Reactions in Dogs - Part 4

 

Why do we need to know this?

Continued from part 3 ....... That’s great Jim, thanks for explaining – but why do I need to know about this? I often see my customers’ reaction to a brief explanation of this and it is clear they are trying to understand what it means to them and their dogs. Why do they need to know about hormones releasing and bodily functions? OK – hands up – You’ve got me – you don’t need to know about hormones and increasing heart rates and it won’t make you a better dog trainer if you do. BUT, hear me out! Understanding that your dog is reacting to perceived threats or exciting situations and that these reactions can cause your dog to be unable to physically hear or see you. In addition, that these reactions are completely out of your dog's control – (there is absolutely nothing they are able to do to prevent these reactions) will hopefully make you feel slightly different about how you deal with your dog when they are in a heightened state.   If your dog is shaking with excitement or fear then adding to their level of excitement or fear is only going to increase their reaction to it, making it less likely that they will hear you or be able to focus on you. So – asking your dog to sit next to your friend as they are peeing over their new trainers is not likely going to happen. Equally, shouting at your dog when it is scared of another dog approaching it or getting frustrated at them is only going to serve to make your dog more anxious. So, you see, I've waffled on about reactions in dogs, not because I want you to understand anything about hormone releases, but because I want you to question why your dog is reacting – are they scared or excited? And then to question what your response should be.  So what should your response be when your dog is in a heightened state and not appearing to be able to see or hear you?  To be continued.......

Reactions in dogs - part 3

 Continued from part 2 .......

But why is it that my dog shakes and pees on the floor when they are excited when perhaps a friend visits? They aren’t scared of them. In fact, they appear to love it when our friend comes round.

Well the reason for this is that the same physical responses that occur in response to fear also occur in response to excitement. When we become excited by something, we experience the same physical responses of those that are caused by fear. Once again, our heart rate quickens, we increase our breathing to take in more oxygen, our senses seem more heightened, we don’t feel hungry as our digestion slows (we experience the “butterflies in our stomach” feeling). Often excitement causes us to need to urinate – although this doesn’t usually happen all over our friend’s new trainers! Many of us will have experienced this just before playing sport or performing tasks we enjoy – that sudden need to pee. In addition, as our muscles tense and build ready for action we start to shake.  

Its exactly the same in dogs. As your friend enters the house the dog’s excitement levels increase – beyond that of when they heard the doorbell ring. They are now in a heightened state and the body is reacting to it. As they run in for a fuss, shaking with excitement and jump up your friend in an uncontrollable manner their bladders release momentarily and they pee all over your friends best new trainers. The usual reaction to this is either laughing or telling the dog off whilst apologising profusely! Both of which, tend to increase the heightened state in your dog intensifying their reaction

Continued in part 4....

Reactions in Dogs - Part 2

 

Fight or Flight?

Continued from part 1....... Fight or Flight – What is it? Our dogs, having no control whatsoever over their physical response to the threat in their immediate environment, are now in a heightened state. Their bodies are primed and ready to deal with the perceived threat. Muscles are energised and full of oxygen, senses are focused or ignored to maximise reaction times. They are now ready to act.  How they react will depend on a number of factors including how fast the environment is changing – Has the loud noise caused the dog to focus on a large aggressive looking dog who is fast approaching them or is there more time to react? Is there an exit route they can escape to or are they trapped? (For example: stuck on the end of a lead and tethered to their owner). These questions are almost assessed immediately in the brain and as soon as they are able to act, they will. If there is a chance of escaping the threat and a high probability they will out run their foe, most dogs will opt for flight (Running away or appearing non-threatening to avoid aggression).  If there is no chance of running away and appearing less threatening is not working (by avoiding staring at the threat and adopting a non-aggressive body language like lying on its back with its legs in the air) then the dog will move out of the flight behaviour and move into a more aggressive fight posture.  What does flight look like in my dog?  Avoidance is very often the best policy when feeling threatened. This strategy is quite effective and it is used by many different animals, including humans. For example, if I appear less threatening and don’t look at the school bully, then perhaps they will focus their attention on someone else. In dogs this can be seen quite clearly as they turn their gaze away from the threat and avoid it. Their heads turn away and are bowed low as they look to the floor. This is often accompanied by the tail tucking under the dog’s body and the ear carriage (the position of the ears) tends to be low and swept back close to the head. All of these body language signs are designed to say to the would-be attacker, I am no threat to you, you do not need to worry about me, there is no need to attack.   Perhaps you’ve seen this behaviour occurring around the back of your legs as your dog cowers behind you hoping you’ll make it go away. This is all flight behaviour.  Very few dogs will want to enter into a fight as there is always the risk of serious injury – even if they succeed in besting their quarry. The question of whether it is worth their while will always be there before an attack. If, however, the dog is hungry and craving a food resource, this could tip the balance, leading to an attack. In the same way, protecting a resource (like a toy or food source) will generate a higher probability of attack. Dogs can be very protective over resources, such as the place they live (Which is one of the reasons they bark and appear aggressive when the doorbell rings!) So, the chances are, if the dog attributes a resource as important to them they will act in a way to keep it or protect it.  So, what if avoidance or running away and cowering doesn’t work? What does fight look like in my dog? If avoiding the threat doesn’t work a dog will quickly move into a more aggressive stance and this builds in intensity and can reach its climax quickly where the perceived threat is moving fast towards the dog.   In the first instance, the dog will be now focusing on the threat with its eyes firmly fixed on it. The ears will move away from the head and be pricked up, the head will be raised and the front legs will look firm and stiff. The dogs whole body will stiffen as its muscles are building ready for action and it may shake (appearing excited). As the dog stares focusing its attention on the threat it may issue a warning by raising its lips and baring its teeth and growling in a low tone. If this reaction fails to intimidate the threat and it continues then the dog may begin to bark a warning, following this by an “air snap” (snapping it teeth towards the threat). If there is still no reaction then a lunge towards the threat may be initiated. You can see puppies practice this as they play with new toys sometimes. They mix both play bouncing (which is where they drop to their front paws and bow towards the toy or another dog) and lunging towards the toy snapping at it.   So, what happens if the threat doesn’t take the hint? What if the vacuum cleaner refuses to run off and hide? Well there is not much left in the dog’s repertoire other than to attack the threat. Lunging forward it will bite the threat. Even now though there is usually a pause to allow the threat time to reconsider as the dog stops its attack momentarily. If this doesn’t happen there is usually a further sustained attack. Enough to subdue the threat and allow the dog to go back into flight mode and back away.   Continued in part 3....

Reactions in Dogs - Part 1

 Why does my dog react the way it does? 

Have you ever wondered why your dog: • reacts the way it does when it becomes scared or excited?  • Shakes or pees all over the feet of someone when they come through the door?  • Runs and hides with huge dilated pupils when a car backfires?  • Licks its lips and looks panicked when another dog walks by?  Is it just your dog’s quirky behaviour which you've come to accept and live with or is it something deeper? Something more primal than their emotional state?  The physical response in your dog is caused by its sympathetic nervous system and it is no different to that of your own, except to say it appears more heightened in dogs. Its more visible to us in animals and it results in real fight or flight reactions that aren’t suppressed like many of our own human responses.   So, what is going on in our dogs when the postman knocks the door, friends visit us or a firework explodes outside? And more to the point – why do we need to understand it?  In my opinion, understanding what physical responses occur when our dogs fight or flight response kicks in is important if we want to understand how to counteract this primal behaviour. If we can understand the response process, we can then act in a manner that makes them more content around the things that we know aren’t threats or help them to control themselves when they become excited. Why is it that when a firework goes off outside, we don’t react in the same way? After all we have the same physiological systems. Why does our dog shake and cower whilst urinating on the floor or bark and growl at the window when the firework explodes? In fact, our physical response is actually no different from our dogs. The firework explodes and for a brief moment we respond; we jump, our muscles tense, our heart rate quickens, our breathing rate quickens, our senses become heightened, our mouths dry up. All of this happens in a matter of seconds. Then our brain kicks in, we assess the threat, evaluate the evidence we’ve received from our sensory organs and in most cases we come to the conclusion that the sound we heard, or the flash we saw, was a firework, or a car backfiring and slowly, after realising there is no threat to us, our physical systems return to normal. Our heart rate slows again and we relax back to the state we were in before. Sometimes this can take a short while as we slowly calm ourselves down.   But what if we aren’t sure it was a firework? Perhaps the sound was more like that of gunfire? Perhaps, we’ve just been watching a horror film or the news has just reported a gunman on the rampage. What happens then? Well, instead of calming us down our body does the opposite, it steps up a notch. Our muscles stay tense, our senses become more heightened, our body starts to focus on the details around us and shut down systems we don’t need. Our digestion rate slows, any sexual arousal is halted, our bladders relax. In some cases, we suffer temporary hearing loss and tunnel vision. All of this happens to allow our body to focus on the threat at hand and develop a mechanism to survive the perceived threat. Our body is now prepared allowing us to decide - Can we run from the threat and hide whilst the Police arrive? Or perhaps we can find a weapon and fight anyone that intrudes our space? Its time for fight or flight.  So what is happening physically in our dogs? And why is it when they’re scared or excited they never listen to me?  When something happens in our dogs environment that they have never experienced before and don’t understand – like a loud bang, or that they have had a bad experience with previously - like an aggressive encounter with a dog, they begin to react.   Their brain processes the information they are receiving from their sensory organs and their sympathetic nervous system begins to kick in. A hormone called adrenocorticotropic is produced in the pituitary gland and is released into their bodies. This in turn stimulates the release of cortisol and adrenaline and the presence of these hormones causes the various organs of the body to react. The body is now automatically getting ready to take action. The heart increases its rhythm and blood pressure increases so that more oxygenated blood can be pumped around the body. The lungs inflate more quickly as the body sucks in more oxygen to meet the increased demand. The salivary glands slow down production of saliva causing dryness in the mouth. The pupils in the eye dilate. Muscles tense as they prepare for movement and they may appear to shake.  All of this happens in a matter of seconds and the physical changes continue to build as long as the threat remains. The sensory organs begin to heighten with the eyes processing more detail. The brain begins to focus the eyes on the threat and starts to ignore things happening around the edge of their vision (The peripheral vision is ignored) and the dog experiences tunnel vision fixing its stare on the threat. The chances of the dog seeing you now are slim, as it focuses all its attention on the perceived threat. The body then begins to turn off systems it no longer needs to deal with the threat. Sexual arousal is halted, digestion slows, the bladder relaxes and as the brain focuses more on sight it loses it’s focus on hearing. The brain no longer processes the sounds the ears are receiving and the dog will suffer temporary hearing loss. Not only is the dog now no longer seeing you jumping up and down at the side of them they can now no longer physically hear you shouting at them!  More to follow in part 2.....

 Why Dog Jim? - The origins of the name

I've been asked - Why did you name your business Dog Jim Training?  So I thought I would give an explanation.  

When I'm out on a call operating as a Dog Handler for Staffordshire's Search and Rescue Team I am instructed and managed by a Search Manager who acts as our direct line to the Police Search Adviser (Polsa).  The Polsa works with our Search Manager by feeding in all known intelligence about a missing person to formulate a search strategy.  This usually involves searching large areas of countryside and rural areas and is based on statistics and probability of where the missing person is likely to be found.  In my experience, these areas are not always the nicest of places to be and are often very boggy overgrown and full of nettles and brambles!  They aren't always the idyllic countryside locations we think about when visualising Cannock Chase (Which is where many of our searches take place.   

As Search Dog Jake and I are often operating at long distances from the Search Manager (They plan and manage Search Operations from a Control Unit), we are passed instructions and information via digital encrypted handheld radios.  

All dog handlers in the team are issued radio call-signs which are an amalgamation of the word Dog and the Handlers first name.  Mine therefore is "Dog Jim."  (Or if I've upset the radio operator Dog James!).  When passing messages back to the radio operator in the control unit (pictured above) we start with our call-sign.  So I am often heard saying "Control from Dog Jim, message over..." and I am referred to as Dog Jim when messages are relayed back to me.  

Sue, (Or Auntie Sue as we fondly refer to her) who is picture above, has to be one of the most loved members in the search team and has the perfect radio operators voice.   She always manages to pass even the least welcome messages in a nice calm professional manner.  I often wonder if she smiles to herself as she calls "Dog Jim from Control, please can you proceed to the woodland at the following coordinates.  We have reports that the woodland is heavily overgrown and boggy in places and would be ideal for a dog team.."  She emanates such professionalism that you can't reply anything other than "yes of course, I can't wait to get such a lovely picturesque sounding place."  She is also the voice heard when asking you to return for a break so she makes up for passing instructions to head out to grotty locations, by recalling you back for lunch, where she welcomes us with a smile. 

So you see, being referred to as "Dog Jim" all day long sort of sticks after a while.  I didn't really need to think long before I came up with the name for my dog training business.  I feel it perfectly encapsulates my work as a Search Dog Handler,  a role in the team which has provided me with such fulfilment and is a most enriching experience.  

I hope that when I am training customers they too can benefit from the knowledge and experience that I've developed over the years as a Search Dog Handler.  

"Dog Jim, out...."

Joining Search and Rescue

Map reading in SSART

Jim Receiving Member of the Year award (2016)

Jim on a night time Exercise

Joining Search and Rescue….

It was a couple of weeks later when the Search Team got back to me and if I wasn’t convinced before that it was meant to be, I was when I answered the phone. Bizarrely, the Membership Officer for the team on the other end of the telephone was an old Scout Leader of mine! I didn’t have much to do with Richard Archer in the scouts as our paths only crossed briefly, but I would now consider him one of my best friends in the team.  

Applications to join were quite simple back then. I was asked to turn up to a training session on a Wednesday night and bring along some form of ID with me. I was excited when I turned up for my first session, having been asked to meet Richard at the gates of the military base where the team stored its equipment. A quick security check and I was back in my car following him across the base to the team’s hanger.  

I was impressed when I arrived at the hanger. The team had two Land Rover defenders and a new Mercedes Sprinter parked up and Richard explained to me that the Sprinter had just recently been acquired via a lottery funded grant and was now fitted out as the teams control vehicle. It formed the control hub for each search deployment and was where the brains of the search operations planned and liaised with the Police. He explained that all the equipment I saw was funded by the public and that the team attended all sorts of events throughout the year to raise funds and would be expected to attend them.  

The quick tour continued and I was shown all sorts of pieces of equipment – from stretchers to first aid kits to rope access equipment. I was introduced to the team members (about 30 in all) and then the evenings training started. The session that night was going to be on coping with death and recognising when someone was deceased. It was delivered by a doctor who was the teams go to advisor for clinical matters and he went through his slides on recognising signs of life extinct. It was, to say the least, a lesson to focus the mind. If I wasn’t sure about whether Search and Rescue was right for me, this would be the main reason why. It’s one of the main reasons we see people decide it’s not for them.   

Those in the team recounted their own experiences of finding missing persons who were deceased and it was clear that one of the team’s main roles would be reuniting loved ones with their missing relatives. It was also clear that the type of work the Police asked the team to do means that many of the people who were missing were also despondent and that finding them dead was a likely outcome of many of the searches. It was something I hadn’t thought of before and it was a far cry from the work I had seen Mountain Rescue Teams carry out on the TV, when stranded walkers would call them asking for help. It would seem that most of the people I would be helping the team look for would either not want to be found, or would not know they were missing. 

However, I wasn’t too concerned as I had already had my own experiences dealing with death, having investigated fatal accidents in my day job. I was quite familiar with pain and suffering that came with families losing loved ones as I had lost a friend to suicide a few years earlier so I knew how hard it was for friends and family. I began to feel that if I was able to be a part of something which could help make that more bearable, then this would make the whole experience worthwhile. 

 

The training evening finished with a trip to the pub and a chance to chat with other team members about their experiences. I started to feel that I was going to be part of a group of fantastic people who selflessly gave up their time to satisfy their desire to do good and help their community. It was exactly what I wanted and it was also evident that the types of people that get involved in Search and Rescue were great to be around. I was accepted right from the first evening and it couldn’t have felt more right. I said my goodbyes and was told that the next sessions training would be on Cannock Chase.  

The first practical session a week later was right in the middle of the Chase and saw us briefed on an exercise where a missing child had become separated from his parents and was last seen somewhere in the area. There was talk about the most likely area he would be found and how children act when lost. Statistics were referred to and we were all placed into small teams. My team’s leader explained how we should search and that the exercise would involve a search through the undergrowth surrounding the car park where we had arrived.  

I soon realised that I was under-dressed. Apparently the most useful piece of equipment would be leg gaiters and whilst I owned some, I hadn’t got them with me. The error of my ways would soon be apparent and the result of my mistake would last until the following morning. Our team leader led us all through the undergrowth in the search for a small child sized dummy fondly referred to as “Billy.” A shout from my right some thirty minutes later as we walked through the undergrowth asked us all to “hold the line” and it saw me waiting patiently in a large crop of nettles while the team’s medic practiced on the dummy. The pain from the nettle stings and the excitement from the evening meant that I’d be awake half the night.  

I attended training every week and looked forward to it immensely. It had given me a new lease of life and I was excited to be a part of the team. On my third week we were tasked to a local town in Staffordshire where we would be practising urban search techniques. We searched around the town and found ourselves in a field on the outskirts, where once again “hold the line” changed the team’s response to rescue as the search stage was complete. It was Billy again and I started to wonder why he was so careless becoming lost so quickly! This time he was propped up against a farm gate waiting for us to bring him back home where he would take his place on the hanger equipment shelves.  

That nights training evening however, didn’t quite turn out the way any of the team had expected. “No duff” came the message through the radio. Having spent no time whatsoever with the military I had no idea what this meant. It was Jargon from a long list of phrases and words that I would have to learn. It meant that the training exercise was over as there was a real-life incident to deal with. The team had been called to help the Police. It was my first experience of the team’s response to a real call out. Richard explained to me that I was allowed to attend but I would have to stay with him in the control vehicle and just observe.  

The callout changed the atmosphere completely. Team members went from a relaxed jovial training mode to one of complete professionalism in an instant. Equipment was collected and packed away with efficiency, team members headed back to base to collect the other vehicles and everyone made way to a given location with me following behind. As we headed across the county in convoy the feeling was exhilarating. Whilst I was completely nervous at what I was going to experience it was utterly exciting being part of the response.  

And then, just like that, it was over. Richard pulled his car over and asked me to stop. He got out of his car and came to mine and then explained that the team had been stood down. Operating an SMS call system, team members had received the message that the missing person had been found by the Police and they were no longer needed. It was a strange feeling but one I would encounter again and again over the coming years. I was hugely  disappointed but at the same time filled with relief that the missing person had been found. 

Training continued week in, week out and varied from practical search exercises to sitting in lectures at the hanger. It didn’t matter what we were doing though, I loved it and was learning so much. It was May 2011 when I joined the team and I was told there was a weekend course coming up and if I attended and passed, I would become a qualified Search and Rescue Technician. This meant I would be added to the list of personnel allowed to attend real life incidents.  

I attended the course and qualified in the November and my life in the search team became even more exciting. I would now spend the next few weeks staring at my phone wondering If it was still switched on waiting for a call out text message. Whilst my life was now so much more exciting, I wouldn’t realise until later that it still wasn’t quite complete. There was still something lacking.  

The team mainly consisted of foot searchers and I began to attend callouts and make new friends in the team. There was talk amongst some of my colleagues about setting up a dog section within the team. Up until now the team hadn’t used dogs to search for people but there was an opportunity for them to start using them. This was exactly what I wanted to be involved in. It was perfect for me and there was no way I wasn’t going to get involved. I spoke with Dave Barley, who was planning on getting his own dog to train up and I told him I wanted to get involved.  

To be continued…….

Arriving at a decision

Jim teaching Beavers and their fathers to kayak

Jim Receiving the Chief Scout Award

Sponsored Hike Against the Cruelty of Kids - for NSPCC

Following a dream…

As a young lad I was heavily involved in Scouting and I loved being outdoors. I learned so much about nature and living off the land. I thoroughly enjoyed navigating and map reading. I also found First Aid training interesting and it wasn’t long before I had filled my arms with badges and awards. I loved camping and spent most of my weekends camping with my fellow scouts, hiking across the Peak District Hills, kayaking down local rivers or climbing and abseiling in local quarries.   

It was inevitable given my love of nature and fascination with science that I would go on to take A’ level Biology at school and this put me in good stead later when I trained in slaughter houses as a Student Environmental Health Officer (EHO). I found that I was able to put of out my mind the sad practice of killing animals by concentrating on the fascinating biological systems exposed by the process.  

Training to be an EHO was tough and I was often heard grumbling with my fellow students about the amount of time we had to spend studying. We were required to attend lectures for up to 40 hours per week which, when compared to the other students who I shared accommodation with, seemed excessive – especially when they were only required to attend 10 hours of lectures a week! In addition to the university workload I was required to work at a Local Authority as part of my training. Whilst my roommates went home to their families to relax for the holidays, I would be found working in the Borough of Northampton as a student EHO. I would spend my weekends studying and falling asleep at my desk and I soon began to forget about the pull of the outdoors and how I had enjoyed it so much.  

In 2008, I went to work at Birmingham City Council in the Specialist Health and Safety Team investigating fatal and major incidents. My time in this team would turn out to be the best of my Environmental Health career and I soon found my skills stretched and improved until I reached the top of my game. It was during this job that I travelled around the country training fellow EHOs. Having investigated a number of gas explosions in catering businesses, I found myself somewhat an expert in Gas Safety within the Catering Sector and I trained hundreds of my colleagues around the country on how to carry out health and safety inspections within kitchens. Being flown up to Edinburgh to present at a conference was a highlight in my career and whilst it made me feel good about what I was doing, I still couldn’t shake the feeling that it just wasn’t for me.  

The Health and Safety Team members were a great bunch of people and I thoroughly enjoyed working with them. The work was tough and emotionally draining but the team pulled together and everyone looked out for each other. I investigated my first fatal accident, whilst at Cannock Chase District Council at the age of 24. Whilst that hadn’t been my first exposure to a dead body, I hadn’t realised how much it had affected me until years later when, after investigating a number of other fatal incidents, I was given Post Traumatic Stress Disorder training. This work had taken its toll on my emotional state, changing me indefinitely and it was one of a number of reasons why I left the team to concentrate on main stream Environmental Health work. 

It was during my time with the Health and Safety Team, however, that I rediscovered the joys of being outdoors. With a few of my team colleagues we decided to take part in an event to raise money for the NSPCC by hiking 22 miles across the Malvern Hills. Clearly, I would need to carry out a lot of training as it had been years since I had attempted to walk so far. I would spend the next few months before the event training with my colleagues by wandering around Cannock Chase or the Peak District. The training gave us plenty of time to chat and I would find myself talking to my fellow teammates about how I “used to love being outdoors spending time surrounded by nature.” They probably got bored with hearing me say it. 

It’s not often that you meet someone who you can really call a friend, but I’ve learned if you are lucky enough you may meet someone in your life who completely fills all of the criteria and can be called a true friend. Whilst the lads in the team dropped off with their training (they probably got fed up of me talking about how I used to love being in the outdoors!), my dear friend Surindar carried on dragging me all over the Peak District, testing both our stamina and our navigating skills. She was, and still is, someone who offers encouragement unreservedly and we found ourselves talking about our love for the outdoors during our walks. On one of our walks, as she listened to me complain about being an EHO and how I found it so tough, I went on to tell her about how I used to travel to the Lakes with fellow Scouts and how I thoroughly loved it. I told her how I would have loved to have joined the Mountain Rescue Teams up there and, true to form, her simple reply would change my life. “Why don’t you join them then? If it’s what you want to do – go for it!”  

At the time I would not even begin to realise how her words of encouragement would later change my life, but she had stirred something within me that encouraged me to search for a way to join an organisation like Mountain Rescue. I found myself trawling the internet and researching it further as soon as I got back home. Of course, I lived in Staffordshire in the UK where there are no mountains and is no Mountain Rescue Team so clearly, that wasn’t an option without uprooting my family and moving up to the north of the country. It was then that I came across an organisation called Staffordshire Search and Rescue Team (SSART). SSART is made up of volunteers from all walks of life who give up their spare time to train and assist the Police, and other emergency services, to locate missing vulnerable people.  

I had found an organisation, close to both my heart and my home and I knew there and then that it was meant to be. I contacted them via their website and awaited their reply.

To be continued….