Temp testing and Rehab, part 2

On Friday, I posted about the first part of Dr. Linda Wolf's presentation on Temp Testing and Rehabilitation (in a course "Expanding Adoptable" at the No Kill Conference).  Yesterday, I also provided a link to the For the Pit Bulls blog that talks about her adopted dog, Mina, that had "failed" its temp test and the joy this dog has brought to her life.

In the first part of the lecture, Dr. Wolf spoke about behavior -- and temp tests. She noted (and many others have echoed in the comments section here) that temp tests should not be used as a pass/fail mechanism to determine to determine which dogs get killed.  However, she did believe the tests were extremely valuable for helping determine behavior that needs to be worked on.

"If you don't recognize and understand the signs of dog behavior, you won't know how to deal with it," she said.

The second part of her lecture focused on rehabilitation - "dealing with it".

She began by talking about various forms of training techniques -- which I'll outline here.  She jokingly referred to herself as a trainer as either a toy or a treat dispenser -- which is pretty funny and pretty accurate.  Here were her training techniques:

Negative punishment -- taking away something the animal likes. This one is particularly useful for a dog that may not have appropriate bite inhibition and when the dog bites too hard, you take away what they want, which is you playing with them.

Positive punishment -- physical force with the dog (she, of course, highly discouraged this one).

Negative reinforcement - taking away something from the dog that they don't like

Positive reinforcement - giving them a treat or reward for doing what is wanted (food motivated dogs are very easy to train with this, although some dogs prefer toys or even praise for their good work).

Flooding -- overwhelming the dog with something they don't like and hoping they get over it -- she gave an example of a dog that is scared of thunder and flooding them with the sound of thunder until they get used to it. Again, this is one she didn't recommend as it's pretty cruel.

Systematic desensitization -- This is exposing them to the fear stimulous in moderate levels until they become desentitized to the stimulous. This is the much nicer way of dealing with that vs flooding.

She also talked about a Constructional Aggression Therapy (CATS) that she thinks is a great way to construct a new behavior for dogs with aggression issues. This is one that she appologized for not spending more time on but there is apparently a really good DVD on the topic.

She also really stressed doing things like obedience and agility training.  She thought it was highly important to give the dog something to do -- "Give them a reason to be proud," she said.

Then, Dr. Wolf discussed various forms of aggression (which is the "reason" many shelters will kill an animal that fails temp tests).  She identified 10 different types of aggression, and one other major behavioral trait that is an issue for many animals in shelters.  She didn't discuss many of them in detail due to time limitations, but will do my best here. One of the key pieces to this was thinking about a simple formula:

Threat + Resource + Behavioral Options = Aggressive Response.

So here are her key forms of aggression:

Dominance Aggression -

Fear Aggression -- the 2nd most common type she finds in shelters -- especially in abused dogs. She said the trick here is to reward the dog when it finally relaxes.

Possession Aggression - A very normal, adaptive behavior -- and the most common type of "aggression".  She talked a lot about this and how to get rid of possession aggression by "trading up" for a higher reward treat. So if the dog loves a toy, it will resource guard the toy. However, if it likes a different toy better, you can "trade out" toys -- saying "can I have it?" and when they give you the lower valued item, you can replace it with a higher valued item.  This allows them to get used to giving you the item not being associated with it being a bad thing.

Territorial Aggression -- technically a resource guard where territory is the possession

Punishment aggression -

Pain Aggression - My dog Grommit got this as a pup when he had a major ear infection....it took us a bit to figure it out, but boy, solving the pain, solved the problem.

Predatory aggression - cats, rabbits, squirrels, etc

Maternal aggression - How many times each year that a young child gets bitten when it walked up to pet newborn puppy? 

Dog Agression -

Re-directed aggression -- the dog gets so excited by something else and then is startled it re-directs that aggression on what startled them.

She also discussed, at pretty good length, separation anxiety, which is often associated with the fear of isolation, abandonment, and the fear of losing their most prized possession -- their owner.  She noted here that any type of punishment would reinforce the behavior, and that the best way to solve the problem is to give the dog stuff to do while you're away (peanut butter-filled Kongs have almost proven fail-proof for me) and to work with the dog, spending brief times away, starting with being gone for 5 minutes at a time and then working up to a couple of hours.  Once you get to a couple of hours, the dog will be fine.

The bottom line was that is that many shelters inappropriately use temp testing as a reason to kill animals, instead of using the tests as a way to determine what behavior needs to be worked on -- and using that knowledge to rehabilitate the dogs. The reality is that most canine behavioral issues can be retrained if there is enough properly educated staff/volunteers to do so. While not every shelter has these resources currently, I think that should be the end goal for these shelters -- and a goal for people who care about animals to step up and volunteer at their shelters (if they are not already doing so).

This must be the end goal...we need to put a stop to the using of temp tests as a reason to "fail" dogs and begin using them so we can learn more about the dog's behavior to help them to succeed.  We should be administering these tests with the first thought of "what do we need to do to rehabilitate this dog?" vs "should we kill this dog?" 

Most of these dogs deserve it.  And dogs like Mina have proven that their future owners deserve it too.

Comments

[Rinalia]

Thanks for posting this stuff, Brent (and thanks for posting Mina's story/link).

These t-tests can be valuable tools, of course. That's where we need the shift in perception by staff and the public to occur. We need to see them as barometers of where the dog is doing great and where the dog is lacking...not whether the dog should die b/c he's afraid of a sound or resource guards food.

I have great hope that that change will come. :)