Fix in your mind a stress-free, relaxed, easy going dog. Ms.or Mr. Go-with-the-Flow.
Perhaps this is your dog. Or, maybe not. If you are, like I am, parenting a not-so-stress-free pup, call to mind a chilled-out doggie friend. Forrest, the adopted St. Bernard who owns Mary Lee who owns PC’s Pantry comes to my mind. He drapes himself across the bakery floor like a flokati rug.
Hold that image in your head and answer this question:
- How many hours a day is it likely our easy-going pup sleeps or rests ? 8? 12?
Nope. Would you believe 17 hours of sleep or rest per day, minimum? That took me by surprise. It also made me feel a lot less guilty about Sadie commandeering the couch for a few of hours after breakfast and most of the evening.
As for Forrest? He’s a champion ‘rester’. Bakery patrons walk over and around him. Dogs sniff him. And, Forrest pretty much ignores it all. Whiffs of liver loaves fresh out of the oven do, however, rouse him from his reverie.
Let’s try another one.
- Dogs are social beings and need companionship. We all know this. So, our carefree canine is so because he is not regularly left home alone for hours on end. Right?
Wrong again! Being left alone for 4-5 hours a day is optimal–probably because the dog is knocking off a chunk of those 17+ hours of sleep when no one else is around to bother him. Next best? Just as you, or, at least I, suspected–zero hours being left alone.
That would be Forrest, and Sadie, too, for that matter. She always has human and/or doggie companions with her. Both most of the time.
Just one more.
- Most dogs love walks. Which dog is more likely to be generally relaxed like Forrest is? The dog who gets 2 or fewer hours of walking per day, or the one who spends 3 hours or more on daily constitutionals? That could be an hour in the morning. An hour mid-day. An hour’s evening stroll after dinner.
What guilt relieving news I found this to be! Two hours or less of walking per day is less stressful. Rare is the day that Sadie doesn’t walk or hike for about an hour. Some days less. Some days, like today, more. Two hours and 20 minutes to be precise. Anything over 3 hours on a regular basis and we’re asking for trouble. Thankfully, most of us don’t have enough time or energy to submit our pooches to such an exercise regime.
Okay. Now we’ll switch gears from a mostly stress-free dog to one who is stress-full. Think of a dog that is a bundle of nerves, poor thing. Hmm. What signs would we look for?
- As for physical ailments, recurrent digestive problems, vomiting and diarrhea top the list.
Some of the most common behavioral indicators that the dog is over-stressed? Here’s a very short list:
- Very frequent display of calming signals (yawning, blinking, tongue flicks–You know, all those things that Turid Regaas has taught us about.)
- Frequent barking or whining.
- Inappropriate aggression.
If it weren’t for all that Sadie is teaching me about what she needs to chill and be happy, many of these afflictions would still describe her. Especially digestive problems! Oy! What a ride it’s been to finally calm down her insides. Later I’ll write about the rough road we’ve traveled to the vomit-and-diarrhea-free-zone (mostly) we now inhabit, and (fingers crossed) will continue to inhabit.
By now you’re probably wondering, “Where is she getting this stuff?”
Let me tell you. It’s from a little book called Stress in Dogs: Learn how dogs show stress and what you can do to help by dog trainers Martina Scholz & Clarissa von Reinhardt and based on their research. Recently translated from German, it’s published by and available from Dogwise.
Here are a few more things they found:
- The least stressed dogs have an opportunity to run free daily and meet other dogs. Just running free doesn’t cut it. Dogs need contact with other dogs.
- Dogs that were walked on leash and had no contact with other dogs were the most stressed.
This might seem like a no-brainer, but, still, it’s worth noting.
- Dogs that frequently or often feel threatened to the point of behaving fearfully or reacting aggressively are at serious risk for stress-related complications compared to those dogs who are never or seldom threatened.
Think about it. Our dogs might well feel threatened quite often by people, dogs, sounds, or whatever, and we don’t notice. We need to learn to notice and act.
How did the authors arrive at these, and other, conclusions? Martina and Clarissa, analyzed data from a 40 item questionnaire they gave to friends and clients. They also made the questionnaire available on the internet. In all, 224 surveys were returned to them.
Needless to say, their research is just an early step on the trail of sniffing out the many ways stress harms our dogs and what we can do to help them.
And, reading their book raised at least as many questions for me as it answered. Take this counterintuitive finding. Dogs who were not played with by their owners were considerably less stressed than the dogs whose owners did play with them. Really? While we can speculate as to why this is–too rough play, over stimulating play, dog forced to play when she didn’t want to–the answers aren’t in the data
Also, I could quibble that the questionnaire (reprinted in the book) included items that were vague and resulted in answers that were open to way too many interpretation. But, I won’t. That’s not what’s important right now.
What is important about this little book? Martina’s and Clarissa’s message. They are shouting out loud and clear–Wake up! Pay attention to the stress overload many of our dogs are suffering right in front of our faces. Our unnatural modern world and our hectic running-here, racing-there, and seldom-home lives create a living hell for many dogs!
The authors implore us to open our eyes, to learn to ‘see’ our dog’s stress signals and relieve them because unrelieved stress makes our dogs sick. And, it kills.
Thankfully, they don’t leave us hanging with “OMG! Now that you’ve alerted me to how my poor dog is suffering–what can I do?” Martina and Clarissa include stories about several of the dogs that they have helped. My personal favorite was Lucia, the collie, who slept and slept and slept her way back to health in the care of her loving and understanding foster family. They also offer lots of suggestions for de-stressing our dogs’ lives, and, might I add, by extension, ours too.
