This paragraph is not based on information from the scientific literature, but rather on observations from my working life. When I evaluate a dog who is showing aggressive behaviour, stress is a big part of the picture. In communication skills classes, each dog is free to interact with the other dogs, with its owner and with the other people present. Stress can cause an aggressive reaction upon seeing another dog. This reaction can occur regardless of the sex, size or age of the other dog, or the behaviour it is exhibiting. In the most extreme cases, dogs attack, hurtling at full speed against the unfamiliar dog. This can't be considered a social behaviour, as there is no type of communication or interaction, only a pure reaction linked to fear, frustration and stress. The causes of this behaviour can be a lack of interaction with other dogs for months or years, or inhibition or punishment from the dog's owner. Physical pain or discomfort, as well as insecurity due to physical weakness, can increase stress levels and provoke aggressive responses.

I will never forget Full, a 4 year old male German Shepherd. Upon arriving at my training center, his owner, a woman in her 70s, stepped out of her tiny green car and immediately opened the back hatch and invited her dog to hop out. As soon as I saw the dog, I stopped in my tracks at a safe distance and asked her to not move towards me. When I called out "Is your dog aggressive ?" she replied "Yes, he most certainly is!" When I asked "Towards ?" she replied "Everyone !!!! He bites everyone !" On the training field, the dog was extremely reactive, trying to attack me every time I was anywhere near his hindquarters. I asked her if she had had the dog checked out by a veterinarian, and if he had shown problems with his hind legs or back. Later, when the dog underwent a check-up by a veterinarian, serious problems were found with one of his knees, which was then operated on. After the operation, the dog's level of aggression decreased to the point where it was possible for him to be handled by his two elderly owners.
When faced with problems related to aggressiveness, before considering any type of intervention or rehabilitation program, a fundamental first step is reducing the level of stress the dog is dealing with, and evaluating just how much this influences the dog in different contexts. Reducing stress makes it possible to evaluate in greater detail the effects of other elements, such as personality, experience and physical and social environment.

Coping strategies

Definition: The term coping derives from the verb to cope, meaning to deal with and attempt to overcome problems and difficulties. Coping is a behavioural reaction to an adverse situation: that is, a situation inducing a reaction of physiological stress (Wechsler, 1995).

In contrast with what was hypothesized by Selye, different individuals exposed to the same stimulus may react in very different ways, both in terms of their physiological response and how they experience the event from a psychological standpoint. Indeed, cognitive scientist Singer has defined a stressor as a mental construction regardless of its physical characteristics. In this process of cognitive evaluation, a stimulus takes on different meanings for different individuals, and as a consequence stress responses of different duration and degree will be activated, or not activated, in association with different and entirely personal combinations of emotions experienced. A stress response is therefore an active and subjective process.
With respect to the concepts of eustress or distress described by Selye, today there is a tendency to shift attention away from the characteristics of the event triggering stress and instead to attention on the way in which each single individual copes with the event.
Different authors have underlined the fact that animals use both active (proactive) and passive (reactive) coping strategies: an animal exhibiting an active strategy is trying to remove the source of stress or to escape it, whereas animals using passive coping strategies tend to reduce their activity level and accept the conditions of their environment rather than try to modify them (Benus, 1991).
Psychologically, a given style of coping will be effective if the individual is able to return to the state of emotional equilibrium which had been altered by exposure to the stressor. From a physiological standpoint, the efficacy of a given coping strategy lies in its ability to decrease the frequency and intensity of the neuroendocrine response induced by the stressor.

Natural coping strategies

I first began to think in terms of coping strategies when my attention shifted from what the dog is doing to why the dog is exhibiting certain behaviours: in other words, from the behaviour to the emotional state. In living with my dogs, I was aware of and used these strategies, but I didn't have a theoretical framework that would allow me to use them effectively in training and rehabilitation. My Belgian Malinois, Matisse (who was born in 1996), would encounter other dogs holding a toy in her mouth. I had discovered that this simple solution made it easy for her to control her aggressiveness and relieved the stress that interacting with other dogs caused her. When holding her toy, she felt better. At the same time, a female Border Collie I was working with was able to overcome her fear of unfamiliar places by playing with a plastic bottle (when no toy was on hand), and my Staffordshire, Bullet, was able to calm himself if he was able to keep near me.
Coping strategies are described in the scientific literature as behaviours adopted by an individual undergoing some type of stress. In practical terms, I think of coping strategies as anything that helps a dog to feel better when faced with a stressful situation. In my experience different dogs adopt different strategies:

- olfactory exploration and marking behaviours
- predation (pointing, chasing live prey animals or objects)
- playing with objects/toys (grabbing, holding, chewing, shaking, tugging and/or sharing them)
- motor activities /physical exercise (running, swimming or running in water, jumping)
- social contact (seeking support, asking for physical contact, play)
- resource control / guarding (the resource may be an object, toy, food, person/owner, car or even other dogs)

In recent years I have used tugging to help my Border Collie, Grisou, cope with the presence of other dogs. Grisou has shown aggressive reactions to virtually any and every other dog over the age of 2 and a half months that he has ever encountered. PTo help him cope and feel better, I've used a tug rope tied to a string, which Grisou can grab and shake whenever he feels the need to. Arjuna, my German Shepherd bitch, instead uses resource guarding and social contact as her natural coping strategies. Today she is a year old, and if she feels stressed when left alone, she collects objects that I have touched or worn and carries them (along with her toys), to a couch, where she sleeps on her hoard much like a mythological dragon in its lair.

Learned coping behaviours

Learned behaviours have always been considered tools with which to control our dogs. Asking a dog to sit, lie down or stay in a sit next to its owner equates to inhibiting the dog's natural reaction to a stimulus. The dog behaves “well” (the way its owner wants it to), because it isn't allowed to behave “badly” (in an undesirable way). Seen in this light, the effectiveness of the strategy lies in what I call the aesthetics of the behaviour, and yet the emotional state of the dog and its wellbeing in general are ignored. The dog may respond to its owner's request due to the fact that it has been conditioned to do so or forced to comply, and yet not being able to react to the stimulus can push the dog into a state of avoidance. When the level of stress becomes greater than that of inhibition, the dog's reaction may be very intense and uncontrollable.
In a totally different framework, learned behaviours may however become effective coping strategies.
Also in this case, it was my dogs who helped me to see and understand this. Bran, my smooth-coated Border Collie, has never been very sure of himself around people-- especially men. One day, finding himself in an extremely tight spot, he dealt with the stress by sitting down next to a man's left leg. This exercise is one of those used in Obedience competitions, and which Bran knew well, as we had trained long and hard in Obedience. As a result, this chain of behaviours had a long history of reinforcement in Bran's mind, and had become so gratifying that he was able to use it as a learned coping behaviour. In the same way, during a learning/training session, a dog may exhibit a certain behaviour learned during the most stressful steps. Often these are behaviours taught through play, using positive reinforcement or shaping, and will often reflect a dog's personal preference or a predisposition (for example, spinning around).
In order for a behaviour to help a dog feel better in a stressful situation, and thus be available for use as a coping strategy, it needs to be the dog itself that chooses it. Coping strategies can't be placed on cue, requested or demanded. This is a key difference with respect to conditioned behaviours used to maintain control of a dog in the presence of a stimulus.

During the ex-fighting dogs project, I chose to teach several pit bulls behaviours which, on first glance, would undoubtedly seem pointless to many people, and useless in the day-to-day management of the dogs. One example was shaking hands. This one simple behaviour is enough to change many people's perception of a dog dramatically, since for the people who encounter it, a dog that shakes hands is seen as a friendly one). As a result, teaching a dog this behaviour can foster positive reactions and social contact, and give dogs a tool to use in relating to people.

Fear and stress in training

I have purposefully included several video clips regarding training sessions for sporting dogs.
For decades, the learning which took place both in basic family dog training and in advanced training for sporting dogs had the sole purpose of changing a dog's behaviour to something desirable for its human companion. In recent years, things have fortunately taken a turn for the better, and a new way of thinking and conceiving training is becoming ever more widespread. Today, trainers see that there is also great value in learning in that it is a way to give dogs tools with which to make sense of, and relate to, their physical and social environments, tools which allow them to develop communication skills and emotional self-control, to make the most of their cognitive abilities and yes, even to have fun. In this sense, learning has become something useful for the dogs themselves, not just for their owners or handlers. Nevertheless, learning can also be a significant source of stress, and even of fear.

As Karen Overall wrote in 2007, violent punishments such as those inflicted using electric shock collars “ work to teach avoidance and cessation of behaviour (...) which in the extreme form is called 'immobility'. It is this criterion of 'immobility' by which learned helplessness is accessed. Given this definition, I have been surprised at how often those who support shock ignore the fact that cessation may not be a hallmark of 'improved behaviour', especially when the welfare of the animal is considered." Using these methods, clients would find that their dogs (which had been subjected to electric shocks in order to stop undesired behaviour) had indeed become obedient. Obedient dogs can, however, also be suffering from a high degree of stress, and suffer states of profound anxiety when they are requested to do something by their owners, because coercive methods leave their mark on dogs, as can be seen in the behaviours they exhibit related to stress, fear and avoidance.
Some trainers have learned to cover up these signals from their dogs by taking advantage of the stress responses of some individuals (the dog may appear more reactive), or by associating a behaviour with the ending of pain (the dog will appear motivated in executing a command). It is also worth noting that not all stress exhibited by a dog during learning can be attributed to the use of coercive methods or to a lack of respect for an animal's wellbeing during the learning process: a sensitive dog, or an insecure one, may show signs of uneasiness simply in response to the sight of a tense handler / trainer, or in response to environmental stimuli (noises, dogs, people, etc.)

This German Shepherd mix has been cued into a down-stay by her handler. When her handler returns to her, the dog sniffs the ground.

PART ONE Introduction

PART TWO Fear

PART THREE Stress

PART FOUR De-escalation behaviours

ETHOGRAM

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