Learning under duress

I distinctly remember that day. I was in 2nd grade. The new frock that had been sitting in the closet, that I had coveted for months had been pulled out and I was allowed to wear it to school to celebrate my birthday. I sat in class, shaking in my new frock, terrified out of my wits and asked my friend, "What do you think? Will she take it easy on me today because it's my birthday?". My teacher was known to be one of the toughest. She used metal rulers and hit us on our knuckles till they split open. "What if I threatened her that I would complain to the principal if she hits me on my birthday? Will she leave me alone?", I asked my friend. My friend looked at me like I had lost my mind. "Nooooo! Don't do that. She will get angry and hit you harder!", she said. Despite my friend's wisdom, when my teacher approached me, I snapped and screamed "If you hit me on my birthday I will complain. My father loves me and he will hit you back!". Oh boy....did I regret that!

But here is the thing. Today I deal with many many dogs. Dogs just as scared as I was that day. Dogs who have tried to tell us, in every way possible, that they are terrified. And dogs who eventually snap. They don't have anyone to complain to. So they defend themselves. Instead of recognizing the hopeless corner we push them into, we label them as aggressive or dominant and push them further and further. One fine day they give up, go into a shell. They become completely apathetic and then we claim to have "cured" the aggression. To my mind there really cannot be a solution unless one gets to the bottom of the problem and address that, instead of merely dealing with the symptoms. At the basis of canine aggression is fear. To fix aggression, one needs to understand fear and stress - there are no two ways about that!

To understand fear and stress, we need to understand where it comes from - the brain. Somewhere, a long time ago, in biology class, I learnt of two parts of the nervous systems - Voluntary and Involuntary. The Involuntary nervous system was something that had a mind of it's own and there was little I could do to control what that system did. This involuntary part of the brain has two modes of functioning - an emergency  mode that's turned on during times of stress and a regular mode. (For those who like technical terms, it's the Sympathetic nervous system and Parasympathetic nervous system respectively) When one mode is on, the other mode is off. And considering all of this is part of the involuntary nervous system, there is not much point in telling a dog "NO! Bad Boy! Sympathetic system off!". No amount of training, no amount of dog whispering, no amount of leadership is going to teach a dog to turn off his Stress Response or the emergency mode. The only way is for the Stressor itself to go away. But with us, hovering there, trying to be dominant leaders, we ourselves become the stressors, constantly keeping our dog in emergency mode. What does this do to our dogs?

The Parasympathetic system or the regular mode of the body focuses on long term projects of the body - digestion, storage of nutrients, growth, immunity, learning, memory etc...When a dog is stressed all of this is turned off. The emergency mode kicks in. This system's focus is survival. So it puts all senses on high alert and gets the muscles pumped up and primed for a mad dash. That means that all nutrients in the body, that were being stored for learning and growth are now being poured out for the mad dash. The heart is beating hard and fast to get all of this to the muscles. The muscles are sucking up oxygen which was meant for the brain. The senses are focusing on the entries, exits, defense tools etc...and don't really care about learning.

At this point, we have some trainers who come in and insist on training the dog. There is talk of "obedience training". There is talk of leadership. There is talk about "manners classes". I remember once when I was being punished badly for botching up history classes. Between sobs I was trying to learn the dates of the damned battle of Panipat and who fought who. Looking through my tears I could see the letters and numbers floating around and doing an obscene dance in front of me that made no sense at all. Nothing made sense. All I could think of was "please don't beat me any more with that metal ruler". I tried so hard to get those sentences to make sense, but the numbers and letters just sniggered and continued their insane dance. "What are the dates Sindhoor?". I heard the question but the question did not make sense. I repeated the question in my head a few times. I looked at the dance. Nothing made sense. I sobbed and blurted out "Please don't beat me!" and I bolted across the room. Continuing to recount this story is just going to be hard to read. When trainers recommend manners classes for such dogs I relive that day. I look at the dogs eyes and I see the same sentiment in the dogs eyes. The feeling of helplessness, fear and complete inability to comprehend anything. Trainers are not always tuned into their dogs. But good pet parents are. I sincerely hope that they look into the eyes of their dogs and see what the trainers are asking these poor dogs to do and rescue their dogs from this impossible misson.

Off late, I have been dealing with many dogs who are under severe chronic stress and are being subjected to additional stress in the attempt to train them. My mind is filled with all of this, to a point where, a few nights ago I had a night mare - I heard my little sister crying. She was being punished for not learning well. She was sobbing. I often look at my dog and my sister similarly. So in my dream, they both were the same. It was a little girl of about 5 or so, sometimes representing my sister, sometimes representing my dog and sometimes representing the 5yr old me, terrified, being yelled at, sobbing and trying to learn. I ran out, called out to this little girl. When she came to me, I hugged her, wiped off her tears. Told her that she was OK and there was nothing to be afraid of. I asked her to take a break and that she could learn later. I told her I would come play with her in a bit. I went looking for the person who had hurt her and ensured that there would be no more punishments. If we think about it, dealing with our dogs should not be very different. The concepts are the same - ensure it does not happen again, a reassurance, a break from learning and some help to feel better again. So for a dog, this is what we would do:

1. Remove the stressors. Stop the scolding. Stop the yelling. Stop being dominant. Just be a loving pet parent
2. Provide reassurance to the little one that there will be no more of that. For a dog being left alone, calm reassuring voice and stop changing scenes on a dog. If a dog is guarding resources due to fear of lack of resources - just flood the dog with resources so that the dog is confident that there is no reason for fear
3. Give the little one time to recover and cope. For chronic stress, like in the case of dogs, nutrition and sleep are critical in this. Consistency in the home a dog is absolutely critical. So don't move the dog around from foster home to foster home. Stay. Let the dog recover. 
4. Build confidence in the little one that she can indeed cope and learn. In the case of a stressed dog, work with a good behaviourist on confidence building measures. When faced with potential stressors, reassured the dog that the dog has the choice to walk away and avoid the stressors, thus helping gain more confidence.

During the worst of her days, Nishi sought comfort in her toys. 
She took them to bed with her. 
Back then, I could not take pictures of all of her. It was too horrifying. 
So I took pictures of the best part of her - her coping spirit!

Love, patience and nurture are critical in helping a stressed dog. Leadership, obedience and manners are futile, counter productive and almost cruel on a stressed dog. I can relate to this and for those of us who were brought up in a culture of punishment, we don't need to understand the Sympathetic and Parasympathetic Nervous Systems to know how all of this works. We just know what works and what does not. And if the voice inside us is not something we want to rely on, then understand the functioning of the brain. Either way, the answer is the same - remove stressors, reassurance, recovery & confidence building. 

Stressed Dog? Where's the proof?

I wrote this post when I was in Kongsberg. I sat in the cold cottage and reminisced over warm Mandal and the people with the warm hearts who hosted me. I was learning a lot in Kongsberg as well and had to write out my lessons from Mandal before I forgot them. But I had to wait all this time to get the necessary permissions. So here is my long overdue recap of Mandal.

My learning was largely in two main areas:

1. Insights into running a boarding facility. Here is a rather elaborate post on the subject.
2. The Pulse Project

In this post, I will focus on The Pulse Project. Being an engineer, this project fascinated me the most! A lot of what I have been learning from Turid has struck me as true at a very intuitive level. But the Pulse Project put so much of it down in hard cold numbers. In my mind, this is one of the most powerful tools we have at our disposal to understand our animals and do right by them. It is the closest I have seen to an “idiot proof” method to understand what our dogs are feeling. And I got information about it directly from the horses mouth – Agnes, my host in Mandal and lady behind this project. She and her husband Geir gave me a very enthusiastic demonstration of the project.

At the crux of it, the project, through some smartly pieced together equipment, measures the pulse of a dog, as the dog goes about doing normal stuff. It can be quite addictive. The most intriguing observations:  Touch a dog and it's pulse shoots up. Yup...that's right! Get the dog to concentrate on something and pulse plummets. And not just a simple drop - we saw close to a 65% drop!!!

To understand what a high pulse does to a dog, we could try it on ourselves. Often times, when I am at the gym, doing cardio, I watch my pulse closely. As my heart rate increases by 70% of normal, I can barely hold it there for a few seconds. I let myself to cool down again, and try exercising harder to increase my heart rate again. It’s exhausting. I am able to repeat this 5 to 6 times and then I am really burnt out.

Several every day activities bump the pulse of a dog up to almost double. That is 100% increase. This spike happens not 5 – 6 times a day, but perhaps even 50 – 60 times a day! Obviously, such frequent spikes in heart rate cannot be good for any living being, let alone the furry cuddly little puppy that we love so much, right?

I suggest a simple exercise. I have a list of activities that spike up a dogs heart rate. Try to calculate how many times a day your dog is subjected to these. And I warn you- the list WILL shock you.

• Walk straight up towards a dog

• Bend over a dog, like when petting or putting on a leash or removing a leash

• Commands / Requests (however you do it, when you ask them to do it)

• Playing fetch
• Playing tug
• Waking up a sleeping dog
• Petting an excited dog
• Talking to an excited dog

If we think about it, that’s a lot! Yeah…our dogs really are very sensitive creatures. And the most shocking of all: It's really really hard, if not impossible to guess how stressed a dog really is. Dogs are surprisingly stoic.

Does this mean we completely distance ourselves from our dogs? The short answer is, absolutely NO! I have gone through quite a transformation in the short time I have been here, constantly learning to be more “polite” and it does not feel like I am any less affectionate to the dogs at all. My dogs often walk up to me and ask to be petted. That's perfectly fine. But I’d think twice about waking a sleeping dog or petting a resting dog, or calling my dog. Here are some suggestions on more “polite” alternatives. By being “polite” I still get to interact with my dogs, but in a way that they appreciate it, rather than just tolerate it.

Actions that Increase Pulse	Alternatives
Walk straight up towards a dog	Walk in a curve towards a dog
Bend over a dog	Kneel next to a dog
Commands / Requests (however you do it, when you ask them to do it)	Give them an opportunity to use their own brains and figure things out
Playing fetch or tug	Nosework / brainwork

In essence, it’s all about the attitude. It's a little less of "me boss, you dog" attitude and more of "we are both adults, we are friends" attitude. You would not really command your friends all the time, ask them to drop whatever they are doing and come to you all the time, insist on hugging them all the time, waking them up when they are sleeping etc...right? Acknowledging dogs as adults makes it the transformation easy. Just requires us to make a slight adjustment in our perspective and approach.

Of course, they are adults with a lovely sense of humor and quite in touch with their inner puppy. So we don’t have to fear a dour boring adult and think we need to talk to them as if we were in a board room. Nope! We are talking of a fun, happy, jovial, childish adult, who is immensely fun to be with and we can have lots of fun as well. Just respect canine language a bit and things will be balmy!

So...the good and the bad news. The bad news: There is FAR too much we do on an every day basis that is driving the average pulse way above average in dogs. Good news: This project helps us identify all that we are doing and can be doing and helps us make better decisions for our dogs.

If anyone is interested in working on the pulse of their dog, to identify how stressed their dog is and what are stress reducing activities on their dogs, please do send me a message.

And last but not the least, a word of caution. As with most powerful tools, this too can be misused, knowingly or unknowingly. Agnes, the person behind the project is an extra ordinary woman, who takes utmost caution to ensure that the dog is not put under duress just for the sake of study. Such precaution is without doubt mandatory in a project like this. As the project draws more interest, it becomes mandatory that this aspect is kept as top priority at all times.

Here is a sample video from The Pulse Project that shows the effect on the pulse of the dog. In the first part of the video, the dog starts getting very worked up about someone in the other end of the room. Notice how much the dogs pulse goes up. Then the instructor does something that is seemingly benign. She deploys a technique called "Splitting", where she stands between the dog and the source of stress for the dog. And....well....watch for yourself. Happy stress free bonding with your dogs :)

Hotel Norway

I have not been very good with updating my blog. Since the last post that said I was waiting for Turid, I have not posted anything. I intend to fix that. So let me start with a brief update. I spent the weekend at Bad Wimphen, Germany. Turid was conducting some classes there and the host was very gracious to let me attend it. I have some lovely videos from the event and I'll put it up once I get permission to do so. Then I traveled with Turid to Geithus (pronounced Yeythoos). To the envy of most of her students, I stayed with her, at her place. That has, by far, been the most memorable experience of my life and will perhaps remain so. I learned so much and I really need to be putting it all up. I'll do that soon and put up pictures too. The weekend was spent at Nakkarund, sitting in on another class. This one was a bit harder for me, as some portion of the class was in Norwegian. But the students were really generous in translating frequently and Turid too was yo-yoing between English and Norwegian for my benefit. So, I must say that I still managed to learn a lot!

I am now in Mandal, the southern most tip of Norway. It's a beach town and a quaint lovely one at that. My host here is Agnes. She runs a boarding facility that she calls a "Dog Hotel". I went to the place and it blew my mind. Agnes is lovely woman and a very very pregnant one too. So I am just in total admiration of her dedication towards these dogs, working in such a state. Being around people with so much love for dogs is such an enriching experience. Just being here is teaching me so much.

Yesterday, as we approached, first thing that hit me was that there was the pin drop silence. Not a single bark. As we got closer, there was one lone bark from a building a little away. Apparently that dog was being picked up by his human. I was quickly whisked past that building (the office) that he was kept in and was told that I could not meet him. Since he was returning, they saw no point in getting him meeting me. Meeting new people can stress dogs and they saw no need for him to take on that stress.

After he left, I spent the first half of the day sitting outside the main building wondering how many dogs could there be inside, considering there was not a single bark from within. One by one the dogs started coming out for their walk. Some also did some nosework. I met 12 dogs in all. Everything from retreivers to rotties to poodles to pumis. Dogs that pulled like crazy, dogs that were rather energetic, dogs that were calm and walked like pros...The whole range. No biters of course

The rottie was a bit of a scared fella. Afraid of squeaky toys & frogs and a little afraid of people too. Extremely strong fella. So I was taken into the backyard and made to sit like a buddha while he examined me and got comfortable. We did some tracking with him and he was just AMAZING! But pulls like an ox and I was quite concerned for Agnes, as she walked him. But she managed well. They don't do any leash training unless owners ask them to do so explicitly. So they just need to work with pulling dogs. Quite challenging!

The second half of the day, I could briefly enter the building. Once I entered, there is a small little hall and a tiny kitchen. I stuck to the kitchen most of the time, so that i don't bother the dogs. I kept myself busy by digging around all the dog food and the dog diaries they keep for all their residents. It's so weird reading diaries and not understanding a single word and trying to guess what that might mean. Understanding their system was quite fascinating to me.

One of the dogs was quite agitated. He started barking after one small misstep in trying to walk him with another dog somewhere in the distance. He continued to bark after he was put in his room. So Agnes and I sat outside while the others brought him into the main hall and sat with him, while he got to snooze. I wanted coffee desperately and Agnes needed to use the loo. But we both HAD TO wait till he was done with his sleep because disturbing sleeping dogs is a BIG NO NO.

We went back later in the night to walk the dogs again.  Some dogs are completely off limits to me and IF I got things right I might get to put a leash on a few of them towards the end of my stay here. They really love the dogs here and are very very very conscious of the stress in the dogs and do everything they can to keep the dogs calm. It's fascinating to watch and learn. Here is a video of the facility before it started being occupied. Looks quite lovely