Behavior modification 'rules' need clearly defined for owners

This case involves a 10-month-old, male, castrated Shih Tzu that has been biting the clients since shortly after being adopted from the humane shelter at 4 months of age.

History

Both of the clients owned dogs before, but they had been "dog-free"for a while when they decided to add this pup to their household. When theclients went to the humane shelter, this pup had just been brought in becausethe elderly lady with whom he had started his life had to enter a care center.

Until approximately 7 months of age, the pup was problem-free. He accompaniesthe husband to his university office multiple times per week where a multitudeof graduate and undergraduate students fuss over, walk and play with thepup.

When not at the university, the pup usually accompanies his people oris at home with them. While seldom left truly "alone", he is regularlyleft for short periods in the car or at the husband's office. In addition,their adult children, all of whom adore the dog and play energetically withhim, frequently visit the couple.

In fact, using the long hallway in the house, the sons have inventeda game called "dog bowling" that the pup actually loves.

Beginning at about 6-7 months of age, the wife noticed that the dog wasbecoming a little less compliant when she wanted him to do things for hersuch as moving or ceasing to solicit play.

The first bite occurred at 7 months when the wife was grooming him (somethingshe did regularly) and trimming his face (something she did less regularly).

As she moved to hold the pup's head still to scissor over his eyes thepup stiffened and made a very deep growl as he moved to bite her hand.

Since the growl was actually a part of the bite sequence, the wife hadvery little warning before the pup bit her, drawing two small drops of blood.

Although the injury was extremely minor, the wife was horrified and tremendouslyemotionally hurt. It was obvious from his rigid stance and direct, darkstare that the pup wanted no more to do with her so the grooming sessionwas abandoned. The husband and wife explained the behavior as the wife hadaccidentally and unknowingly hurt the dog. This explanation would have sufficedexcept for two further developments.

First, the next time the wife tried to groom the dog, he stiffened andvigorously vocally resisted. The wife had been reading a lot of dog trainingbooks and so felt that the appropriate response was to force the dog onhis side or back ("dominance down" or "alpha roll.")

The dog became incensed, like a mad dervish, and the wife abandoned boththe restraint strategy and all attempts to groom the dog.

Next, the husband, who desperately wanted the dog to sleep with and cuddlewith them, was growled at when he moved to cuddle and kiss the pup ­who was sleeping on the bed but at its foot ­ upon awakening.

Thinking that he had misheard, the husband further pursued a cuddle session,only to be rebuffed by a more intense growl and baring of teeth. The patternwas the same on ensuing days until the husband lost his temper and hit thedog (for which he felt and feels truly awful and embarrassed), which resultedin the dog lunging at him.

Meanwhile, life at the office was not all that copacetic either. Thepup, who had been picked up and tickled and cuddled by virtually everyonewho had met him in his life, had begun to sometimes growl at people whoreached to pet him or put on his collar. More confusing still was a changein the pattern of his aggressive behavior: he would solicit attention fromsomeone and paw to be picked up, but once in someone's lap would growl athim or her if petted or otherwise manipulated. It was at this point thatthe clients decided (a) this made no sense and (b) the disciplinary tacticsrecommended in their training books made him worse.

The behavioral evaluation

The pup was in the wife's arms in the waiting room, where he was avidlywatching all the other animals. When placed on the floor to walk to thescale, he growled at a perfectly sweet and friendly Rottweiler in passing.The husband admonished the pup that such behaviors were one day going toland him in trouble.

Once in the exam room, the pup cheerfully explored everything and everyone,barked at his reflection in the one-way glass, and stood up on everyone'sknees to sniff them. After watching, but not interacting with the dog forabout 20 minutes while soliciting additional history regarding play (e.g.,"dog bowling") and watching the pup's response to other dogs,I picked the pup up and put him in my lap when he solicited me. He madehimself comfortable and sat alertly with his back turned towards me. Aftera few minutes, I began to slowly but firmly pet him along the dorsum. Ihad not reached his tail when he began to growl. Further touching eliciteda stare and a snarl. When I moved my hands away from him, he stared at meonce more and jumped from my lap. He then turned towards me, sat in frontof me, and stared at me. One of the things that made the snarl so surprisingto the clients and students was that I had already really manipulated thepup while he walked around the room; I'd held his head and looked in hiseyes, I had pushed on his hips and neck, each time allowing him to walkaway.

Within about five minutes the pup lost interest in me and moved to thehusband who began to play roughly with him. This play involved turning thepup on his back and spinning him (an expanded version of which is involvedin "dog bowling"), smacking at and around the dog's head and onthe floor, allowing the dog to bite at hands and hold on. While this istruly rough and inappropriate play, in truth, it is the people (the malesin this family) who initiated, taught and reinforced the physically fiercebehavior. What stunned the students was that the dog not only loved thisform of play, but also showed no signs of any aggressive behavior.

Finally, when left alone in the room and observed from behind one-wayglass, the pup started to cry immediately, paced and whined, after aboutfive minutes sat down and stared at the door.

Physical and laboratory evaluation

The physical and laboratory exams were both non-remarkable and the studentshad no trouble getting blood or examining the dog.

Diagnoses

This dog has some mild attention-seeking behavior and mild dominanceaggression. He may be developing some separation anxiety. His people werediagnosed with inappropriate play behavior.

Treatment/plan

The clients were advised that since the aggression was so minor thatthey would likely be able to reverse it easily.

All behavior modification plans have three fundamental steps:

* Cease all punishment and "correction."

* Avoid all circumstances known to provoke the dog.

* Encourage the dog to defer to all people in all situations, by sittingand looking to the people for cues about the appropriateness of his or herbehavior, and reward him or her when this is done. This step means thatthe clients have to be patient, consistent, reliable and humane.

The logic of these steps is especially clear in cases of dominance aggression.Dominance aggression is best understood as an anxiety disorder that is aboutcontrol or access in social situations involving humans. Dominance aggressionis not ­ as the common dogma states ­ about a dog who is tryingto dominate a human and needs to be shown "who is boss." Thismyth has caused generations of dogs to suffer abuse and inhumane treatmentwith the goal of forcing them to physically "submit" to people.In this outdated view, the dog's behavior is a variant of "normal"that can be "corrected" with force. Genetic, familial and neurochemicaldata all support that dominance aggression, although poorly named, can bebroadly understood as an anxiety disorder involving the serotoninergic system.These dogs are not normal dogs that are "willful" and misbehaving;they are abnormal dogs that are almost always uncertain about the appropriatenessof their response in some classes of interactions with humans. Hence, theirneed for controlthe only way they can manage their uncertainty is by usingwhat appears (to humans) to be very odd and out of context "control"behaviors. Accordingly, these dogs provoke people to "test" anddeform the system and to obtain information about how each specific individualis likely to react. The threats are not about the people's status, theyare about the dog's uncertainty, and represent the only way that these dogs,who have difficulty sitting back and learning from context, can get informationabout what to expect.

Accordingly, it should be no surprise that "punishing" or "correcting"these dogs makes them worse. Think of it this way ­ if the dog was testingto see if you were a threat, use of any of the forceful, outdated and inhumanetechniques involving biting, "dominance downs," "alpha rolls"and "hanging" from a choke chain will absolutely convince an anxiousdog that you are a threat. You will be bitten, and the dog will likely bekilled because of a human misunderstanding. The pup in this case respondedaccording to plan when his people "disciplined" him. They, however,realized that the forceful techniques were not living up to their billingand sought other help.

Because the challenges and the deformations of the social system usedby dominantly aggressive dogs actually form a "rule" for interaction,we should be able to treat these dogs by substituting another "rule." This is exactly what the behavior mod does. The reason that the pup wasnever aggressive during the rough play was because-no matter how inappropriate-the play "rule" was absolutely clear. The client's must now makeall their other rules for interaction equally clear.

The first step of the behavior mod is the passive Protocol for Deference.Simply, the dog must sit calmly and look at their people for anything theywant; food, love, attention, walks. For dogs sitting is a deferential behaviorthat communicates that they are willing to consider the judgment of others.Sitting also acts as a "stop" signal; you cannot simultaneouslybe sitting calmly and bite someone. Because this is a behavioral sequenceused this way by dogs toward other dogs, we can use it with little riskof ambiguity. Once the dog solicits input from the people they can pet orplay with the dog, reward him or her with praise, or even call him or heronto their laps. At the first sign of any further threat, all the clienthas to do is withdraw attention. Although behaviorists frequently recommendcomplex behavior mod programs to their clients, in mild cases the aforementionedtriad may totally stop the problematic behavior. Raising all puppies thisway is also likely to prevent the development of many behavior problems.Pups as young as 5 weeks can and should learn to sit for people for anythingthey want. Puppies have no problems learning to defer if their people areconsistent with their requests. Encouraging consistency from clients, however,can be a challenge.

Intuitively, avoidance of all provocative situations (i.e., in this dog'scase, hugging and kissing first thing in the morning when he's in the bed)makes sense from the clients' viewpoint because they don't wish to be bitten.This is fine, but the more important reason for avoidance has to do withhow learning occurs.

The more often you successfully repeat a behavior, the better you willlearn that behavior. At the molecular level, this process is called long-termpotentiation (LTP), and it actually changes the proteins that comprise synapticreceptors. So every time the dog repeats inappropriate behaviors-those behaviorsare being encoded at the molecular level. One of the reasons that the tricyclicantidepressants (TCAs) and selective serotonin re-uptake inhibitors (SSRIs)are so successful when used in combination with a behavior modificationprogram is that they act through this same LTP pathway to change receptorsat the molecular level.

The clients readily agreed to the above and were extremely happy to seehow nicely the pup could sit and attend for them. The clients had hintedthat the pup might also be anxious or worried sometimes when left alone,so we watched from behind one-way glass when the clients left the pet. Thepup instantly cried and barked and spent the first few minutes pacing beforesettling down in front of the door to watch through the doggie window. Whilethese behaviors are not sufficient to diagnose separation anxiety, theycould be early warning signs.

Accordingly, we emphasized how important altering this dog's anxietylevel was. In addition to the behavior mod, we added a low dose of the TCAamitriptyline (Elavil; 5 mg po q. 12h or 1 mg/kg po Q. 12h) to the treatmentregimen. The drug was added, not because it was absolutely mandatory inthis case, but the client had personal experience with anti-anxiety medicationsand wanted the dog to have every chance at the speediest recovery and ata full and happy life. Could the dog have improved without drugs? Of course,however, the strongest finding of a double blind placebo-controlled studyevaluating the efficacy of clomipramine for the treatment of separationanxiety was that the drug increased the rate at which animals improved whencombined with passive behavior modification, compared with the behaviormod, alone. If learning matters -and in a young pup it does-then drugs areuseful to increase the rate at which the newly acquired, relaxed behaviorsreplace the old. TCA and selective serotonin re-uptake inhibitors have sofew side effects compared with other commonly used veterinary medications(e.g., phenobarbital, prednisolone, insulin) that the benefits far outweighthe risks here.

Remaining issue

The remaining issue to be discussed was the client's behavior. The roughplay not only encouraged the dog to be "mouthy," but also placedthe dog at extreme risk for injury. Once we gave the clients some idea ofthe risks of luxated patellas and proptosed eyeballs, they were extremelywilling to readjust their play behaviors and use only toys. This is a verygood thing, and this is a lucky puppy. All will go well.

Dr. Overall heads the Behavior Clinic at the Universityof Pennsylvania. She is certified by the Animal Behavior Society as an AppliedAnimal Behaviorist. Overall received her VMD degree from the Universityof Pennsylvania in 1983. She completed a residency in behavioral medicineat the University of Pennsylvania in 1989. She has spoken nationally andauthored numerous articles on behavioral medicine and lizard behavioralecology. Overall is author of a book entitled, "Clinical BehavioralMedicine for the Small Animal" by Mosby.

What's your question? Send your behavior-related questionsto: DVM Newsmagazine, 7500 Old Oak Blvd., Cleveland, OH 44130. Your questionswill be answered by Dr. Overall in upcoming columns.