OVERAROUSAL AND REACTIVITY : THE STRESS BUCKET EXPLAINED.

Please note that is a gps tracker on Lou's collar.

Understanding our dog’s and their behaviours can be challenging. It can be extremely confusing when our dog suddenly presents ‘bad behaviours’ when the majority of the time they are well behaved and then suddenly they start jumping at people, barking, being destructive. In the case of a ‘reactive’ dog some days they may be coping better with situations such as strangers walking past them or a dog in the distance and suddenly they are lunging, barking.  So why do dogs have such unpredictability when it comes to behaviour, leaving owners confused?

They key comes back to the dogs stress level, arousal level. This is something that most owners don’t think of or have not had it explained to them. Just like humans dog’s get stressed or stimulated/aroused by interactions in the world. Their arousal/stress level, has a direct impact on their ability to cope in situations and their subsequent behaviours. 

So how do we understand their stress level? A lot of trainers or behavioural specialists will refer to a ‘stress bucket’ or ‘arousal bucket’. 

Imagine that every dog has an internal bucket. When our dog is calm, relaxed and well rested their bucket is empty and they are content. This predominantly occurs when they have had a good night's sleep and its first thing in the morning. There will be circumstances where there can be some residual stress; I will explain this a bit later on.  

As the day starts and goes on the dog will be exposed to situations that will add to their bucket. These contributors could be anything; the buzzer going off for a delivery, being alone at home, a run around the park with a friend, seeing a squirrel or cat , people passing the window, going for a car ride, a reactive dog barking at them. It is essential to remember that both positive stress and negative stress contribute to their stress bucket. Now every contributing stressor will have it’s own level of input, certain stressors will dump a high level depending on the dog and their underlying factors such as fear, anxiety levels. For instance, if an off lead dog approaches and barks this would contribute much more significantly for a dog who is fearful of other dogs than one who is not nervous or fearful. 

It is important to remember that the effects of continuous exposure to triggers is cumulative and often referred to as trigger stacking. 

Basically, when the bucket fills the dog surpasses what is deemed their ‘threshold’. This is when they can no longer cope with the level of stress or arousal they are experiencing. When a dog reaches this level their hormones increase, their bodies become flooded with neurotransmitters, ability to focus decreases and cues that they would normally respond to decrease in effectiveness. This is when their ‘bad’ behaviour will present. These behaviours will depend on the route cause of their stress; fear based responses will differ from frustration/over arousal. 

These hightened levels of chemicals and hormones in their system can take days to deplete and also have an effect on their biological systems such as their gastrointestinal tract. For more on this please see my article ‘stress its effects on the canine system’. So, if your dog has had a very stressful day, a nice quiet rest day may be required to bring their levels down and empty their stress bucket. 

So, lets break this down further and look at what goes into the bucket, the behaviours we may encounter and how to help empty their bucket.

CONTRIBUTORS:

Remember, these are both positive and negative stress. 

What behaviours may present:

What activities can help empty, lower the level of the bucket:

There are ways to help increase your dog's ability to cope in situations by helping decrease their sensitivity to triggers, and increase their ability to handle stress. Thus giving them a better chance of coping in the world and preventing their bucket from overflowing. These techniques include positive training methods, desensitisation, counterconditioning and increasing your dogs confidence. It is also important to understand what your dog is communicating through their body language and behaviours; this allows you to intervene and remove them from the stress and help prevent the bucket overflowing and the ‘bad’ behaviours from presenting. 

Further help is always available: 

I Understand the stress of the unpredictable behaviour, especially when it presents in the form of aggression. Obe my staffie cross in the pics was my rescue boy. He had a very traumatic start to life and was terrified of the world; dogs, people, certain sounds, novel situations and much more including Sainsbury’s carrier bags. It doesn't have to make sense to us, we just have to understand their communication, help them decompress and aid them in overcoming their triggers.

I offer one to one ‘understanding your dog’ packages as well as seminars. This is designed to help you understand what your dog is communicating (body language and behaviours), training techniques, an insight into the effects on their biological systems, enrichment games and more to give you the tools to help work on reactivity, prevent escalation. 

If you have a reactive dog and want assistance with that please look at the reactive dog package or get in touch for a consult call to discuss how i can help you. Depending on the behaviours will depend on the appropriate course of action. Sometimes a full behavioural consult is required to understand the causality of the behaviour and how to rewrite their neural pathways to overcome their fears, reactivity to bring balance back into their lives and your home.