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Stress: Triggers and Consequences In her ongoing series on canine stress, Diane Garrod discusses the importance of triggers and the environment and the dog-guardian relationship, and presents tips for helping dogs through a stress reduction protocol
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n humans, good or mood enhancing stress, aka eustress, presents it self with a number of characteristics, including that it: • • •
Motivates; focuses energy. Is shortterm; happens repeatedly. Is perceived as being within individual coping abilities, although this can vary from person to person. • Feels exciting; internal release of oxytocin and dopamine is common. • Improves performance; feeling good helps with focus. In dogs, there are similar responses to eustress, which can vary dog to dog. Think, for example, of a pet highly responsive to cues, attentive to his guardian whether on or offleash, delivering a focused perform ance and showing an overall positive demeanor. Conversely, negative stress, aka distress, in humans, includes the fol lowing characteristics: • Anxiety or concern. • Can be short or longterm. • Is perceived as being outside an individual’s coping ability. • Feels unpleasant; associated with buildup of adrenaline, nor epinephrine and cortisol. • Decreases performance and ability to focus. • Can lead to mental and physical problems; can cause health issues. Again, dogs are very similar to humans. In dogs, negative stress can occur as soon as a trigger appears. When anxiety spikes, a dog might think he cannot cope with what is going on (perceived or real) and lose focus quickly. In this situation, a dog may be quick to react or aggress, and unable to take food. Distress can result in acute spikes, where the dog will go over threshold and take longer to come down each time, or eventually, result in chronic stress, leveling out over threshold, where the dog cannot come back down from it at all (see Figs. 3 and 4 on p.36).
Stressors and Consequences Triggers for stress (i.e. stressors) in dogs come in many shapes and sizes. They may be environmental, biological, mental, emotional and/or social. As such, releasing stress is a highly individualized process and will vary dog to dog. Each dog’s experiences will be unique, as will be his re sponses to specific triggers. According to Bayne (2000), stressors can be defined as mild, moder ate and severe: • Mild stressors result in a “shortterm physiological response on the part of some animals and slight to no behavioral ad justment. Examples might include room entry and regular husbandry activities which have been shown to cause an in crease in heart rate (Line and others, 1989).” • Moderate stressors “may include a minor procedure on the an imal or a more significant procedure that is accompanied by pain relief and perhaps unconsciousness during the procedure.
© Diane Garrod
Stress release protocol client, Max, tries to relax on day one of his behavior change program
A moderate stressor would evoke behavioral adjustment on the part of the animal and physiological recovery or adapta tion by the animal. The animal may experience limited distress (or perhaps eustress) associated with restraint.” • Severe stressors occur when “no relief is provided to the ani mal either through the ability to physically remove itself from the stressor or by modifications in its environment that would reduce the stress (e.g., use of nesting material to modulate cage temperature or treatment of a disease state). In such a case, there is inadequate adaptation by the animal to the stressor and distress results.” Distress would be defined then “as a state in which the animal is unable to adapt to the stres sor and the animal may exhibit maladaptive behavior. The ani mal is not coping—behaviorally or physiologically.” Imagine you are taking a walk through a marked onleash wooded trail with your dog. The day is sunny and calm. Suddenly, an unfamiliar dog is racing around the corner at full speed, offleash, and with his guardian nowhere in sight. When the dog sees you, he enters a state of high alert. He approaches your onleash dog, who starts lunging in an attempt to protect himself. However, the dog snaps at your dog and draws blood. Real life can happen this quickly. A nice relaxing walk has now turned into what could be weeks of physical and emotional recov ery. As a result of this incident, your dog may now experience stress in the environment where it occurred, whenever another dog approaches, and/or at any perceived inability to escape (barrier frustration). Walks, generally speaking, will not be pleasant for him if any of these triggers appear. Triggers create a lack of (perceived or real) safety, trust and con fidence. Actions have consequences and, as we know, dogs (and people) learn by association and consequence.
BARKS from the Guild/March 2020
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