For the Love of a Dog (24 page)

Recently I saw a couple at a busy, noisy farmer’s market with a terrified Boxer puppy in tow. “Oh, he’s fine,” they said. (There’s that phrase again.) “We thought this would be a great place to get him socialized.” It didn’t seem like such a great place to me, and I don’t think the puppy thought so, either. The tiny puppy was so scared he was trembling. Surrounded by hordes of noisy adults and screaming children reaching to pet him, the poor pup was overwhelmed. He was learning, all right— he was learning to be deathly afraid of people. Unfortunately, this scene is all too common and, ironically, is produced by people with the best of intentions. Too many puppies are inadvertently traumatized through a misunderstanding of what a healthy socialization process entails. Rather than being gradually exposed to different environments, pups end up traumatized by being thrown into scary situations that are over their heads.

A healthy period of development isn’t about
any
kind of exposure, it’s about exposure that allows puppies to learn about life at their own pace. Not long ago an eight-week-old puppy, let’s call him Tigger, visited my office. His little jaw was swollen from a serious bite from another dog, although that didn’t stop him from cheerily greeting all the people in the room. As bold as the pup seemed, I was concerned about his reaction to other dogs in the future—what effect would a bad bite (the poor thing’s jaw was broken) have on the pup’s relations to other dogs? As luck would have it, Lassie was in another office, and I knew I could count on her to be quiet and polite around a fragile young puppy. I wanted to start creating good experiences for Tigger, in case his earlier trauma had taught him that dogs were dangerous. As I feared, Tigger took one look at Lassie and flattened in fear, with the
corners of his little mouth pulled back and his eyes rounded like Frisbees.

The worst thing we could have done was let Lassie run up to him when he was trapped in a small room, so as soon as I saw his expression, I asked Lassie to lie down on the other side of the room, and we let Tigger run back to “Mom.” Secure beside his new, two-legged mama, Tigger stared at Lassie as if transfixed while the humans in the room chatted and paid little attention to either dog. Every few minutes, Tigger would lean forward and sniff Lassies tail, then rock backward into the comfort of that “secure attachment base” I mentioned earlier. After a few minutes, without us forcing anything, Tigger got up and walked all the way over to Lassie’s head, his confidence growing with each step. I kept Lassie on a down/stay, so that she didn’t stand up and startle him, and Tigger sniffed her mouth, wagged his tiny little tail, and ran back to “Mom.”

It was a perfect session. Rather than having his fears confirmed, Tigger had a secure place to run to when scared, and wasn’t presented with anything that was over his head. A few days after this session, his owner introduced him to another friendly, docile dog, and soon the two were romping like old friends. That’s exactly the kind of experience that can turn genetically shy monkeys into normal adults, and it bears no relation to the “Just throw them in the deep end” approach that many people take. That method can backfire on you more often than not; just ask my family, who still laugh about the time I got thrown in the deep end—literally. My mother took me to swimming class, which turned out to be taught by a big, ex-Marine kind of guy. Soon after we met, with little preparation, he swept me up and tossed me into the pool. I’m told I popped out of the water like a piece of toast out of a toaster, and ran screaming across the lawn. All I remember is running away from the pool, shrieking in fear, pursued by a huge, red-faced man, who was followed, cartoon-style, by my distraught mother. Needless to say, I didn’t learn much about swimming that day, and for a couple of years afterward I avoided water whenever I could. That kind of experience, in which an individual learns to be frightened by something, is the third most common source of fearfulness, after genetics and a lack of early experience. There’s plenty to be afraid of out there in the world, and dogs can be permanently changed by traumatic events, just as people can.

A good socialization plan should be designed to prevent traumatic experiences, not create them, so be thoughtful about where you take your puppy when you’re out and about. Ideally, you’re shooting for a balance between the right amount of exposure and stimulation and a sense of security and safety. As we’ve seen already, what balance is right for your pup is going to depend on his genetics and what kind of life you envision him living. Your best guide as to how to proceed is to use the signals described in Chapter 2 as a window into your dog’s internal state, along with some thoughtful anthropomorphism and a dash of common sense.

Blaze, the Border Collie who hadn’t been well socialized, is fine now, although I won’t pretend it was easy getting there. It took a village of helpers and a tremendous amount of energy, but Blaze now greets visitors like long lost friends and lives in a home with an active young owner and lots of other dogs to play with. Father Murray is happy too— he rescued a sweet old dog who loves company as much as he loves Father Murray. We’ll talk in the next chapter about how Blaze was rehabilitated, but next we’ll look at the third common origin of fear in dogs and people—trauma.

Lefty had been a friendly dog all his life—the dog everyone in the neighborhood knew and loved. An amiable Labrador, he loved nothing better than to play with the neighbors’ kids on expansive suburban lawns. One summer his family took a vacation unsuitable for dogs, so Lefty went to a friend’s house. A week later, the family returned and picked him up. They were recounting this story to me in my office, and they stressed that he seemed fine, just fine, when they brought him home. He was a bit quiet, but he’d played a lot with other dogs at the neighbors’, and his family assumed he was just tired
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A week later, Lefty was outside in the backyard when one of his buddies, a twelve-year-old boy, came over to say hello. As the child reached out to pet him, Lefty exploded in his face. The frightened child rocked backward as Lefty barked BARR RARR RARR—deep growly barks that brought his owners running from the house. Lefty quieted as his family ran to him and the hapless boy withdrew, but everyone—the boy
,
Lefty’s owners, and possibly Lefty himself—-was shocked. Lefty and the boy had been friends for years, playing fetch under summer sunsets and sharing hamburgers at neighborhood picnics. His behavior seemed inexplicable
.

Lefty’s barking and lunging toward the boy was so out of character, the family could barely believe it had happened. Perhaps, they thought, he’d been in pain for some reason, and would have lashed out at anyone. They decided to watch him closely, but couldn’t imagine such a thing happening again
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It did. A few weeks later, Lefty lunged toward a seven-year-old boy, and a month after that he cornered the plumber against the bathroom wall. By the time Lefty’s family came to me, his behavior had deteriorated to barking aggressively toward any unfamiliar male, young or old. He hadn’t bitten anyone yet, but his barks were deep and threatening and the family was afraid of what he might do next
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As we talked, Lefty greeted me exuberantly, bringing me tennis balls to throw and chew toys to admire. His body stayed loose and his mouth was relaxed, and for most of the hour he appeared as happy-go-lucky as he’d been for most of his life. But when a man walked by the office window, Lefty dropped the tennis ball he’d been carrying and lunged toward the man with deep, threatening barks. The hair over Lefty’s shoulders stood straight up, his body had become stiff and tight, his ears were pinned flat, and his eyes were round. Lefty may have been lunging forward, but if you looked at him closely, you could see that the corners of his mouth were pulled back in a fear grimace, and his pupils were fully dilated. Lefty’s behavior may have been frightening but Lefty was as scared himself as he was scary to others
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The family was scared, too, and confused about why, after six years as their sweet, loving, easygoing best friend, Lefty had changed into a dog who was not only untrustworthy around strangers but also jumpy and reactive to noises he’d previously ignored. We talked at length about what had happened in Lefty’s life that could have precipitated his change in behavior, but couldn’t come up with an explanation. Two veterinarians had carefully checked him for hidden health problems. Lefty had come up clean. The family hadn’t changed his food or his routine, and nothing had happened at home that could explain his behavior. Finally, one of the children noted again how quiet he had been when he returned home from the neighbors’
house. Looking for any insights into Lefty’s behavior, I called them to find-out whether anything could have happened while his family was away on vacation. The mystery began to resolve when they told me that a visiting relative had brought her twelve-year-old son with her, and on one after-noon they had seen the boy “teasing” the dogs in the house. At one point, the boy trapped Lefty in the laundry room and taunted him by screaming in his face. Lefty, by all descriptions, had been terrified
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Responsible dog lovers, the neighbors were appalled and put a stop to the abuse right away. To their relief, Lefty seemed none the worse for wear, happily greeting everyone who came to visit, playing politely as always with the other dogs at the house. But none of the family were twelve-year-old boys, and no one knew that the effects of trauma are not always visible on the surface, or that they can spread like ripples beneath the surface of a dog’s future
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Besides a genetic predisposition and a lack of exposure during development, the third reason that dogs are fearful is because they have learned to be. Perhaps one dog has learned that a rolled-up newspaper means she’s going to get hurt. Another dog may have had a painful procedure at the veterinarian’s and begins to pant and drool the next time the car pulls into the clinic’s driveway. I’ve met dogs who loved other dogs, except individuals of just one breed, or one color, who look like the dog who attacked them when they were younger. These dogs may send them shaking behind their owner’s legs or barking hysterically in a desperate attempt to keep the other dog away.

Fear derived from traumatic experiences is actually less common than people imagine. Trainers and behaviorists see clients almost daily who say, “I’m sure she was terribly abused before I got her, because she cowers/growls/snaps/hides at every man/stranger/dog she sees.” Most often these dogs are either genetically fearful, undersocialized, or, most commonly, a bit of both. Shy dogs are often more afraid of men than of women, so a dog doesn’t have to have been abused by a man to be fearful of all men.
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However, sometimes dogs do get hurt and scared during their lifetimes, and these traumatic events can resonate through their lives just as they can through ours. We’ll talk in the next chapter about what to do if that happens, but first it’s worth looking at how it happens in the first place.

When people and dogs are frightened, parts of the limbic system, especially the hippocampus, record the details of the event like a detective at a crime scene. However, neither limbic systems nor detectives know which of the details might be predictive of a similar danger in the future, so they record whatever they can, in case it turns out to be important later. A dog attacked by a big, white dog may forever be afraid of white dogs, because “white” was one of the features his brain recorded at the time. Another dog, attacked by the same white dog as the first, may remember size, rather than color, and be afraid of big dogs in the future. We know from brain activation research that when a person is terrified, the brain recruits input from neurons all over the brain, sweeping up both significant and insignificant details at the same time. For example, an entomologist who was hit by a car still remembers the species of insects flattened on the license plate as it rushed toward his head. Unable to sort out which details were related to the danger, the brain reacts emotionally to all of the information that was included in the sweep. Our entomologist friend will probably always react differently to the types of insects he associates with his car accident, even though they had nothing to do with the danger. One of the challenges when trying to turn around fearful behavior is to figure out what features were recorded as being relevant to the problem. These features, or triggers, become an important aspect of soothing the fear, as we’ll see in the next chapter.

How frightened a dog will be by any one event is driven in part by his genetics, in part by his experience during development, and also by the details of the event itself. Obviously, the intensity of the event makes a huge difference, just as it does with us. It’s one thing to have a dog lunge at you and nip your hand before you knew what hit you; it’s another to be the victim of a long-drawn-out, injurious attack. However, how you or your dog experiences the event isn’t just a function of what happened, it’s also dependent on your emotional state at the time. I just had a minor medical procedure that was about as risky and dramatic as eating warm oatmeal, yet I was trembling as if my life were in
peril. The analytic part of my brain knew that was foolish, but my limbic system was on red alert. It had been primed by a terrifying incident in my car the night before, in which large sheets of particle-board flew out of a trailer toward my windshield, requiring me to drive like a stuntwoman in a James Bond movie to keep me and the dogs in my car alive. The physiological effects of an event like this can take a long time to dissipate, and I could tell that my body was still full of stress hormones the next morning. Additionally, I went to the hospital with the knowledge that my father had died tragically after a similar medical procedure, in which one small accident led to a series of others, and ultimately to his death.

The combination of factual knowledge about my father’s death and the physiological arousal from the accident the night before turned me into a high-maintenance patient. The physician and CT scan technician get lots of points for bending over backward to soothe my irrational but deeply felt fears. Knowing that no amount of rational discussion was going to calm me, I stopped trying to talk myself out of being afraid. The only intellectual knowledge that helped was knowledge about the way the brain is wired. I remembered that there are fewer connections from the rational cortex of the brain to the limbic system than vice versa. Knowing that allowed me to stop trying to talk myself out of it, and instead spend my energy doing what I did the night before—comfort myself with support from friends, deep breathing, and a whole heck of a lot of petting of dogs.