How Dogs Tell Us What We Need to Know | Barbara Sherman | TEDxSandhillsCommunityCollege

good afternoon how many of you have lived with the dog ah the vast majority of you know the joy of that experience and the remarkable interactions that we have with dogs that we live with and how we communicate in both verbal and nonverbal ways and how they communicate excuse me with us similarly so what I will talk to you about today is some of those ways in some ways that we can overcome some of the difficulties that dogs have so if you live with dogs you know something about that communication the fact that when you put on your running shoes you're sort of asking your dog want to go and what does your dog do jump for joy follow you around the house ready ready to go if you put on your go to work show choose what what might your dog do sulk go to its bed look sugar and sad so you and your dog are having communication in that way when you're having us that day you may find your dog appears and puts its head in your lap seemingly so empathetic to your feelings it's quite remarkable isn't it this social intelligence of dogs that we have lived as humans with dogs for thousands of years and dogs have really become perfected this type of intelligence where they notice things visually and sounds as well and we communicate in many ways in my role as a veterinary behaviorist at North Carolina State University College of Veterinary Medicine clients come to see us with their dogs and their dogs they regale me with stories about their dogs intelligence the fact that they know so much they do tricks and they may show me the many even complex skills that their dog have but they come to see us because there's something that dog can't learn and it puzzles them like he learns all these other things why can he learn this particular behavior or more commonly not to do a certain behavior and we'll talk about some of those and so what we often find is that that the impediment to learning may have something to do with anxiety and fear so what I'd like to do is share some examples from our clinic of some of the things that we see and then in ways that we might help dogs as we go forward and express our compassionate care for them and our desire to live harmoniously with them as well so here our cute cue video so this the clinic the dog is barking and jumping up and this is the x-rated part of the video he's hunting me as well he's so confused ah there we go here we go some of you may recognize this kind of vocalization at your front door so this okay uncertainty about what to do in in a sort of a rousing situation another option is to use the keep away signal the signal that says maybe to the approach of a friendly stranger where the dog says I don't know you get back stay away from my owner here is the threat that I'm giving you a growl and a snarl and at that moment I really didn't want that at least break right and this may be familiar to some of you dogs that are a dog that is never destructive when the owner is at home and yet when left alone destroys the blinds choose the molding around the around the door in an apparent attempt to escape bondage and go with the owner so what we often call separation anxiety and I want to show you some examples of how dogs express themselves and Express these emotional states of anxiety and fear we're going to show two videos here two videos and this is my therapy dog Kenya and I'm there on the right and she's on the Left she's going to be approached by a person she knows very well and on the right she'll be approached by a friendly stranger that she doesn't know as well so if you would start the left video and then stop on my signal and then stop there and then the video on the right as you can see a friendly stranger approach and watch her behavior so the video on the right please you got a friendly greeting and stop there and compare these two videos right it's pretty subtle this dog is not at all aggressive but she's expressing something in a rather subtle way it's very different in response to a direct approach by a person many dogs are a bit threatened by a rapid direct approach by a person and she's doing a signal that we sometimes call a look away where dog ducks his head and and looks away we see that in other dogs and I want to mention just my little model here before we go forward and this dog is actually posed in the Lookaway posture I don't know if you guys can see that but as I approach this dog it's looking away right and that's a really significant behavior it's a it's a deference behavior and he's saying I mean you're no harm but could we do this differently could we sit down to gather and get to know each other could we have a different way of interacting besides this one so let's look at some other videos in our clinic where we see a little more activity so we see dogs trying to escape they pant excessively they're looking for a way out they sit on their owners feet trying to connect to the owner and often look at the owner too almost as if they're saying save me from this situation in this video you'll see another anxious dog you see this dog again looking around you get the feeling that he might try and escape he's sitting on the owners foot and looking at the owner it's very common and he's also been a yawn and we see yawns as a commonly associated with anxiety behaviors and dogs like that it's not ready for a nap and this dog again as I approach is started wagging his tail but as I got closer he gets that we sometimes call it the worried face ease that worried look that says oh brother how can I get out of this it's beginning to look away and he's exhibiting what we sometimes call whale eye it's the evidence of the sclera where is exposed and then the dog's ears are back so he has a posture that suggests his anxiety in this particular pose I want you to really take a look at the features of this dog so this is a dog that and the approach of a friendly stranger skittered under a chair and look at the features of its behavior so we have tail tucked a wide base crouched stance the raised pond the raised paw is often associated with what we might call conflict that is the dog maybe interesting thinking about can I escape this should I stay here with my owner who's out of the field what am I to do it's a real conflict behavior and look at this dog's face so again wouldn't you recognize that as a worried dog the glare of the eyes are evident that way Li the ears are back and what might this dog do next so he's communicating his fear and anxiety and he's also telling us that it he's moving into what we might call the flight-or-fight zone he may decide that he'd like to make a getaway if he has that opportunity if he's trapped as you see here he may actually resort to aggression as a way to keep the fearful stimulus which is a person in this case away from him so by understanding what are what dogs are communicating to us he can then respond appropriately and help attenuate or decrease those fear responses so if we look again at this dog this dog is very different than the previous one and yet its behavior is also in that domain of fear and anxiety he has made a different decision though his decision that is not flight his decision is fight right so he's willing to overtly maybe come forward use aggression first as a threat and a growl and a snarl and then perhaps even come forward in threatening or dangerous manner so dogs have many ways of responding but the more we know the more we can connect and recognize these signs the better we can manage them so how do we manage them this is our stock and trade our behavioral medicine service and I'll show you just a couple of examples but one it is sorry one is to create a safe bubble for the dog adjacent to the own and we usually use the behavior that dog knows very well like a sit and stay and here you'll see we can play this video is you see a dog the owners talking to the dog there's some little treats there on the side and she's gonna invite the dog to sit and stay and she's going to be the dog's protector the dogs defender keep strangers from approaching help this dog adapt to a situation that makes it a bit anxious and then this gives us the opportunity to use behavioral methods to help this dog learn new responses here we see a young dog that developed there that revealed fears of strangers and so we're going to use what we call systematic desensitization protocol and I'll show if you you a few steps in it here and that the owners are sitting there with the dog the dog is very comfortable with the owners we're gonna see the the veterinary student come forward and invite the dog to come forward for a treat so we're going to systematically desensitize this dog to the approach of strangers so watch the dogs pop sure so there's our veterinary student and he's being directed by our technician coming forward being comfortable and stepping back no petting easy task and then as we go forward and this can be done rather quickly it's this dog begins to learn new responses and begins to feel safe in a novel or new situation so the student now invites the dog to come forward and sit and rewards it for this relaxed posture and lack of barking and aggression which is what he expressed before okay that's it on that one okay now it's sort of a quiz I'm gonna run a video for you and once you guys to really watch the dog in this video so there is a dog just in a minute and so Jack Russell terrier and a three-year-old child the the father's is a home video the father's behind the camera and the child says he bites me it's a little hard to understand and I do want to assure you that no one was injured in the making of this video okay run it right a little snarl there I want you to watch the dog's behavior he does a little freezing he's looking at the child and you'll see him look at the father he's trying to eat in peace I think would be his preference and what you're gonna see this Paul lift in just a minute there it is so that's a really common conflict easier when dogs get stuck they're anxious they don't quite know what to do this is the part where I get nervous and the father is giving the dog a little admission admonitions there that's shaking is something that some dogs exhibit when they're fearful or anxious and now watch what the dog does looking up at the owner saying save me can't you imagine it okay so what are we gonna do in this situation how many of you feel sympathy for the dog yeah so and and the history was really that this dog was becoming clearly more manifesting some signs of aggression some signs of distress as this child got bigger and bigger and exceeded more clearly the size of the dog and so what did we do well the first thing we did was to create for the dog just a simple gate in in this little area his crate and bed is back there is food and water so he put up a gate and in the gate there was an opening just the size of a Jack Russell Terrier and so the dog could elect to go and eat and sleep and rest and escape from the three-year-old when he needed to and what was the effect of this was actually quite remarkable we saw what we sometimes call a behavioral release and what does that mean it's that all of a sudden the dog began to exhibit more and more normal and joyful behaviors and the owners even said he just seems happier now and indeed the dog could then find a time to eat and rest without worrying about the child and and the dogs real welfare improved the other thing we did was to set up positive relationships between the dog and the child this is the hop hoppy and watch the dog's behavior a transformation and so by meeting the dog's behavioral needs by managing his fear and anxiety we've created one a much safer situation for this child and a much improved lifestyle for this dog as well I just want to mention before I close number one is dogs do tell us what we need to know so I urge you to watch your dogs watch for those subtle signs of fear and anxiety and second if you are interested in this my colleagues and I wrote a book about these methods called decoding your dog thank you very much [Applause] you

Channel: TEDx Talks

Views: 458,549

Rating: 4.7617235 out of 5

Keywords: TEDxTalks, English, United States, Life, Animals, Education, Psychology, Science

Id: uDDZ17DImoo

Length: 17min 37sec (1057 seconds)

Published: Mon Jun 26 2017