The Case of The Big Bad Wolf

At the beginning of my practice I was called on a case where a family with three teenage children had an eight month old male Great Dane named Thor, he already weighed over 100 pounds. The referring veterinarian explained that he was acting aggressively toward strangers coming to the house. He had not bitten anyone, not yet anyway. We set up an appointment.

When I pulled up to the driveway, I heard the dog already barking in alarm. Big bark- big dog- my heart began to race, and braced myself for some intense moments, part of my job. I knocked on the door which made the dog bark even more. While waiting to be let in, I listened carefully to the quality of the bark and noticed that it carried a high pitch indicative of youth and uncertainty. So he wasn't convinced of his own ferocity, I thought. I also heard the people inside scrambling and yelling and at the same time trying to calm the dog down with endearments. Total chaos, and they finally let me in. My fear increased but I managed to keep my composure. The father was holding on to the dog and I simply sat down, made myself as small and nonthreatening as possible while averting my eyes: I did not want to make direct eye contact with Thor since that would increase his emotional state.

I saw confusion in every one and the history that I gathered after things calmed down a bit also pointed to fear as the major motivator underlying the problem: the dog was shy as a puppy and extremely attached to its owners. He let the veterinarian that took care of him at an early age handle him but would struggle, urinate and try to escape from anyone else’s control as long as they were strangers.

Before my visit, they had consulted with a local dog trainer who concluded that the dog was territorial and dangerous. He recommended using a shock collar to punish the barking. Territorial aggression is offensive where the animal tries to make itself bigger, puffs up with piloerection (raised hackles), ears forward, lips retracted up, and the growl/bark is low pitched and threatening, and the animal lunges toward the target in an attempt to bite. Thor's demeanor didn't have any of these elements. The behavior that I saw, the actual movements and vocalizations, were certainly associated with fear: ears pinned, lips retracted toward the back of the head, body and tail tucked up, this together with the high pitch of the voice made it easy to diagnose. Therefore, the territorial hypothesis did not make sense to me. Fortunately the owners intuitively knew that shocking the dog was not the answer, they agreed with me that Thor was shy and spooky.

So I went for the fear-motivated hypothesis: the dog is afraid of strangers and acts up, the owners are afraid that the dog is going to bite and they panic, but the dog has no way of knowing this. So it interprets the humans’ reaction as them being afraid of the stranger as well- which further reinforces his fear. But at the same time the humans are acting abnormally in that they are yelling, pulling on him and petting, all at the same time and creating more confusion in the animal making him freak out even more. The whole thing is like a scene straight out of a Three Stooges movie, but no one is laughing.

Now for the therapeutic plan: If my fear hypothesis was correct, I had to show Thor that strangers are not a threat. The best approach was to counter the fear with another opposite emotion when encountering strangers and this had to be done systematically. I chose play specifically since it is very difficult to be playful and at the same time fearful and aggressive. When there is play, fear and aggression are diminished both in animals and humans.

Thor, like most dogs his age, loved to run after his favorite ball so we went outside into the fenced-in yard and turned him lose. He was still afraid of me- the feeling was mutual- but our reaction had diminished significantly by then. He kept a respectful distance from me but was a bit calmer now. I began to throw his favorite ball and play catch with the family and as if by magic, the dog engaged in the play with some caution. That was fine, the emotions had begun to shift. By the end of the session I was petting him, we ran around together and had a great time. Thor was a lot of fun, all fear toward me had disappeared. He now saw me as a friend and playmate, and not as the big bad wolf. Cool, now I have a potential method.

So the plan was to reintroduce the dog to strangers in a neutral environment- outside where it did not feel confined or protected- to associate strangers with play.This circumvented the aggressive barking (more on this on future posts). The role of the stranger was to throw the ball for him.

Thanksgiving was coming up in a few days and they were having friends and family over for the event. I took this opportunity and set up an appointment for that date. The guests were called ahead of time and informed that we were going to do some therapy that day where they would be involved. Everyone was amenable to the plan which was to flood the dog with ball playing- massed trials.

I arrived early, Thor remembered me and was happy to see me and so was I. I was also very nervous, I did not know whether my plan was going to work and thus ruin everybody's day. We went outside and when the guests arrived, they were given the ball to throw for the dog to chase and play catch with the rest of us. I, of course, kept a sharp eye on Thor.

The first few trials took some time to produce play behavior - he was apprehensive and kept his distance form them - but by the fifth or sixth trial , he began to look forward to the next arrival. As I was hoping, the massed trials had a cumulative positive effect on his mood. We had such a good time: we were all smiling and laughing at Thor's antics, the owners were radiating with joy. Thor was going to be OK. I felt so relieved and fulfilled that I could not believe this was actually working - it was after all an experiment based on theory on how the brain is organized. Thor's fear had completely disappeared ( at least for now) and was replaced by expectation of the new arrival with tail wagging and play. I stayed for a couple of hours, had my first and great Thanksgiving dinner for that day and met some wonderful people to boot. Thor was turned loose in the house making a nuisance of himself, insisting to be played with and fed. He was enjoying the company of strangers for the first time in his life, he did not hesitate to demand attention from all. He was the star of the show and I could barely fit in my clothes, I was so pumped. I had made a magical connection within myself, with my science and with the world, I loved everyone and everything at that moment.

I instructed the owners to continue with these play set-ups; not to let strangers touch or reach for the dog, just to let him come to them and then walk into the house together. This procedure allowed us to get around the immediate environmental triggers that lead to the emotional reaction at the door.

Follow ups indicated that, although Thor remained shy (probably genetically predisposed), the negative responses were curtailed and slowly replaced with social playful responses.

On the occasions in which the dog barked in alarm when someone came to the door unexpectedly, the owners were not to freak out and yell, simply give him a time-out. If the visitor could wait outside until the time-out was effective in quieting him down, then he was taken outside on a leash to meet, play and throw the ball with the stranger - Thor knew the routine by now. It is important to notice here that by the owners keeping calm and guiding the dog into social isolation (time-out), the dog learned what to expect when he became alarmed or when he was being social - discrimination learning. The social matrix of the family stayed intact: no trauma in spite of the punishment. Harmony in the family was maintained and chaos was avoided. In conclusion, we learned that only when the dog developed simple playful responses to strangers that his perception changed and the problem could be solved.


Analysis and theory:

Aggression/threatening behavior toward strangers in the home is a fairly common problem situation for dog owners. Sometimes we try to counteract this kind of problem with food, but food is a poor substitute for play as a countermeasure to fear motivated aggression: the emotions associated with food intake have nothing to do with the emotional circuitry associated with fear and aggression. The dog can take food from a stranger’s hand and still be fearful but it can not play and remain fearful at the same time. It does not fit into the emotional organization of the brain. Play is a change in mood. The organism relaxes and bonds with others and this relationship creates a pleasant internal state in each one of us. It is this very pleasant internal state that opens us up to others. It is the basis for the social bond where there is harmony and if that feeling were not mutual, it would not be possible. Therefore, mutuality of experience is essential. So I ask how can we question whether these animals that we relate to on a day to day basis have feelings and consciousness? This issue of animal consciousness has been a thorny and perennial one for psychologists for a long time; we will return to this question in many forms as our future discussions unfold.

From: www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xvo1912cjjY

Curiously, there are many reported cases of prosocial interactions between individuals of many species- predators such as polar bears and dogs, gorillas and kittens and so on, all domestic animals at one time or another interact socially with one another. The Internet is full of documented cases where unusual relationships are established between individuals of different species. The interesting point here is that all these crosspecific relationships are mediated through play behaviors and are driven in most cases through play motivated responses and to a lesser extent through maternal behaviors. So play behavior is really a bridge to friendship, which in a human environment is very adaptive for dogs. Therefore, play-training (play as a reinforcer and for counteracting negative emotional states) is a powerful tool but can only be effective when the human and the animal develop a positive relationship which in turn creates a sweet and rhythmic feeling in both. It is this harmonic movement that form the base and the feelings of love between us. I believe that this is the magical, the "je ne sais quois", the satori state or whatever we want to call it that we are trying to attain when dealing with any kind of psychological therapy be it human or animal.

Again, your comments are appreciated and I can be contacted personally at: humananimalharmony@gmail.com 

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