Texas Veterinary Behavior Services

02/12/2025

SEALY SCHOOL: So Sealy's annual exam, vaccines, and blood draw will be due in early summer. So we are now starting to teach her to stand for vaccines and voluntary blood draw. Here is a clip from our first sessions.

02/11/2025

Cat Breed Fun Fact: Did you know that Bengal cats are a cross breed between the domestic cat and an Asian Leopard Cat? Although most Bengal cats today are several generations removed from the Asian leopard, they are still renown for their active nature – they not meant to be lap cats. Their heritage accounts for their unique coat pattern and athletic prowess, but also makes them prone to destructive tendencies, aggression, and excessive vocalization if their substantial enrichment and exercise needs are left unmet.

02/10/2025

Monday Medical Corner: What is a seizure?

An epileptic seizure is the result of excessive synchronized activity of neurons in the brain. When you picture a seizure, you most likely picture a tonic-clonic seizure (formerly grand mal seizure) involving repetitive muscle contractions and movements. In animals, these usually look like ‘paddling’ motions. There is more than one type of seizure, however, and not all involve the entire brain. Focal epileptic seizures (also called partial epileptic seizures) can occur in practically any area of the brain. This means that they can present as motor (muscle movement, as in repetitive facial twitches or jerks of one extremity), autonomic (affecting non-consciously controlled body systems like the gastrointestinal tract or pupils), or behavioral (with psychic or sensory effects leading to behavioral changes including fear and hallucinatory signs like fly-snapping). The most common cause of seizures in dogs is idiopathic epilepsy but toxins, medications, and brain tumors are also possible.

02/06/2025

BEHAVIOR BASICS:

It is easy to forget that dogs can’t understand our language. To them, most of what we tell them just sounds like gibberish. That is why it is important to have clear and concise communication with your pet. The two main areas of communication that can bring clarity to your training and relationship with your pet are cues (requests for the pet to do something) and praise or reinforcement.

Humans are sloppy when communicating with our pets – we are even sloppy and unclear during communication with each other even when we are speaking the same language!

Many times dogs are “disobeying” because they truly don’t understand what we want. They become stressed and confused, and sometimes aggressive. This latter reaction often happens because we threaten or punish them when they don’t respond to us. So the dog yells (growls), “Stop threatening me! I don’t know what you want!”

Imagine the chaos if a traffic light was shining green and red at the same time! When we are sloppy with cues such as telling a dog to “sit down”, then we create stress and chaos. Is the dog supposed to sit or lie down? If I say “come on! Sit!” Is the dog supposed to come closer to me or to sit?? Does “down” mean lie down or get off the counter?

For every behavior you want your pet to do, pick a clear verbal cue or hand signal for that behavior and use it consistently. Don’t change them or mix them up. Give ONE CUE at a time. Let the pet respond and then give the next cue. Your pet can learn multiple cues for ONE behavior, but it is confusing if you have one cue for multiple behaviors. Make sure all family members agree on the same cues for clarity for the pet especially if your pet just starting training or is a novice learner.

Stay tuned for part 2 where we discuss reinforcement and the use of marker signals.

02/05/2025

BEHAVIOR BASICS:


The second major category of confusion for our pets is during praise and reinforcement. In animal training, reinforcement is what makes the world go round. Cues tell the animal WHAT we want them to do, but the reinforcement determines if the pet will actually do it. So you can scream “sit” or “come” at your dog all day long, but the dog is not going to respond unless you somehow pay the dog for doing it.
The timing of your “pay” (praise, treat, toy, etc) is also critical. The pet will tie the reinforcement to whatever behavior the pet is doing at the time they actually physical access the reinforcer. So if you take your puppy outside and it urinates in the right place, and then you come inside the house and give it a treat, you are not reinforcing urinating outside. You are just reinforcing the puppy for coming back inside the house. Over time, the puppy may want to get back inside the house so fast that the puppy just decides not to go outside at all!

One great way to improve reinforcement timing during training is to use marker (e.g. clicker) training.

Many people have heard of clicker training or seen someone use a clicker, but how does clicker training work? A clicker is a type of marker; a marker is a short and unique noise that “marks” the exact moment the animal does the desired behavior. ** For example, you ask your dog to “sit”. The exact moment when your dog’s butt touches the ground is when you would “click”. That way you can communicate to the animal the exact moment they did the behavior that you wanted.
You now might be thinking, how does the animal know what the marker means? Well, at first, they don’t. We first teach them what it means by “loading” or “charging” the marker. You do this by clicking and then immediately giving the pet a treat. After several trials, your pet will learn to associate the marker with a treat – the marker predicts the delivery of the treat. (Other reinforcers can be paired with markers but we discuss food today just for simplicity.)

While in theory any sound can be used as a marker, the power of your marker is dependent on its ability to predict access to a reinforcer. This means every time the pet hears the marker sound WITHOUT getting a treat, it weakens the power of your marker as a training tool. This is why we generally encourage people to use markers other than “yes” and “good”. These words are ubiquitous in everyday language and may make it harder for some pets to learn at their most efficient speed.
Instead, consider other short words such as: Zip, dot, yip, click, boop, etc. Mechanical markers include clickers, beeps, whistles, etc. Pets can learn multiple markers so our clients often use mechanical clickers but then also teach a marker word or use a tongue click.

**Markers can any sensory modality especially visual or tactile. These types are often use for hearing impaired pets. Auditory markers are most common in pets with normal sensory perception.

Check back for future posts where we discuss more advanced training using location markers and reinforcer specific markers.

02/05/2025

Dog Breed Fun Fact: Dachshunds are humorously nicknamed “wiener dogs” because of the way they look, but did you know that their true name comes from their hunting capabilities? The German name “Dachshund” translates to English as “badger hound.” Their short legs allowed them to trail scents close to the ground and their small, elongated bodies allowed them to follow badgers into their dens. Additionally their fierce nature helped them stand up to aggressive varmints, making them invaluable hunting companions during the German Middle Ages when badgers were popular game. They eventually expanded beyond their specific badger hunting purpose and were used to guard homesteads and hunt other burrow-dwelling animals. Their history as feisty badger-fighters makes them prone to excessive alarm barking and also means they require more stimulation and training than many people realize.

01/27/2025

Monday Medical Corner: Syncope, or a syncopal episode, is a temporary loss of consciousness due to interrupted blood flow (more accurately, a lack of oxygen provided) to the brain. This is also called "fainting." Heart diseases including arrhythmias are the most common causes, but excess activity of the vagus nerve (the nerve connecting the brain to many internal organs including the heart, lungs, and much of the digestive tract) can also cause a vasovagal episode leading to syncope because of the effect of its activity on the heart and blood pressure. A syncopal episode may resemble a seizure in some aspects given that there is a loss of consciousness, the animal usually falls to the ground, and signs such as changes in muscle tone (usually a loss of tone) and urination may occur.

The key differences between a syncopal episode versus a seizure, however, are a lack of ‘aura’ (pre-seizure changes in behavior), a lack of repetitive muscle movements and increased tone during the episode, and a relatively rapid recovery without a post-episode period of altered mentation.

As an aside, the famous "Fainting Goats" are not actually fainting. Fainting goats do not undergo syncope as they do not lose consciousness. Fainting goats are actually exhibiting "tonic immobility" which is a stress response cause in this animal due to a metabolic defect.

01/26/2025

Puppy Parenting Tip: sometimes the best way to avoid a problem or address a low level issue is to --not. There are times we create problems by drawing attention to them rather than going forward as though nothing is wrong and letting the animal work it out. I never did any work to acclimate Sealy to the vacuum other than making sure the first few times she saw it, I did it in a manner that would not scare or overwhelm her.

01/24/2025

Do you have a new puppy or know someone who does? Or maybe you just want to learn more about raising puppies properly. Don't miss our on our workshop on Puppy Socialization -- what it is and how to do it properly. This workshop will be lecture and then 30 minutes of live demo with actual cute puppies!

01/23/2025

Behavior Basics: What is ritualized aggression?
Ritualized aggression is used, particularly by social species, to allow animals (or people) to engage in competition or resolve conflict in a manner that avoids or minimizes actual physical injury. So the individuals use a set of postures, facial expressions, verbal or auditory threats, and non-injurious physical altercations to accomplish their "goal."

This accompanying video shows a beautiful example.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e4-39sCnsTs

Big Alaska Bull Moose Fighting -Start to Finish! Left Hook finally ...

01/21/2025

Sealy School: So the first time I presented Sealy with her new cold weather jacket, she was like "Uh, no way Jose!". So here's how we started acclimating her to it so it was stress free to put it on in prep for the cold weather.

01/20/2025

Monday Medical Corner: Vomiting vs Regurgitation

Do you know the difference between vomiting and regurgitation? These two clinical signs ARE unique and can indicate very different problems.

Vomiting, also called emesis, is the forcible ejection of the contents of the stomach and uppermost small intestine through the mouth. It is an active process involving visible heaving movements of the muscles of the abdomen. It is also accompanied by prodromal (predictive) signs such as pacing, lip-licking, drooling, and other signs of nausea. The animal is consciously aware of the impending vomiting.

Regurgitation, in contrast, is a passive upward expulsion of the contents of the esophagus (the connection between the mouth and stomach). It occurs without the characteristic heaving of vomiting and rapidly without warning. The animal may be as surprised as you are to find that their meal is on the floor!

Both processes can occur within minutes to hours after eating and produce any volume of partially digested food, or bile in the case of vomiting.

Vomiting is a nonspecific clinical sign, meaning that it can be caused by many different diseases or conditions. Anything that makes the animal feel nauseated can lead to vomiting, as can anything obstructing or irritating the GI tract. Swallowed foreign bodies (like a ball or sock), dietary indiscretion (from raiding the trash!), and intoxication (e.g. chocolate, xylitol in sugar-free gum, or even certain medications) are very frequent causes of vomiting in dogs.

Regurgitation allows the clinician to localize disease to the upper GI tract since this is a more specific clinical sign. However, there are still many potential causes of regurgitation. Inflammation of the esophagus [for example, due to gastroesophageal reflux (‘heartburn’)] is a common contributor. Physical problems like an esophageal stricture (narrowing of the esophagus that hinders passage of ingested material) can also cause regurgitation, as can disorders like myasthenia gravis that impair esophageal motility.

01/16/2025

Sealy School: This is our first foot targeting session. Sealy likes using her paws so this was fairly easy to start. Foot targeting has a lot of uses including to help at the contact zone on agility equipment. We also use foot targeting for a variety of other situations. So stay tuned.

01/08/2025

Sealy School: More on self control around toys.
So I am still working on Sealy's toy release in varous ways. Today we started a new facet -- wait for release to a toy on the ground. I want to be able to use toy play as a reinforcer for body handling such as nail trims, but I only have two hands! So it will be helpful to be able to have the toy on the ground and have her wait to be released to grab it. This way I can clip a nail and then release her promptly to the toy for brief play before repeating. So this is our first session starting to train her to wait for her "squeaker" cue.

01/08/2025

Puppy Parenting Tip: Thinking about a new puppy? Do your homework. Study this graphic well --because its true! Do you have the knowledge, dedication and stamina to make it through the velociraptor phase?

01/07/2025

This applies to animal training!

01/03/2025

Sealy School: Sealy has helped me remember how much performance training can help deal with behavior problems -- either preventing them or addressing existing ones.

Here is a "toy switch" behavior we have been working on for training. This helps to avoid having to play unnecessary tug or having confrontation to try to get toys back to continue training. Additionally, this behavior can be part of a plan to train dogs to bring stolen items to you and trade them out for something else. Watch for a future post when I show you how this can be used in real life with Sealy.

01/02/2025

A punishment is a stimulus that occurs during or immediately after a behavior that results in a decreased likelihood of that specific behavior occurring again in the future. There are two types of punishment, positive and negative punishment. (Remember: in learning principles, the terms positive and negative are mathematical, not emotional valence.) Positive punishment is when you add something aversive in order to decrease the likelihood of that behavior occurring again. On the other hand, negative punishment is removing or taking away something the animal wants in order to decrease the probability of that behavior occurring again.

An example of positive punishment is an older dog growling or snapping at a puppy when the puppy is playing too roughly. The puppy will learn that if he plays too roughly with this specific dog, something unpleasant, or potentially harmful will occur. Therefore, the puppy (hopefully) will be less likely to play roughly with this specific dog in the future.

An example of negative punishment is calling your dog to you at the dog park and once they come back to you, you clip on the leash and leave. You might be thinking, “how is this negative punishment?”. So, let’s break it down. Taking the dog out of the park removes the dog’s chance to continue to play and explore. Therefore, you will be punishing the dog’s recall and the dog will be less likely to come back to you next time.

Keep in mind that the animal determines what is actually punishing. So if the puppy continues to play roughly with the older dog, or maybe even ramps up its energy level, then the puppy does not perceive the growling/snapping as punishing. Similarly, owners may not understand why their dog continues to jump on them when they yell at the dog and push it roughly off. If the dog continues to jump in future encounters, it tells us that the dog does not find this attempt at reprimand actually punishing.