10/07/2024
Another brilliant post from Emma.
Does your dog lose their mind when faced with just one trigger but seems fine with multiple of those things?
Reactive dogs that seem “fine” in a daycare setting maybe?
Fine walking down a busy street but goes absolutely off when you’re on the moors and a pair of walkers arrive on the horizon?
WHY ONE THING CAN BE TOUGHER THAN A GROUP
Wanna know a curiosity of the mammalian brain?
Grab a brew... this is a long one but a fascinating one!
One of the weirdest things for dogs who are quick to notice things and bark or lunge is that some of them can champion the group stuff and really struggle with individual things.
For instance, it's not that unusual for people to say their reactive dogs cope okay in dog class but then really struggle if they see another dog out on a walk.
Or their dog who can walk through crowded streets seems fine with people, but when that one hiker comes over the hill, all bets are off.
Or their dog who can cope with steady or frequent traffic, but then goes nuts if they see one single car or cyclist.
There are various explanations I've heard over the years for this phenomenon.
It's good to know there are various explanations because it reminds us that we don't really know why this is, and what I'm about to tell you is as plausible (to me, anyway!) as any other explanation.
It's also good to know that we shouldn't speak with certainty about this phenomenon because we don't really know why it occurs.
It's a useful reminder when dog trainers start to speak with absolute confidence about the causes behind this - and often, it can also be more than one reason. There's no real reason ALL the explanations can't be simultaneously true and playing a part.
Some dog trainers say it's because the dog is flooded or overwhelmed in crowd situations. I don't hold with this explanation because it's not just a phenomenon that occurs with dogs who are fearful. For instance, I know a collie who can happily walk off lead (and work with!) a flock of sheep, but give him one single sheep and he's as fixated as my dog Lidy is in this photograph when she saw something she thought didn't belong.
Of course, there can be some anxious dogs who absolutely ARE flooded in crowds and simply give up responding.
But it's not the only plausible explanation for why some dogs handle crowds and can't cope with individuals.
Another explanation comes from a book written by Brenda Aloff some twenty years ago. In fact, this falls often into the 'proceed with caution' category because I cannot unfortunately find a single reference in any other species for the phenomenon she named Sudden Environmental Contrast. There's literally no science on it, though it's a plausible explanation - just not one rooted in animal science evidence.
According to this explanation, it's the difference in salience (I guess, this is me paraphrasing my own interpretation from a psychological perspective) between two things. Because there's not as much contrast between things in a crowd compared to a lone individual striding over the horizon, the thing - whatever it is - is more salient, more noticeable.
There may be something in that explanation but it's not well researched compared to what I'm about to say.
Back in the mid-1900s, Niko Tinbergen was writing about behaviour systems. There's not a good translation of this term, so I apologise if you know it by another name! In it, behaviour is organised hierarchically according to need, and behaviour is goal-driven. For instance, if you're hungry, then you'll engage in some food seeking behaviour until you achieve your goal and your needs are met. And if you're feeling scared, you'll engage in safety seeking behaviour until you feel safe.
The hierarchy happens because some needs trump others. Being safe from immediate threat clearly trumps food acquisition behaviour, unless that threat is food insecurity. You can see this at work if you remember back at the start of the Covid pandemic where food insecurity became an immediate threat that sent us all out to the supermarket to stock up on tins and packets. Basically, mammalian needs follow a sort of priority system where one need dominates unless another goal becomes a priority and it has the ability to stop other behaviour dead in its tracks.
Problems can occur though when the goals are not hierarchical and there is no clear priority.
Maybe you've experienced that if you need a wee but you're also really hungry, and you get all antsy because both are important. Thinking back to the post on choice paralysis from yesterday, you'd definitely get that, 'ooh.... but, ohhhhh!' feeling of being torn between the need to do two things.
That, ethologists argue, is a cause of significant frustration. Until one goal becomes more important and sets you on one single behavioural path, you end up vacillating between the two. Or three. Or ten.
That can also happen between the approach and avoid behaviours I was talking about a couple of weeks back. You know, where our dogs seem to get a bit stuck between advancing and withdrawing.
But it also happens within one single behaviour system, like food acquisition.
Let's say you're hungry. Super hungry. But you've been driving on a motorway and you've not had the option to find food. Those hunger pangs have been building up and they've hijacked your desire to get to your destination. Now, you're on the lookout for motorway services signs and they're all you can pay attention to.
But when you finally get to the services, you're overwhelmed. Costa? Burger King? KFC? M&S? Cornish Pasty?
Your big human brain runs through decision-making processes aided by your emotions and learning history.
Your last cornish pasty was as dry and stale as a shoe.
The M&S sandwich fridge looks empty.
There's a huge queue at Costa.
You've been trying to eat less meat or you're vegan, so KFC is out.
You've not had Burger King for years, but you remember they used to do a bean burger, and you see a sign for a vegan royale... plus the queue is small...
Reason and emotion, helping you decide which goal to choose.
And what do you do in the time it takes to make this decision?
You stand in the walkway like you're paralysed. You become a human bollard, getting in everyone's way, even though you absolutely hate people who do that. Several people bump into you and you get mad at them as if they're the idiots and you're not standing there like a dog standing in front of an unattended butchers' stall wondering where to start first. You actually shout at those people who probably bumped into you because they're trying to decide if they need the toilet more than they need a prawn mayo sandwich. Frustration does that... redirected aggression.
Now that's standard research on choice paralysis and frustration in mammals.
So what's the curious bit?
I'm going to ask you one question, and then tease it out a bit.
Why do some species flock in the face of danger?
Surely run or fight has to be better than losing Aunt Beryl simply because she was on the outside of the group and a wolf picked her off?
Now, a bit like this post as to why some reactive dogs seem to cope better when faced with a group, there are several plausible explanations. You'll find scientists who have their favourite explanation.
Some say it's because there's safety in numbers. 400 of you is more impressive than 4.
Others say it's about group survival and genetics. You might lose Aunt Beryl, but cousin Billy will survive and get to pass on his genes.
But one theory suggests it's because flocked groups of relatively homogenous individuals exploit a weakness in the cognition, attention and behavioural systems of predators.
Choice paralysis in effect.
When you have one goal, you fix on the one goal. You persist. You focus. You tune the noise out. Get The One Thing Done.
When you are presented with a bunch of exactly the same stimuli - or the same goals - it baffles our brains. This is more likely the more homogenous the stimuli are.
In other words, you'd get more choice paralysis if there was a Costa, a Starbucks, a Caffè Nero, a Pumpkin and a Pret. The decisions you have to make are infinitely more complex, especially if they've all got similar queues, similar products and similar prices. One of them serves coffee that tastes like burnt hazelnuts, but you can't remember which. One of them served you coffee in a train station in Crewe and it tasted like dishwater, but was it Costa, Pumpkin or Starbucks?
Now Tinbergen says that in those circumstances, animals might even opt for a second or third behaviour system (ie a set of stimuli, behaviours and goals). Maybe you go for a p*e. Maybe you decide you don't want coffee after all and go to the slot machines. Maybe you get really invested and start weighing up one over the other until they all end up pulling the blinds down and you end up with no coffee at all.
I see this often with Lidy. One pigeon doing its pigeon-y thing in front of us will usually elicit a stalk-and-chase. Three different pigeons in three different locations in view, and she's not even bothered. She doesn't fix on one at all.
Same with sheep. Flocks, fine. One eyeballing her, not fine. One hanging around on the periphery, not fine.
Once, we were watching the sheep (if there's a lot doing the same thing, she watches without any sign she's going to try to chase or get frustrated) and a man came out behind us. She looked at him and went back to watching sheep. Clearly a more important goal.
Another time, we came upon the Great Cat Wars of 2022. The mother of all cat fights.
Now cats are her most difficult of all things.
7 or 8 cats having a stand-off... wow! Trigger stacking 101!
Or at least, that's what I thought.
In reality, they saw us and scattered at full pelt. See, one behaviour system being trumped by another. Fight other cats or run from lady & dog? Run for the hills, my friend. Live to fight another day.
7 cats racing off in 7 different directions. Surely that's the Mother of all Frustrating Situations?
Not so.
It was almost as if, because she couldn't concentrate on one and choose one single cat to chase, her brain called it quits. She looked at me like, "What the hell?!" and we went about our walk.
Now why is this curious phenomenon important to know about if you have a reactive dog?
Because it can trick us into thinking that something is working when it's not. For instance, one might argue that so-called "neutrality walks" with big packs of dog-reactive dogs exploit the fact that if you can't bark at one, you might as well not bother.
I'd argue that flooding is probably often at work there too.
See, both things could be complementary, not exclusionary.
Yet our dog who coped with the crowd because one single dog couldn't hijack the behaviour system probably will do just fine with barking and lunging when they're back to one dog again.
Lidy's inability to watch the sheep and bark at the man taught me that. Being unable to do two competing behaviours when the triggers for both are presented at the same time does not mean you'll struggle to choose when you're back to only one trigger.
But I could think that she was cured, or she was better, or she was learning, when in reality she just couldn't prioritise two goals at the same time.
In fact, it also tells me about her priorities in the moment. Watching sheep trumps shouting at scary men (as long as the scary man doesn't get too near...)
It's also why I'm cautious about simply building up our dog's ability to focus on us or do another task and treat triggers for reactive behaviour as nothing more than distractions.
That can also give us the false illusion that our dog is resolved of reactivity.
Case in point... one dog I work with WILL absolutely return to barking and lunging at cars IF his tuggie isn't presented.
Now this is not a problem for me or his guardian. We are absolutely not working under the illusion that the car-chasing and frustration is resolved.
But you can understand why some people might think that agility or mantrailing has "cured" their dog only to be surprised that it was nothing more than our dogs choosing a priority.
There is nothing wrong with this, by the way, as long as you know how it is.
In fact, if our dog does better with a crowd than individuals, that's absolutely information we can use in a behaviour modification plan. What we won't be doing is assuming that just because they've coped with a crowd, they could cope with an individual oddity. Or that if they have very strong focus on a goal, like finding someone in mantrailing, that they won't be barking and lunging when they see a hiker and we are not doing mantrailing at the time.
It's useful to know.
It's also useful to know why you're so much more likely to bump into people milling around in food court foyers... and why fewer choices or more obviously varied choices can be easier if you're struggling with decision fatigue or choice paralysis!
