Changes in Behavior
with Physical Causes
Your dog’s behavior has changed – but why? Perhaps the new
behavior is inconvenient or even dangerous. Could there be a physical reason?
Much of the time, yes.
Sweet Puppy Turns
Wild
Eight-week-old puppies are sweet, cuddly, and just active
enough to do cute things like lick your face and tug your shoelaces. Two months
later at 4 months of age they’re nipping your fingers, toes, chin and nose.
They’re chewing holes in your clothes and hanging off your pant legs when you
try to walk. The housetraining accidents stopped being cute long ago. What
happened?
Most puppies couldn’t survive in the wild, but even the
domesticated version of the dog comes with mental and physical potential to
learn to hunt, fight, mate, and other survival functions. Humans have similar
instincts, but dogs develop theirs much more rapidly. Our limited ability to
communicate with dogs further reduces our understanding of their development.
Raising a puppy can feel like fumbling around on the dark side of the moon.
Puppies sleep a lot, and between naps they may seem
jet-propelled. Likely their bodies require this
alternating-sleep-with-heavy-muscular-activity pattern for optimum development.
Puppies lack the physical control over bowels and bladder
for full housetraining. Some have it by 4 months of age, but others take
longer. Humans are appalled that a puppy would soil the house in this manner,
and people take it personally!
This human emotion becomes highly counterproductive to
housetraining. Housetraining needs to be treated as a simple physical problem
for dog and human to solve together.
Puppies go through two teething stages. The first one is
nothing compared to the chewing many large dogs do later on to set the
permanent teeth in the jaw. Misunderstanding the physical change their dogs are
enduring, people interpret the destructive chewing as willful and defiant.
Since a dog can have no concept of money or the value of
“things,” your dog has no idea why you’re angry. Chewing clearly comes from
physical causes. The increased chewing that starts somewhere around 9 months of
age is not a canine attack on human property!
Pup Grows Up
Life in the wild is hard, and a pup would have to be ready
to help with the work of the pack by several months of age. As the permanent
teeth are being set in the jaw, the now-adolescent dog’s defense drives may be
emerging. Development varies widely by breed and of course the extreme
difference in dog sizes, something to keep in mind when evaluating your own dog’s
behavior.
With the defense drives, you see the results of puppy
experiences that created fears or suspicions. Now the dog begins to take
responsibility for protection against things that have been threats in the
past. A dog who was attacked as a puppy by other dogs in the park, another dog
in the household, misbehaving children, or a thoughtless person over the
backyard fence may now start reacting to those individuals as well as others
like them.
A dog who was overstimulated by unstructured rough-housing
as a puppy is now likely to think people prefer this form of interaction. The
dog’s play-fighting behavior may be directed at children or men, if a child or
man was the one who taught the behavior to the puppy. The result may be
behavior that looks aggressive and is hard to distinguish from play. The dog
may have trouble telling the difference, too.
The dog starts to be more like other dogs of the breed, with
traits breeders have selectively bred that breed to have. Retrievers show
interest in retrieving and in birds, herding dogs in eying and chasing things
that move quickly, terriers in scrapping and looking for critters, dogs with
hard-guarding instincts in guarding places and people.
Male dog behaviors begin to emerge in adolescence, although
in some slow-maturing breeds you might be lulled into thinking it isn’t going
to happen until suddenly the dog is 3 years old and “all male.” Behavior
changes in males as they mature can include roaming (with or without escapes
from a fenced yard), urine marking, fighting with other males, and stress when
near a female dog in heat (such as in your household).
Female dogs in adolescence have their first heat cycles,
which can be accompanied by escapes, frequent urination, and fighting with
other female dogs. If the female has a litter of puppies, her temperament can
change either temporarily or permanently due to the hormone change she goes
through to guard the puppies. Children in the family are sometimes bitten at
this time.
Male and female dogs both pose a statistically higher risk
of biting children if not spayed or neutered. Both sexes are spared some
medical problems as well as behavior issues by the surgery. Tiny male dogs may
be impossible to housetrain if not neutered. Female dogs often die from having puppies.
Breeding is no longer a natural process for dogs, because
humans have interfered so much with their sexuality through selective breeding.
That gives us the responsibility of making the right decision about spay and
neuter for each individual dog in our care.
Illnesses, Injuries,
Genetic Abnormalities
About the same time the dog is going through the rest of
this maturing process, the bones are growing so fast that some dogs will
develop a condition called panosteitis.
It can be quite painful and can affect a dog’s behavior toward people and other
dogs and perception of the world in general.
Your veterinarian can help make the dog more comfortable and
in the process reduce negative behavior effects from the condition. The
veterinarian can also check for other orthopedic issues accompanying growth
that require different interventions.
Dogs inherit many conditions that can cause pain, sickness
and disability, and affect behavior. Occasionally a dog is almost too sweet,
and you sadly learn it was because the poor dog never felt well enough to be
active. Other times the dog is grouchy, reactive, or aggressive because of the
problem.
Be sure to have your dog screened and be vigilant in
watching for any genetic problems prevalent in the breed. Mixed breeds are not
exempt from genetic diseases. The mixed-breed dog can be susceptible to any of
the genetic diseases in any of the breeds that contributed to that dog’s
genetic makeup.
It often takes considerable detective work to find the
physical cause for a change in your dog’s behavior because the dog cannot
describe symptoms. This detection starts with always suspecting a physical
cause at the root of any behavior in your dog that you don’t understand,
particularly if it’s a change from previous behavior.
We tend to say a problem is either “physical” or “a behavior
issue.” Too often if we can’t find a physical cause, the behavior label turns
into a blame game against the dog. The physical cause might remain hidden, and
when it does show, we may fail to see the connection. This is a missed
opportunity to improve your communication with your dog, as well as to avoid
having a temporary problem turn into a permanent one.
When a change in behavior is diagnosed and treated before it
becomes a habit, chances of success are usually excellent. Let’s say your dog
has an ear infection and your child hurts the ear by petting it. The dog reacts
and the child backs off. The next time – or the 10th time – the child
approaches to pet that dog on the head, the dog may act before the child
touches the head, and this could be the time you witness.
To your eye, there was no cause for the aggression. But in
actuality, there was. Treating the ear infection quickly could have prevented
the aggression or interrupted it before it became a habit. Sometimes along with
treating the physical problem you need the right behavior modification
exercises.
The longer the behavior problem continued before diagnosis
and treatment, the more time it will likely take to modify.
Dogs may react aggressively to protect injured knee
ligaments, shoulders, luxating patellas (slipping kneecaps), hip dysplasia (one or both hips not seated
properly in hip sockets) and a host of other problems you may not know the dog
has. Like other animals, dogs have a survival instinct to hide their pain.
Showing weakness in the wild could get them killed.
We make a big mistake when we think a dog is not in pain
because the dog doesn’t cry out. A lot of dogs have to be in agony before they
will release a cry of pain, and some never will. A change in behavior – such as
self-protective aggression – may be your only clue of a dog who is injured or
ill. If you know your dog has a physical problem such as hip dysplasia, protect
the dog from pain so the dog doesn’t have to become aggressive in
self-protection.
Old age is not a disease, but geriatric dogs do become more
prone to conditions that can affect behavior. These problems often can either
be cured or made more comfortable for the dog with your veterinarian’s help.
Don’t be afraid of a diagnosis. Knowledge gives you the power to make good
decisions for your dog.
Housetraining changes get people’s attention quickly, and
can be affected by many physical causes. Urinary tract infections are common in
dogs. Prostate problems are common in intact male dogs. Intestinal parasites
are also common, and many other things can upset the dog’s intestinal tract.
Orthopedic problems can cause dogs to postpone relieving
themselves because it hurts too much to get into position. Later the dog has an
accident indoors. You wouldn’t expect that a medication to relieve the dog’s
pain would correct the housetraining problem, but exactly that can often
happen. And you’ve helped your dog’s pain as well as your own cleaning inconvenience.
Changes in eyesight and hearing can happen at any age, and
are common in old age. A dog startled by a touch the dog didn’t know was coming
may react protectively or fearfully. Once you know the cause, you can help the
dog use other senses. You can verbally greet the blind dog before making
physical contact, and make sure the deaf dog sees you before you touch.
You can also play gentle, happy games with the dog to create
the expectation that a surprising touch will bring a treat or something else
the dog likes. You will, of course, know to protect this dog from people who
would approach thoughtlessly.
Start with Your
Veterinarian
Write down any symptoms you want to bring to your
veterinarian’s attention so you won’t forget to mention them. Be a detective
when your dog shows a concerning change in behavior. Take the clues to your
veterinarian and work together to try to figure out what’s happening. Many dogs
will try to help you understand the problem. This experience between you and
your dog opens the way for a new, deeper level of communication.
