“Aw, Edith . . . Stifle Y’Self!”
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Written by Claudeen E. Mc Auliffe Monday, 23 July 2007 00:00 |
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“At this point, I’d consider this dog unadoptable,” I commented to the shelter volunteer who had brought Cracker, a recently-surrendered Beagle-Lab mix, to an open house event. I’d just spent ten minutes doing Tellington TTouch on Cracker. During most of that time he had resisted my efforts by hard mouthing, leaping in the air, and rolling onto his back to deliver rabbit kicks. “Here’s a dog who’s never learned to accept tactile contact, or to restrain himself in frustrating situations,” I thought to myself; which was probably what landed him in the shelter at the tender age of one.
Some of you may remember a popular situation comedy starring Carroll O’Connor as the irascible Archie Bunker, constantly irritated and embarrassed by his wife Edith’s lack of self-restraint. His pained expression of, “Aw, Edith, stifle y’self!” seldom resulted in the desired submissive response. Likewise, many of our dogs’ lack of self-restraint embarrasses and irritates us, sometimes to the point of sending them out of our homes by various means.
Trying to teach an older dog like Cracker, who’s been practicing lack of self-restraint for a very long time, appropriate coping and containment skills is a very hard and possibly dangerous job. Self-restraint and tolerance to touch are necessary for a social animal to exist successfully in a community. For this reason, and because a big part of why we have dogs is because we like the feeling of touching them, a dog who dislikes or fights touch is a social misfit. So it’s important to accustom our dogs to touch and containment at the earliest possible age, helping them learn not only to self-inhibit inappropriate responses such as mouthing and biting, but also to enjoy touch and feel safe when contained.
It’s important to consider the differences between containment and restraint. Restraining an animal implies prevention. Generally through physical means, like grabbing a dog’s collar or holding her mouth shut, we prevent some unwanted behavior. These tactics often create fear, frustration, anger and aggression in the one being restrained. Restraint also implies force and coercion. It is a condition which the animal would not choose for itself, and which is perceived as unpleasant or even dangerous or life-threatening. “Alpha roll-overs” are an example. Thus the animal offers resistance, or may even try to bite to defend itself. Not the kind of situation we want to set up if we need the animal’s cooperation and want to maintain a good relationship with her. Restraint involves touching an animal in a way that causes fear or other negative emotional states.
Containment, on the other hand, offers the animal a safe, protected space. It limits the amount of stimulation a dog needs to deal with in the present moment, thus allowing him to think his way through a situation rather than just react to it. Take, for example, our puppy class exercise called “Easy Time Out,” where we position overly boisterous pups between our knees with our hand on their chest and thumb through the collar as we massage their ears to calm them down. This position allows the pup to sit comfortably on the floor while it is gently held in place and massaged, but the limited space prevents it from rolling over, kicking or biting. A few seconds of calm behavior is rewarded with release to go play again. With this technique the time it takes for an aroused pup to become calm is significantly decreased with practice. Containment involves touching an animal in a way that helps it work through negative emotional states such as fear or anger to achieve a positive emotional state such as confidence.
There are many types of containment exercises that can be used to improve a dog’s response to touch. In addition to the Easy Time Out, where Tellington TTouch is used to massage the dog’s ears, the technique of “Zen” down (courtesy Trish King, Marin County Humane Society) teaches the dog to lie calmly on its side, cheek on the ground, in response to light pressure on the shoulders and hips. Responsible breeders will insure that pups from the day of birth until adoption are gently touched and contained by human hands for brief periods each day.
Touching, containment, and restraint are forms of stress. Subjecting very young animals to small amounts of stress allows them to cope better with the stresses they encounter in an adult world, including the stress of interactions with others. Studies of many different species, including chimpanzees, rats, mice, dogs, cats and humans have demonstrated that the less stimulation and interaction an animal experiences during early development, the less well they are able to cope with stressful situations as adults. The amount of stress required to produce good coping skills varies from one individual to another, and too much stress at an early age can compromise coping skills.
An example of the effectiveness of small amounts of stress to teach young animals to develop coping behaviors is the U.S. Military’s “Super Dog” program. Handlers take pups through a workout of 5 exercises once a day. Each exercise lasts 3-5 seconds. Exercises use tactile (tickling the pup between the toes with a Q-tip), thermal (placing the pup on a cool, damp towel) and proprioceptive (holding the pup with head pointed up, head pointed down, and in a supine position) stimulation. When done correctly, these exercises stimulate neurological development that ultimately results in better adaptability to stressful situations. The proponents of the Super Dog program caution that these exercises are not a substitute for routine handling and socialization, and if done to excess can have adverse effects. Thinking back to Cracker’s aversion to touch and containment, I ask the question: Was he handled too little, or too much, during critical periods of neurological development? Regrettably, his developmental window for learning how to cope with the stress of touch and containment is permanently closed.
With the information we now have about coping with stress through self-restraint, let’s consider that maybe it wasn’t Edith who had the problem. Could it be that Archie’s lack of early developmental stimulation was somehow lacking, causing him to have less tolerance for stressful situations???
References and Additional Information:
TTouch: www.ttouch.com
Super Dog program: www.breedingbetterdogs.com
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