What is Dog Reactivity Part 3- Anecdotal Evidence Illustrates Maizey's Reactivity

On Tuesday everything from a moose to a squirrel taught us a lot about reactivity.

Tuesday was "take your dogs to work day" for us and we were working far up one of the local canyons. In the afternoon we were on an upper deck of a cabin and in the meadow below us was a moose.

Absolutely amazing! Not 40 feet from us was this huge, wonderful 4legged friend. Well at least I wanted to be friends. Maizey hit 8/10 on the reactive maymay scale. She took about four to five minutes to calm down and even reached the point of just chilling on the chair. I was very proud of her.

"Moose are sooo boring! They don't bark back or anything! And all crazymomlady does is work-booooring!"

Fast forwarding into the day about an hour I saw a squirrel out of the window. Curious to see what she would do I showed her. There were about 5 barks that measured maybe a 4/10 on the reactive maymay scale. I cued "stop it" and she immediately switched from true reacting to pretend reacting. She gave me a beautiful whiplash turn, sit and watch. I in turn asked for a touch (nose touch to hand) and a tag (foot touch to hand) and released her with a "okay check it out."

As part of not rewarding her pretend reactivity when she offers me the watch I started asking for other very simple behaviors she can do easily when not stressed. This was suggested by a great trainer we had a session with not long ago. So when she pretend reacts barks and offers me a watch, I in turn thank her and ask for a sit, down, touch etc. then just let her go back to hanging out. If she continues the pattern we do a calming stop (more to come on that) and then again ask for alternate behaviors.

Here enters her brilliance, yesterday she back chained sit-down-sit-touch-tag all on cue from me and immediately went back to pretend reacting at the squirrel. Not sure where we are going with that one, but she is such a smart little girl! We are hopefully having another lesson next week and crazymomlady will get some more direction on how to keep up with brilliant princessface.

Every experience teaches us something. This 4legged lesson taught me Maizey really does not like moose but is learning to calm herself, with a little help from me. 4legged lesson #2: she still thinks I'm stupid enough to manipulate into rewarding pretend reactivity. It also taught me I still have a lot to learn!

Post Script:
In a comment from the previous post I was asked what Meeka's alarmed, or worried bark sounds like. I thought a picture could better describe it so this is Meeka reacting to the moose:

"Hmm. . . thats one big animal out there. Looks pretty harmless, guess I'll go and take a nap."

Translation: she doesn't react. Rottweiler people will tell you a sign a good Rottie is their "wait and see attitude." In other words, "I'll wait and see if this is something I need to react to, otherwise I'm not going to waste the energy." Meeka personifies that definition of a good Rottie.

What is Dog Reactivity Part 2- Maizey's Reactivity Defined

Maizey is daily teaching me about reactivity. An interesting part of Maizey's reactivity has required me to learn to distinguish between true reactivity and a very interesting behavior chain of "pretend reactivity".

The first thing I noticed her reacting to was other dogs. This started in her puppy class. She reacts instantly to a strange dog, but once they meet she calms noticably and over time will become comfortable.

Maizey's true reactivity has now transferred to many animals from cows to horses and even a moose! The most obvious sign of true reactivity in Maizey is what earned her the title "princess-of--the-shrill-bark". It is a bark that is higher pitched and more intense than her normal bark.

Body posture is also a very evident signal in that she leans into the stimuli, stretching her body forward to the point where from nose to tail you could almost draw horizontal line down the length of her body. This was an important sign for me to pick up on as when I see that posture start I am learning how to help her stop the reacting before it escalates.

The reactive posture looks like this:

photo taken 9/2009 at 9 months old
You can see how she is hunched back on her haunches yet at the same time stretching toward the trigger. Her tail is a key signal here because it is stiff at the base and standing straight out from her body.

This is the face of one stressed out Maizey

photo taken 9/2009 @ 9 months old
Signs of stress can be seen in the tenseness of her jaw and what we call "whale eye" or "pop eye".

Another less obvious sign shows up in a general jumpiness. This can show up even in completely calm situations, like when she is laying on the bed, hears a strange noise and visibly jumps as if startled. But it also manifests itself in true reactivity around other dogs. Mainly this shows up as her running and playing with all appearance of calm, but she startles easily at the other dogs movement and responds with a twitch, or jump. Then I know that she is still feeling stressed but on a much smaller scale and she is managing it herself.

For my own record keeping purposes I measure what I observe in her on a 0-10 scale. Its technically called the "Maymay can't think anymore, help me Crazymomlady my brain is exploding" reactive scale. As is sits better on the tongue and the typing fingers, we'll just call it the "reactive maymay scale" The stretched out princess-of-the-shrill-bark gets a 9-10/10 on the reactive maymay scale. Depending on other signs the jumpiness may get as low as a 2/10.

Knowing these signs, and many others, has an interesting place in our calming process because Maizey has learned a fascinating behavior chain that starts with barking. It looks like this: see something, bark, look at crazymomlady in an imitation 'watch', get a treat, immediately go back to barking and start the whole thing over again.

This is "pretend reactivity". She is not really anxious over anything. She has simply learned, because I unwittingly taught her this and she is simply brilliant, that "watching" mom after barking gets rewarded. Thus you can see how discerning between real, ("help crazymomlady lady I'm flipping out and can't calm down") and pretend, ("oh good crazymomlady wants to play that game where I make an unholy racket over nothing and she gives me treats") reactivity has become very important in our life.

So what does you 4legged friend look like when reacting to something? What are the signs you see  in them when they see something they aren't happy with?

You will see just how vital it is to accurately read your reactive 4legged friend when you check back tomorrow for "What is Dog Reactivity Part 3- Anecdotal Evidence Illustrates Maizey's Reactivity."

What is Dog Reactivity Part 1

Reactivity in dogs is a very complicated subject. This will be the first in a series to explain what I have learned and what Maizey and I are doing to help each other learn how to calm reactivity, ironically in both of of us!

Reactivity is really just the manifestation of stress in a dog. It involves stress hormones, such as adrenaline, in much the same way those hormones affect humans. It involves learning how to deal with new and scary, or perceived scary, situations.

A reactive dog is one who reacts strongly, in human terms we may call it overreacts, to certain stimuli in the environment. Dogs can be reactive on many levels and to many things. A Labradoodle we met yesterday was reactive to men with canes, hats, beards, or any combination there of.

An interesting case, that one, because the man to whom Luke the Labradoodle reacted to was someone he knew, but when seen with his hat and cane the man became unfamiliar and "threatening" thus Luke's eruption of barking.

Reactivity can be shown in any number of ways from vocalizing, body posturing, and even completely shutting down. A dog showing these signs of reactivity is really showing you dog signs of stress. And needs your help as the 2legged member of the team to learn how to calm down and feel confident again. Learning to identify these signs is the first step in learning to help your 4legged friend to calm their stress.

There is a valuable 4legged lesson here and it is that stress in life, no matter how many legs you have, is inevitable. But living over threshold and stressed out is unhealthy and miserable regardless of what species you are so learning these calming skills can only benefit us all.

For more information on what Maizey's reactive journey looks like come back for: What is Dog Reactivity Part 2-Maizey's Reactivity Defined