(VICT) Perplexing behavior
- From: "Chris Acton" <c.acton@xxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: <vi-clicker-trainers@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Sun, 12 Oct 2008 18:47:53 +1000
Hi Shelley and everyone,
It's Chris Acton from Australia with seven-year-old Labrador Retriever guide
dog Yarra.
Oh wow, you can most certainly have an assistance dog that is bonded to you
in such a way that unhealthy behaviours arise when separated from you. My
own boy is a nervously active kind of lad who is far more likely to display
outwardly extreme behaviours when stressed, rather than becoming inactive or
subdued.
I've had to try and think of this challenge as not him displaying problem
behaviours as such, but more as anxiety/attention seeking/reinforcement
triggered by a specific event, namely removal from an invisible personal
space involving himself and his pack (that would be me). Sometimes I think
the term "separation anxiety" has become laden with certain expectations and
styles of management, and I personally tended to get frustrated when the
magic "tv solution" we so often see didn't work as fast as it did there (of
course you'd think I'd "get it" that nothing is that fast, but this type of
behaviour needs to be worked on as much to psychologically set myself up to
actually see the improvements, rather than the things we hadn't achieved).
Rambling on here I know, but I've tried to approach it in two ways - active
intervention to manage the displacement behaviour, and modification of the
nervousness behind it.
Management-wise, if she's to be left for a long time, perhaps fitting one of
those elizabethan bucket collars might reduce the extent to which she can
hurt herself and make the behaviour less pleasing, but as this won't change
what's driving it, she might just diversify into something else.
Moving onto modification of emotion then, as frustrating as it is, I'd try
to think of offering positive distractions like stuffed kongs or nylabones
smeared with vegemite as almost default behaviours you offer at a given
moment, not unlike you might have a certain ritual before harnessing up,
exiting a door, etc. She would only get these treasured rewards when you
leave, and they would disappear the moment you return. It takes but a second
to smear just a little vegemite or something on a bone as you head for the
bathroom, much as you might divert your phone to answering machine or lock
your computer.
You know already this is a really tough and long-term approach, and should
maybe be thought of as just another adjustment in your team together, rather
than a finite "task" that will reach ompletion within a time frame (always
dangerous to set those when modifying underlying emotions in our dogs).
A slightly less direct but quite useful strategy I've found is trying to
increase the personal space that my dog and I live within. Yarra is an
incredibly clingy dog when not relaxed, and will do things like dive between
my feet to "hide" from the world and gain support from his pack leader. It's
brilliant that he defers to me like that, but as our relationship became
solid and my ability to read him increased, I tried ever so slightly to give
him a little physical space from me. Unless really really necessary, I
rewarded him for lying just that little bit further away from me, and we're
only talking beside me as opposed to between my feet literally, not even on
the other side of the room initially. Sometimes I put something like a
coffee table tween us, again just creating that faint space with physical
things, not just air.
I also paid attention to the sorts of places he liked to be when at rest.
Yarra is an alert, vigilant dog who prefers to be in the middle of
everything and preferably where he can see everything. He's a thousand times
more likely to bark and shriek if forcibly confined into somewhere out of
the way. This is hard for me, as my personality leans towards hiding out of
the way, but for him, if he's "on alert" as it were while I'm away, he's
more likely to settle.
For you this might mean letting her come out from under the desk even just a
little while you're gone, or if stationing is required, putting her
somewhere she's more likely to relax.
Quite frankly, it's an incredibly tough adventure this one, because for me
at least, it creates considerable anxiety personally as well, which of
course magnifies the whole disaster of separation. It can also feel really
imprisoning which is hard too, and is difficult to make others understand
because they have a perception (not wrongly at all) that greater bond is a
greater thing. It's not really about the closeness or otherwise of the bond
at all, but simply a particular temperament tendency of your girl's that
involves you, her, and your joint personal space.
This is faintly rambly, but I hope something here helps. Sincere good wishes
on this, and be kind to yourself as well.
Chris.
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