19/03/2021
https://www.facebook.com/103019811073388/posts/485692609472771/
š¤ÆAggression Ladder
š§There is so much to behaviour than meets the eye. I often hear clients distressed, saying that their dog has never behaved this way and donāt understand where itās come from and that they are normally so good. Obviously there are events that trigger behaviours but they donāt just come from nowhere, and can be prevented if you know what youāre looking at and know how to interpret it.
šWhen a dog behaves in a way that a human being finds inappropriate or rude, we forget that dogs are not human. They behave in a normal manner thatās natural for their species, and we as humans have unrealistic expectations of our dogs. We both āspeakā different languages. We mainly use vocalisation and dogs mainly use body language.
š¢The ladder of aggression is what can help you understand how a dog can escalate from what seems like a normal relaxed dog, to all of a sudden barking, growling, being reactive and biting.
š„ŗYou may first notice your dog sending something called calming signals. This is not only to help them stay calm but to indicate to you that the dog is not a threat, and the messages the dog is sending should calm down a situation the dog is not ok with. This can be in the form of lip licking following a sneeze, excessive blinking, yawning, head turns and avoidance behaviours. These behaviours will appear out of context and are to ideally defuse a tense situation.
šIf the messages the dog is sending are being ignored the next thing you may see are displacement behaviours. This is when the dog redirects their attention to something else so the donāt have to deal with the āscary thingā or situation. It can be a form of a self soothing behaviour that can give the dog a moment of relief. It can be random ge***al checks, eating grass, randomly scratching, or over sniffing in the environment etc... The dog is now exhibiting stress signals.
š³The dog may now move to more intense behaviours if he/ she has not shut down and gone into a learnt state of helplessness. You may see your dog is barking and their breathing has rapidly increased. The dog most likely is trying to deter the threat. You may even notice the dog dips their head down, snarling with excessive lip licking. At this stage the tongue will be going right over the nose with every lick. The dogās teeth may be bearing and even growling. In between these behaviours you may still notice more calming signals.
š¤If the dog gets to the stage where their behaviour is highly reactive and they are lunging out, barking and growling, teeth bearing, snarling and or quite still in between while exhibiting these behaviours, then this is a dog who is completely over threshold and not coping. Itās their last resort before they follow with a bite. Their body is in overdrive and they are in fight mode as their other behaviours of freeze, fidget and flight did not work. The dog is in SURVIVAL mode and the next step is to bite to protect/ defend himself/ herself.
āļøBehaviours can escalate quickly. Within a blink of an eye, your dog can go from being ok to nervous to flight or fight. Identifying body language, facial expressions and signals is an incredibly important step in PREVENTING unwanted behaviours and making your dog feel safe.
