Good evening, everybody, and welcome to tonight's webinar. My name is Bruce Stevenson, and it is my honour and pleasure to chair yet another of our members' webinars on a Thursday night. I don't think we have any new people in tonight, so no housekeeping, all the usual rules of questions into the Q&A box, and then we'll chat at the end.

They all apply. So, over to tonight's speaker, Sarah Heath qualified as a veterinary surgeon from Bristol University in 1988 and set up a behavioural referral veterinary practise in 1992. She sees clinical cases across the northwest of England and wider afield through video platform consultations.

In 2018, she was made a fellow of the Royal College of Veterinary Servants for meritorious contributions to the profession in recognition of her work in establishing behavioural medicine as a veterinary discipline. Sarah is an RCVS and EBVS European veterinary specialist in behavioural medicine and an external lecturer in small animal behavioural medicine at the veterinary undergraduate course at the Liverpool University. In 2019, Sarah gained her postgraduate certificate in veterinary education.

She has authored many papers, books, and book chapters. And in 2016, she co-authored and co-edited the feline behavioural Health and Welfare, which is published by Elsevier. She has a special interest in the interplay between emotional and physical illness in dogs and cats.

Sarah, welcome back to the webinar vet and it's over to you. Hi, Bruce, thank you very much indeed. Good evening everybody, and also to those who are listening to the recording.

So, we're gonna be talking about prevention, prevention of future behaviour problems, in puppies. So, I thought I'd start off by thinking about what's the basis of problem prevention. Well, if we're gonna reduce the risk of dogs giving behavioural signs that are problematic, either to themselves or their caregivers, or even to wider society, which also becomes relevant in the dog context, then the aim is to ensure that a dog is in good health.

And By that, I mean talking about the health triad, the three elements of health which are of equal importance. So, we have physical health, emotional health, and cognitive health. And if an animal is in good health in all three of those compartments, then it is far less likely that they will show behaviours which are problematic to any of those, stakeholders that I just mentioned.

So how does poor physical health affect behaviour? Well, because of this link between poor physical health and emotional state, it means that being in poor physical health can also lead to alterations in behavioural responses. And some of the common physical health considerations that we think about in this context.

Are pain. Certainly pain, both acute and chronic, are associated with behavioural change. So we may have an animal who's showing confrontational behaviour towards, either their caregivers or maybe another animal in the house because of acute pain.

We may also have a range of behavioural changes associated with chronic pain. So, we may have situations such as lack of access, to, appropriate, resting places. So the dog wants to get up onto the sofa, as we've always got up onto the sofa, now has chronic pain issues, finds that difficult, and then gets frustrated because they can't get up on.

To the sofa and therefore start to become confrontational towards perhaps their caregivers. We may also get more subtle changes in behaviour through chronic pain, like a lowering of tolerance to stimuli. So we may have things like sound related fears being more likely to be manifested in animals that are suffering from chronic pain.

So one of the things that we as a veterinary profession can be involved in in prevention is ensuring that animals are in good physical health. Other things we might consider in the health, physical health domain are things like endocrine disorders. So hypothyroidism, diabetes mellitus, Cushing's, Addison's, all of these have been associated with behavioural change.

If we look at Cushing's and Addison's, sorry, there's a typo there on that slide. But if you look at Cushing's and Addison's, we can see that if you change adrenal function, remembering that the adrenal glands are part of the HPA. Axis, the hypothalamic pituitary adrenal axis, then we're going to have alterations in their ability to, respond to stress, and we may start to see, protective emotions like fear anxiety being more prevalent in individuals who have these endocrine disorders.

And certainly, anxiety is very strongly correlated with, Addison's and Cushing's, not only in the veterinary species that we deal with, but also in humans. And then if we have things like diabetes mellitus leading to changes in glucose levels, that also can lead to alterations in emotional balance and lead to, problems of behaviour which may be reps may be presented to us as a profession more from a behavioural perspective. And then neurological conditions and gastrointestinal disorders in the neurological conditions section I've put here, Space occupying lesions, epilepsy.

There are many, many ways in which there is a link between, neurological conditions and emotional state, and we may get presentations of behavioural problems because of neurological compromise. And then because of the gut brain access, the interplay between, through the, enteric nervous system. And the interplay between the serotonergic, level of production within the gut.

So, over 95 to 97% of, of serotonin being created within the gut. If we have gastrointestinal disorders, they will start to impact on behavioural output as well. So by ensuring good physical health and by identifying and treating physical disease promptly, we can be part of behaviour problem prevention as a veterinary profession in ways that perhaps we haven't traditionally thought about.

So moving on to think about cognitive health, this is perhaps an area more readily associated with problem behaviour prevention. And certainly I'm sure you've heard people say, oh, he just needs more training when they hear someone talking about their dog having a behavioural concern. So dogs that are pulling on the lead and, barking at other dogs, often the response is, Oh, I don't think that dog's very well trained, meaning they haven't been educated not to behave in that way.

Dogs that jump up. At people during greeting or dogs that toilet in the house. All of those are likely to be thought of in terms of how that behaviour could have been taught differently.

So, how the, the dog could have been taught to behave differently in that particular context, and therefore, prevent the problem through learning. And cognition is It is a really important part of behavioural output, because learning influences the behaviours that an animal will display, both through operant conditioning, where you have a cue, an action and a consequence, and then that consequence of the behaviour influences the probability of whether it will occur again. So that sort of learning, obviously extremely important.

In altering behavioural profiles of animals, but also classical conditioning, which I'll come back to a little bit more during this evening. So effective education for puppies is definitely part of prevention of problem behaviours. So we need an animal that's in good physical health, we also need an animal that is in good, cognitive health.

But behavioural problems are not simply learned. It's not all about conditioning, it's not all about learning. So let's look at the 3rd part of the health triad.

How is emotional health involved? Well, behavioural responses are motivated by emotion. They're then modified through learning and they're influenced by physical health.

But they are actually generated by emotional responses. And when those emotions are justified, and when those emotions are appropriate to the context that the animal finds itself in, then the behavioural response will also be appropriate. But we have a slight problem here when we think about the domestic dog, because species differences can make this slightly less straightforward.

So there are sometimes species appropriate emotions and then species appropriate behavioural responses, which are not considered appropriate by the human caregivers or by the society that the dog is living in. So, for example, very loud noises such as fireworks or thunderstorms may generate a necessary and appropriate level of fear or anxiety in a dog. And when they do so, it may be that an appropriate behavioural response to that would be to find some kind of a den in which to hide out until the noise has passed.

And there may be absolutely nothing wrong with the animal, with the dog, and nothing wrong with what it's doing, with its behaviour. It may be totally appropriate in a purely species specific context. But if you're a domestic dog living with human beings, then human beings believe that it's appropriate and normal to let off fireworks at certain times of the year.

Some people find this more normal than others, but it is accepted that fireworks can be let off at certain times of year, particularly. So, Halloween and firework night, which are now on the horizon again this year. But also at other times, weddings, New Year's Eve, those sorts of things.

And yet, the noises that are produced by these fireworks are actually at levels that might justifiably cause a level of anxiety or even fear in our canine companions. But because they're living in a domestic life, domestic world, they need to get used to those sorts of loud noises like fireworks or like other noises in the home, like hoovers and. Household appliances, because actually in a domestic world, those are not justified as triggers for fear and anxiety, and certainly the behaviours that they lead to might be seen as being inappropriate.

Another example might be a dog that reacts to being in solitude. Now again, if you're an obligate social mammal such as a dog, and you are used to living with constant access to social contact, that's your your default normal behaviour. Then actually having an emotional response to being in a solitary situation may be within the realms of normality.

But if you're a domestic dog, then it's very likely that part of your life will need to involve being in solitude. So, if that's the case, we're looking at needing some cognition, some learning to actually learn. What is normal within a domestic environment, such that the emotions that may be justified and appropriate in their rawest sense for that species are actually modified in the domestic dog by them being habituated or socially referenced to an environment that is one that they share with humans.

So we'll come on to how that Link between emotion and cognition occurs in the rearing of puppies in a minute, in order to make sure that they are ready for domestic life. So, in order to minimise the risk of domestic dogs exhibiting behaviours which we find unacceptable, they need to be prepared for our form of life, what humans consider to be normal. And optimising emotional health involves, different stages, if you like.

First of all, we need an animal who is emotionally stable. And then, secondly, we need an animal who is emotionally intelligent. And those two things are really the crux of prevention of behaviour.

Problems from an emotional perspective, having already just said that that's not the only perspective that we need to consider, we need to also consider physical and cognitive health. But I am gonna concentrate on emotional health and think about these two concepts of emotional stability and emotional intelligence. So emotional stability is influenced by many different factors, and for a domestic dog, influenced by many different people.

So all of those who care for dogs have some role in ensuring that animals are developing good emotional stability as a prevention for having behavioural issues later in life. And breeders, of course, have a very specific level of responsibility. They are going to be involved with selecting breeding stock, so they're going to select the genetic component of the potential stability of these puppies.

They're also going to be the ones caring for the bitch while she's pregnant, and I'll come on to look at why that is so important in terms of problem prevention. And then they're also involved, of course, in the early rearing of those puppies, and the world that those puppies come into in that very early part of life, up to, usually in the UK because of, legislation. It's usually around 8 weeks of age that they are with their mother, their maternal figure, and also their human caregivers in the form of the breeder.

Also, of course, the caregiver who takes over that responsibility from the breeder, the new caregiver, will have a very specific level of responsibility as well. They're going to be ultimately responsible for the physical and social environment that that dog is going to live in, and that needs to be optimised according to species specific needs. We're not talking here.

About environmental enrichment. We're talking here about optimising the environment, which means making sure that it caters for all of the needs of the individual species that we're concerned with. So, in this presentation, we're talking about dogs, so we need caregivers who understand what dogs need in their environment, both social and physical.

We also need caregivers who are gonna provide for the opportunity of learning. So cognitive health is partly the responsibility of us as, as vets, we'll see that in a minute, but also, it's a responsibility of caregivers. And we can think about learning, boldly in two, types, of course, that learning is far more complex than that, but thinking about classical conditioning, classical conditioning is important.

In the situation of what's often referred to as socialisation, so, getting to be socially comfortable around other dogs, around other species, around people. It's also about what's often referred to as habituation, and you'll notice I've put that. Actually in inverted commas, because habituation is the neutralising of an emotional response.

And what we're really talking about when we're introducing puppies like this one to car travel is to create non-social environmental. Conditioning. We, we don't want just a neutral emotional response for most of these experiences.

We want them to enjoy it. So we want to have an engaging emotional association with being in the car, as is illustrated here. But lots and lots of different, environmental experiences that the domestic dog needs to be introduced to.

And, of course, the, thing that many, new caregivers are thinking about is house training. House training is also through classical conditioning. And if we don't have a good understanding of how that learning occurs, we then get involved with caregivers giving inappropriate punitive interactions for things like toileting in the house, which leads to the potential for more of a protective emotional bias, which I'll explain that term in a bit more detail as we go through, but more likely to see the world as potentially challenging.

And that is going to be a risk factor for developing behavioural concerns later in life. Also, opera and conditioning is important, and we think of that in the dog context, mainly as training. That's certainly the word that most people would use to describe cue-based learning, where they're given a cue and they give an action, and then they get a reinforcement for that.

We tend to, in the behavioural medicine world, try to move away from the word training and more towards the word of education, because training suggests, and in, in the old terminology, we use the word, of, we use the word, of, of, command, whereas in, I can say it's so long since I've used that word, I couldn't even remember it. So we tend to use the word queue rather than command, because command, training, Obedience, all of those things tend to lead to more of a perception that if the animal doesn't do what we have requested, that somehow they are being disobedient or they're being difficult. All these sorts of nuances of terminology actually do affect the way in which people then go on to interact with.

That animal, it's more likely there will be punitive interaction if there's a concept of disobedience. Whereas if we use education, if an individual doesn't, get something that they've been taught, we start to question the way in which it was taught. Was that successful?

What's the problem? Why are they not understanding? What could we do better?

To make it more understandable so that they can comply with whatever it is we wanted them to do or they can understand why we wanted them to do it. So that's emotional stability. The other thing I mentioned was emotional intelligence.

This is defined in humans as the capacity to be aware of, control, and express one's emotions, and to handle interpersonal relationships judiciously and empathetically. Now this definition, I think, can be applied as well to non-human animals, certainly, that in dogs the most important elements of being able to express. And to control their own emotions is very important in terms of problem prevention.

If we have the ability in our dogs to express the emotion that they're experiencing successfully, and are able to understand what they should do when they are in that situation, then that will be a great, factor in reducing the risk of behavioural problems. Whether Dogs are also able to handle interpersonal relationships judiciously and empathetically, is something that I think is open to still, still open to some debate. Although, certainly, they do have to handle interpersonal relationships appropriately, whether that interpersonal relationship is with another dog or another species of companion animal within a home or with the humans that they're interacting with.

Whether they show empathy and that is something to say that is, at the moment a little bit under debate, but there is research going on, at the moment into the levels of empathy shown by non-human animals, and I think it's becoming increasingly likely that it is not something which is exclusive to human animals. So teaching emotional intelligence involves exposing puppies to a variety of contexts and then establishing within those contexts suitable emotional associations. And that's a form of learning of the classical form.

So classical conditioning is involved in establishing emotional associations. And we're gonna want to do that in a variety of social and non-social environmental contexts. But emotional intelligence also involves reinforcing appropriate decision making.

So this is in terms of the animals selecting an appropriate behavioural response to their emotion and a beer a behavioural response that is appropriate for them, but is also acceptable and and appropriate within the context of a domestic environment. So here we're looking at an interplay between emotional and cognitive health, optimising both of those in order to prevent problems. And it's about setting puppies up to succeed and succeed in in displaying behaviours which are considered appropriate from a human caregiver and a human society perspective.

So let's concentrate for a minute on emotional health as, the way in which we prevent future behavioural problems. So when we think about emotional health, we need to consider to, a few different elements of emotional health. And I Present these in the Heath model of emotional health through the sink.

And I'm going to talk a little bit about the sink model. The idea that there are different elements of emotional health. First of all, capacity, represented here by the size of the sink, which we'll come onto in a bit more detail in a moment.

Emotional valence represented by the taps, emotional resilience represented by the, the drainage of the water through the outlet pipe and then emotional arousal represented by the amount of water in the sink. So I'm gonna go through those in a bit more detail. Let's first of all start with emotional capacity.

So being emotionally stable, so we said we were aiming for emotional stability and emotional intelligence in order to prevent behaviour problems. And emotional stability depends on the individual having adequate capacity, thought of, as I say, in the Heath model as an emotional sink. And there's considerable variation in the amount of emotional challenge that an individual, and that this is true for human animals as well as for dogs.

That that individual can withstand before there's some significant behavioural consequence from that emotional challenge. And so we have the idea that the sink is created or determined by three different stages. And I can think about that, by extending this analogy and thinking that this sink is being made on a potter's wheel.

And if we're making it on a potter's wheel, we're gonna start off with a blob of clay. And that blob of clay is going to be representative of the genetics, the genetics of the parents and relatives of this individual. And also the emotional health of the parents, particularly the bitch, and we'll come on to explain why in a moment.

So, you're dealt this blob of clay as you're born as a puppy, and then in the 1st 8 weeks of life, so remember how important, therefore, the breeding establishment is, because that's where this puppy is likely to be spending those 1st 8 weeks. So those 1st 8 weeks are more Holding that blob of clay on the potter's wheel into the wibbly wobbly grey structure that you're familiar with in pottery making. And at 8 weeks of age, therefore, you've got a pretty good idea of what sort of size of sink this individual will end up with, but it's not yet finished, and it's also extremely vulnerable.

If you think about that wibbly wobbly grey structure on a potter's wheel, a good potter. Can then take that and mould it and create the finished article, but a poor potter may actually damage that pot at that very vulnerable stage of production. So puppies are exactly like that at around 8 weeks of age, when often they're actually experiencing a great deal of change.

So they're often being taken from their breeding establishment to their new caregiver at just the time when emotionally, they're very vulnerable. And then their experiences during that first year of life, you can liken to the firing of this sink in the kiln at the pottery. So, making it more solid, making it more resistant to change.

Obviously, that will make it more resistant to getting any bigger, but also, very importantly, will give it some resistance to being made smaller. So that first year of life very, very important as well in terms of experiences. And then we can think about valence represented, as I said, by the taps, and for this we use the work of the Estonian biologist Jack Passe.

He talked about positive and negative emotions. You'll notice here that I've put the word engaging in brackets after the word positive. This is terminology from the Heath model, where I talk about emotions in terms of what they are designed to achieve.

And the reason I was moved to do that when I was creating this model was that I found that people were, very swayed by the words positive and negative, particularly the word negative. Which was coming to mean bad. And as we'll see, we've got these engaging emotions, desire-seeking social play, lust and care, represented by the blue tap.

But we have also these negative, or in my model, the protective emotions represented here by the red tap of fear, anxiety, pain, frustration, and panic, grief. Now, the idea that these are bad emotions is detrimental to our understanding of how to prevent problems, but also How to remedy problems if they do occur, because protective emotions are very definitely not bad. Protective emotions, as the name suggests, protect the individual.

They ensure survival. They are inherently worthwhile and good. But if they occur inappropriately, out of context, that's when they can become problematic.

But we must remember that the desire seeking social play, lust and care. The engaging emotions can also become problematic when they are out of context or inappropriate. So, it's not that the protective emotions are the only ones that are problematic.

The problem is when an emotion of either engaging or protective valence is actually happening in an inappropriate situation or context, or is leading to a behavioural response which is inappropriate. Now, you'll notice on the sync model that here we've got a mixer tap as well. And the importance of the mixer tap is to to indicate that you don't have exclusivity between these different emotional motivations.

So, in other words, you can be motivated by more than one emotion at the same time, and those emotions may be from different valances. So you can have an animal. Who has desire seeking motivation to go and approach, for example, a stranger or another dog, but has some fear anxiety about that approach because of the fact that individual is unfamiliar, then that dog may actually be in a state of emotional conflict.

We've got both the cold tap and the hot tap being triggered by the same. Situation. And if that's the case, then we may find this animal is put into emotional conflict.

Now, conflict will do, a couple of things. It will not only increase the, the input of protective emotion, because by definition, we've got more than one emotion happening, but also, it will increase the level of arousal, because there'll be just more emotion. Then think about emotional resilience, which is the next thing we talked about, the next aspect of emotional health.

Emotional resilience is about dissipating emotion when it served its purpose. So emotions are really important in order to deal with a situation, but they are not useful once they've fulfilled that purpose. They're just Sitting in the sink, taking up space.

So emotional drainage happens after a trigger has been encountered by helping to maintain a low residue. So what's left in the sink at any point in time, is minimal. Now, why is that important?

Well, if you think about the sink size being the capacity of that that individual has, then if we've got a low level of residue, then we're maximising the available emotional capacity. We've got more, more space available to use for the next input if we've managed to drain out the emotion that's no longer needed. And so we represent that in the sink as the outlet pipe.

Now, emotional drainage happens at a more conscious level, you, you get over that emotion, you do something to reduce that level of emotional arousal, and there are behaviours that are common to just about every species that are helpful for drainage, and one of those, would be sleeping. Sleeping is incredibly important. For emotional stability, for draining out unwanted or excessive or used emotions, so emotion that's no longer having a purpose, even if it did have a very valid purpose once upon a time.

And then we also have more species. Specific types of drainage behaviours in dogs chewing, very important way of of stabilising emotions, so dogs will, will chew, in order to reduce their level of emotional arousal, grooming can also be used. In this way.

So I wanna talk about sleep for a moment in terms of prevention, because if we're thinking about preventing behavioural issues, what we're trying to do is ensure in puppies that they are all the time at their lowest point of emotional arousal at any point in time. And obviously, sleeping is a big part of that, but sleep is very poorly understood in dogs in terms of our acceptance of how much sleep they need. So adult dogs need between 16 and 18 hours of sleep every 24, and that's quite a lot when you think about how that compares with the number of hours that a human spends awake compared to asleep.

We need about 8 hours in 24 in order to be emotionally functional. So dogs need another 8 to 10 hours. In 24, on top of the nighttime when the caregivers themselves are asleep.

But puppies need 20 hours of sleep in 24. So that means that when you get a young puppy, if you're going to enable it to have good emotional drainage, you've only actually got 44 hours in 24 in which to engage with your puppy. And that should be engagement, which is maintaining a quite a low level of emotional arousal, or at least if it's high levels that they're short in duration, so there's time for the puppy to drain away after it's had a high level of arousal.

So emotional management through sleep is something that's very important in problem prevention. So let's look at the drainage behaviours. So these are the behavioural equivalent, as I've just said, to the flow of water through the plug hole and out through the outflow pipe.

And drainage behaviour can occur whenever there's been any emotional inflow. So in other words, you, you can put a. Tiny amount of water into the bottom of the sink to wash your face or wash a small, dish up or something like that.

And then you can pull the plug out. You can pull the plug out whenever there is any level of emotion or water in the sink. And when we're using it appropriately, so when we pull the plug out nice and regularly, then we can ensure that the sink level, the residue, is at a manageable level.

But if we don't drain out regularly and we allow buildup to occur, and the sink becomes relatively full of emotion, in that situation, we're going to find that they will engage in more intense drainage behaviours. So let's think a minute for a minute about the sink analogy and think about the fact that if you have a very small amount of water in the bottom of a sink and you pull the plug out, you hardly hear the water leaving. It just drains out very slowly, calmly and quietly.

But if you've got a sink that's virtually full before you pull the plug out, you're much more likely to hear that water going out through the outlet pipe because of the fact it's going out with more force or with more intensity. And so we see with animals as well, that if they are, for example, the illustrators here, the dog chewing, a dog that is having. Lots of opportunity to chew on a regular basis, so that they're draining out, well, and they're draining out, at regular intervals.

It's likely that that chewing behaviour will be quite calm and gentle. But if they are in a high state of arousal when they start to chew, it's more likely that they may then engage in chewing that's very intense. So, in this Heath model of emotional health, emotional arousal is thought of as a balance.

It's a result of the amount of input that is occurring in proportion to the sink size or the emotional capacity, and the emotional drainage. So we can represent it. Pardon me, we can represent it as the level of emotion in the sink.

And then before we leave the sink ality, it's got one more comparison to make between our sink and our emotional health. And that's the little overflow hole at the top of the sink. So the behavioural equivalent to this.

Is what we call displacement. The displacement will always be associated with a high level of arousal. You can't have water leaving through the overflow hole, unless the water level is very high.

And therefore that sink must be approaching its full capacity in order to trigger displacement. And that water may of course be all cold water, all hot water, or it may be a mixture of the two. So when we start to see behaviours which are in this category, the displacement behaviours, we know that the animal is reaching its emotional capacity.

And these behaviours are normal behaviours which occur in an abnormal context. And there are many examples in the canine world. So we have things like scratching or stretching.

We have yawning and shaking as if wet. So, obviously, if we were wet, if the dogs go out the river and they shake like this, it's perfectly normal behaviour, but and it's done out of that context, we would regard it as a displacement behaviour. Yawning the same.

If the dog has, just been, resting for 8 hours or so, and yawns as they're getting up again, and also stretches, that may be perfectly normal if these yawns are happening out of that context, they're more likely to be displacement. Licking of themselves, so self-licking, particularly foot chewing, but other forms of self licking, and also licking of the lips are also displacement. Behaviours.

So when these occur, they're going to be a warning sign that this animal is reaching its capacity. And if we heard water trickling out through the overflow hole of a, of a sink, we would turn the taps off. We would react to that signal, that warning by stopping there being any more input, because obviously, there's not enough capacity.

The, the sink can't take any more water. So, when we think about problem prevention, and nipping things in the buds, stopping things from becoming problematic, we want to be thinking about the fact that overflow is more likely if the sink is small. So, if we've got an individual who has very low capacities, that would be an individual with compromised genetics, some issues of the rearing, the mother, the damned, emotional health during rearing, or also the first year of life not being.

Ideal. If that animal has a small sink and a low capacity, overflow is more likely. Also, if the hot tap is on when it's not justified, so if this animal has a protective emotional disorder, so it's experiencing fear, anxiety, motivation, when that's not justified by the environment that it's in, then that also means that the hot tap being on more than it should be, is going to be a risk factor.

Also, if we have the tap on when it is justified, so that would be where an animal has a a social or a physical environment which is not ideal, that may also be a risk factor. Having the taps full on, so lots of input, whether they're hot or cold. So, I talked before about the fact that we may not necessarily only have behavioural concerns stemming from protective emotions.

We may also see them when we have excessive levels of the engaging emotions as well. And so, when there's a high level of residue, poor resilience with high arousal, all of these things are risk factors for having problems. And therefore, when we're thinking about prevention, these are the things that we're trying to avoid.

But perhaps for those dogs living in a domestic environment, one of the most important risk factors is the people around them, not recognising that there are signs that this animal is compromised, not recognising that the animal has the potential to have a small sink or a high inflow, not noticing those displacement behaviours which say that overflow may be imminent. So we can represent the the at-risk individual by an individual who has these four components, a high inflow, a small sink, poor drainage, and a high residue. So when we think about prevention, which is what we're talking about tonight, optimising emotional health is about creating an adequate capacity.

That's gonna mean we need appropriate rearing and breeding, and we need correct positive life experiences. It's also about looking at flow rate, and we do this through good socialisation and, again, in inverted commas, habituation. If we do successfully create the appropriate emotional associations with the environment, that will reduce the salience of everyday stimuli.

That'll mean that the flow rate coming from the emotional tap is lower, as Well as creating positive or engaging associations, which means that there is a predominance of cold flow input, so that more likely to turn on the cold than the hot tap, but turn it on at a lower flow rate. It's also about creating optimal emotional resilience and drainage by ensuring that these puppies are given opportunity to chew appropriately. Now, one of the problems with chewing being one of the drainage behaviours for dogs is that chewing can be seen as problematic from a human perspective, depending on.

What the puppy is chewing on. So, puppies are often discouraged from chewing, rather than redirecting that chewing behaviour into something appropriate. So giving them adequate opportunity to chew appropriately.

And then self-directed relaxation and provision for adequate sleep are also essential. But prevention of behavioural flooding is not just about the animal, not just about the dog. It's also about the humans.

It's about the caregivers and those interacting with the dog. Because we need to understand the animal in terms of their emotional systems and recognise that they have a need. To respond appropriately and successfully to those emotions.

They need emotional intelligence. They need to be able to select good responses. So we need to have an allowance that puppies need to socially play with others of the same species in order to, have an outlet for that emotional motivation in an appropriate setting.

We also need to understand what triggers their desire-seeking motivation, make sure that they have appropriate exposure to resources, which allows them to have appropriate desire-seeking responses. So, teaching them what is available for them and what isn't. So, human food versus dog food or toys that are for the children versus toys that are for the puppet.

Also allowing avoidance to take place in situations where they indicate that it's necessary. So, when a, a, a young puppy is saying, I'm actually quite uncomfortable about this and is attempting to use an avoidance response to deal with it, they need to be respected and learn that, yes, it's OK to feel uncomfortable. It's OK to use avoidance.

In fact, avoidance is a very suitable behaviour. Response. It's an appropriate behavioural response for you to use, and we'd rather you use that than, than the other potential responses, such as repulsion.

So we're going to allow you to use avoidance, and then consider, well, why is it that this particular situation is making this dog or puppy feel the need to do this and then address that, but allow them in the first instance, to express that emotion. Also thinking about responding appropriately to appeasement behaviours, information gathering behaviours, so that when they need information, we don't ignore or reject them, and therefore increase the possibility of frustration. And also understand the equal roles of different behavioural responses.

I'm gonna come on to that in a minute in relation to breeding stock. Also, we need caregivers and those interacting with these puppies to learn to read the signs of increasing arousals. They can tell when the puppy needs some sleep.

So the grabbing behaviours, jumping behaviours that often result in confrontation, often result in caregivers getting cross and seeing those behaviours as being inappropriate, may actually be indicators that the puppy needs to be left alone. To sleep and needs to have, a, a place, a safe place. It can be a pen, it can be another room, it can be a basket.

It doesn't really matter where, but somewhere that the puppy sees as being a sleep zone, and somewhere where they can go when they show these signs of increasing emotional arousal, so that we help the puppy to manage its sink and keep that residue at a low level. And then understanding the role of displacement behaviours so that caregivers can see those signs of impending overflow. So let's just look at the practical implications of what we've just talked about.

So when we think about breeding and rearing, the relevance of the sink in terms of what we tell breeders, relates primarily to the influence of genetics. So that's the clay and the emotional health of the bitch. So that's the, the bit before the animal is born and at the point of birth, and then early rearing and how those things affect the emotional capacity.

So the breeder has a role to play in optimising genetic influence on the size of the sink, on minimising physiological stress in breeding bitches, so that that also helps to optimise the size of the sink. Establishing positive or engaging emotional responses through appropriate socialisation and non-social environmental learning, even in these very early weeks, because that will increase the tap selection or the valence of the emotions for these puppies, and then reducing the salience of social and environmental stimuli, which will decrease the flow rate. And then also establishing resilience, ensuring that these young puppies get enough time to sleep, to chew, and to engage in normal drainage behaviours.

Obviously when they're selecting their breeding stock, many breeders are influenced more by confirmation or performance than they are by emotional stability and temperament. They're less commonly talked about as breeding selection criteria. But as we've said, we know that emotional, physical and cognitive health are all important in in behavioural problem prevention.

Therefore, we need to make sure that in the world of selecting breeding stock, emotional criteria are given equal consideration. Because emotional stability is affected by genetics, because genetics are the clay from which that sink will be moulded. And when we're using emotional criteria for breeding stock, the other thing we need to think about is behavioural responses to those protective emotions.

Because unless we understand what signs tell us that a bitch has an emotional valence towards protective emotion, we're not going to know not to breed from her. And so, bitch. Showing repulsion, I think, are going to be more likely to not be selected.

So, I think, you know, I'm not saying that all breeders would not select a bitch, you know, when she showed repelling behaviour, but hopefully, the majority would see a bitch that was actually showing repulsion behaviour towards either people or dogs, would be inappropriate for breeding from. But the other behavioural responses of inhibition, appeasement and avoidance, these are behaviours which are of equal significance in terms of the emotional valence of the bitch, but may not be seen as being inherently problematic, and may not be seen by certain breeders as a deterrent to breeding. So, we see the, the beagle bitch here that is a brood bitch, and yet is showing very Very clear signs of a protective emotional bias, but is being used for a breeding programme.

Now, obviously, we can debate all of that, at length, but it's important to remember that the more passive forms of behavioural response to protective emotion could potentially be overlooked in the selection process and could lead to unsuitable bitches being used for breeding. It's also important to remember that their emotion leads to physiological responses. So the responses which are turned physiological stress have the function obviously of maintaining homeostasis.

But the word stress is a very difficult one. It's often used out of context. It often is believed to just relate to a, a, a negative state.

When actually, we need to differentiate between the fact that acute stress is actually quite normal and functional and adaptive, if you like, and actually increases the probability of. An individual's survival. It's chronic stress that is the one that is detrimental.

It's when the hypothalamic pituitary adrenal axis is working, over time and is not switching off where the feedback mechanism is no longer functioning. That's when we have problems in terms of physiological stress being detrimental. So remember that the HPA axis develops both pre and postpartum, and its development in utero in the puppies can be adversely influenced by a chronic state of stress in the mother.

So, veterinary practises are very involved in caring for breeding bitches, but usually from a physical perspective. But we also need to consider caring for the emotional health of bitches during their pregnancy, not only for their own welfare, but also for the welfare of the puppies that they're going to give birth to. We can see considerable difference here between the emotional health and physical health of these two bitches who are both pregnant.

The potential for unresolved protective emotion in the bitch to affect the development of their puppies also continues after they're born. So during lactation and during nursing, it's important that bitches have optimised emotional health, because the way in which they are responding is going to. Influence the emotional development of puppies.

Puppies, when they're born, because they're blind and deaf, are often thought of as not being connected with their environment. But remember, of course, they are able to communicate through tactile and olfactory input at this stage. So they are still being influenced by their mum.

And then, as their eyes and ears open, and they start to become more in touch with the environment around them, of course, we start to have more importance from, items other than their mum. So their litter mates, but also the non-social environmental items around them. But mum is still important at this stage.

If she has engaging emotion. Responses in relation to social and object interaction. She's calm and she has behavioural responses which are positive, then that will lay the foundation for a positive perception as well in the puppies.

They're more likely to perceive both the social and the physical environment as being a positive experience. And also, conversely, if we have a bitch who is in a protective emotional state and is showing behaviours which are as a result of a protective emotional bias, as is illustrated here, then that will also influence the puppy's development. Now, of course, it's not just the impact of the, of the bitch, it's also the impact of the environment.

So, living alongside humans, obviously, as we know, is, is potentially mutually beneficial for both us and them. But we need to think about what are we doing with them in our relationship. So, when we are, have dogs that are being bred for certain activities, some of those activities are very much based on their natural.

Behavioural tendencies. So, we've got search and rescue, retrieving, herding. But remember, there's emotional biases which favour different types of work as well.

So, if you've got, gun dog types, it's very likely that they will have a predominance of anxiety. Not in a bad way. Anxiety is extremely useful for them to function appropriately, but it could be a risk factor for Developing behavioural concerns if we're not aware of that bias and we're not coping with it appropriately.

For others, their activity has no basis in natural behaviour. So showing, for example. And if we want them to engage in these types of behavioural responses, then we have to think about cognition, learning, developing these behaviours, and learning how to behave in certain contexts.

So early positive introduction to the environment in which they are going to be destined to live is really important. And actually, that's more important than which environment they're in. What we're looking for is an environment that is very close.

There's a lot of similarity between the life at the breeders and the life at the ultimate home. And so, for, you know, your, your herding border collie, it may actually be appropriate for them to live in that. That farmyard, barn type existence, if that is the closest to the sort of life they're going to lead as an adult.

But if they're going to be ending up as a companion animal in a home with a family, then they really need to have exposure to that environment as early as possible and preferentially at the breeders. And then socialisation and non-social environmental learning happens, obviously, at the breeders. It starts at the breeders.

It's very important that they, start that in the right way. And then, once they go into their new home with their caregiver or their guardian, then social and non-social environmental learning needs to continue. And that needs to continue in all the facets of that new home.

So, For a domestic pet, the inside of the house and the outside, the place they're going to go for walks and the internal workings of the household, such as where the Hoover is experienced. And breeders need to give information about the work they've already done, and guidance as to how this caregiver can continue that work to provide complexity, and complexity is important. But complexity in a calm, positive, and controlled environment.

And we, as a veterinary professional are part of this as well. So we need to remember that the vet visit, which occurs relatively early in a puppy's life, also needs to be something that, that puppies are prepared for, that that puppies experience in the right emotional context. So, for most puppies, their experience at this stage of life will be the waiting room and the consulting room.

But for Some, it may also involve hospitalisation, and then we really do need to think about how are we going to ensure that there is positive emotional valence for the puppy during the veterinary experience. This is vital if we're going to create these positive emotional associations with the context of the veterinary practise. So puppies need to be exposed to novelty and complexity, yes, but they need to be in an engaging emotional context.

So the puppies need to be positive, as in engaging, desire seeking type motivation, exploratory, engaged with the environment in order for this to be successful. If they're in a protective emotional state, whilst they're being exposed to these encounters, whether they're social or environmental, then they can become what we call sensitised. And that's a risk factor for developing behaviour.

Problems later on. So if we have a situation where this puppy has become sensitised because it's in a protective emotional state during exposure, that can have long lasting consequences and it be a real risk factor for problem behaviours. So I've used the word habituation in in inverted commas, as I said before, because we're not actually wanting a neutral emotional state.

We want to have a positive emotional association. But these processes, socialisation and non-social environmental learning, are not just about exposure. And in the veterinary profession, in the veterinary field, there's been a quite a popularity of these sort of tick list approaches to socialisation and habituation.

These are all the things your puppy needs to encounter or deal with during the first few weeks or months of life. And while they give new careers. Us a really good understanding of just how complex the domestic world is.

We, we live in this world, you know, naturally as humans, and therefore, we often forget that it is actually a very complex world. But there's a risk that they may be overenthusiastic, and they may actually try to, do too much too soon. More is not always better.

Remember the flow rate. Remember, it's not just about which tap, it's about how much emotion is entering into that sink. And so, if we're just switching on that positive emotion, and making the puppy happy and excited, and we're doing that, in excessive amounts, that may not actually be beneficial, and particularly if it's not balanced with drainage, if we're not allowing them enough time to sleep.

Then we need to think about cognition in prevention, so we need to be aware of the way in which puppies are going to learn, because they're learning all the time. This puppy jumps on a table and finds a roasted turkey, then that animal is learning, but it's learning an inappropriate or an unwanted association. Getting up on the dining room table leads to the discovery of something.

Lovely is not an association that most caregivers want their puppy to learn. We need to remember that, therefore, they're learning all the time. We need to be very mindful of that and very watchful of puppies.

You can't really take your eyes off them for a moment because they are learning all the time. We also need to remember, it is a puppy. It's not a child.

It has differences in its sensitivity to stimuli, it's interpretation of signals can be different. That can Lead to misinterpretation. Puppies are gonna have very highly developed senses.

They're gonna pick up on signals that sometimes the caregivers aren't even aware they've given, and maybe be picking up on signals from an environment that we're completely unaware of. So we do need to think about the process of learning from the dog's perspective. They may also interpret situations in different ways.

So what we think we are achieving by giving a puppy a certain experience may not actually be what the puppy is experiencing. For example, we may think that sending this puppy to puppy class or sending it to daycare is definitely the right thing to do because it'll have lots of company. But if we don't think about it from the dog's perspective, and if we look at this picture of daycare, the.

Three dogs that I've circled are showing body and, and, facial expressions associated with protective bias. So it may be that actually, this experience is not as positive from the from the dog's point of view as the caregiver imagined. The same as greeting people, taking the dog to the pub, introducing them to famous people.

They may not be impressed by those sorts of things. They may actually interpret them very differently. And they also can see human behaviour and human interaction differently.

So when humans are either hugging one another, or they're arguing with each other, or when dogs are being hugged or cuddled or kissed, these things may actually be signals from a dog's perspective that things are uncertain. They're uncertain. Stable, that life is unpredictable, and that the humans around them are also unstable, that then they're, they're showing signs of uncertainty themselves.

And so, therefore, it's really important that we understand canine communication before we start trying to advise our caregivers on how to prevent problems. So preventative behavioural medicine is the remit of every single veterinary practise during our puppy vaccination appointments, poster purchase checks, we need to talk about behavioural development, we need to talk about the fact there is such a thing as emotional health and emotional stability and emotional intelligence. And we can get this information out in many different ways.

We can give them literature, we can, carry out intelligence classes, we can also have nursing clinics. Emotional intelligence classes are not the same as just a puppy party or a class in the traditional sense. So these are more about addressing the importance of emotional health, about encouraging social learning, and also about teaching caregivers to understand this cognitive, emotional and physical health triad, that they understand that all three aspects are important.

Developing emotional intelligence in puppies, is a scheme that offers advice on raising an emotionally sta stable puppy. It's been on hold because of COVID, hoping that it will regenerate in 2023 and we might start the online course again in 2023. The De Project is about creating what we call deep puppy advocates.

And these people in veterinary practises are preparing puppies for life, including veterinary visits. So it's not just about, traditional, obedience training, for example. But being an advocate is more than just running classes.

It's about being the person who advocates. It's for the puppy whenever they're in the process of going through a veterinary visit. It's about establishing ways in which the practise can develop engaging and decrease protective emotion within our patients.

Now we're all very familiar with this concept of friendly practises from a feline perspective, thanks to ISFM and the cat friendly clinic scheme. But as I say, the DE project has been actually, on hold because of COVID, and hopefully will, will return in, in 2023. But something that's very exciting, which has been announced recently, is the Dog Friendly practise scheme.

This is an initiative with Dogs Trust and the British Veterinary behaviour Association. And if you haven't heard about it, I'd really advocate that you have a look online, find details about the dogfriendly clinic project. And then finally, adolescence.

So we need to remember that the, onset of adolescence varies with the breed. It's earlier for smaller dogs, it can be, encompassing basically the period between an animal becoming sexually mature and then becoming socially mature. Those are two different things.

And it's quite a, a challenging time. It's a period when we might see, the resurgence of certain issues. We might see animals being relinquished to rescue at this time.

It's quite a common age because of the fact that there are often behavioural challenges. And so it's a really important time for veterinary practises to have contact with these caregivers. We've often lost contact at this very time.

So if we can have nursing clinics for our adolescent pets, between that, second vaccination and our next contacts. So not waiting until the booster or until neutering, but actually getting them in for nursing clinics so we can approach the potential for there to be difficulties before they arise. And we can also dispel some myths.

There are quite a lot of myths out there still about. Canine behaviour, a dominance myth, the, the idea that testosterone is a bad thing, and we ought to be neutering for problem prevention, and, that dogs will just get, fat if they're neutered, if they're bitches, so we don't want to neuter. Those sorts of problems of, shall we neuter, shouldn't we neuter, what is the reasons?

And also thinking, about dominance. These are things we can talk about in, these nursing. In clinics at this really important age.

The sorts of problems that people are likely to be experiencing, jumping up, walking on the lead, recall, mouthing behaviours, interacting with other dogs, they all have the potential to be the beginnings of something that could become a more serious, much more problematic, behaviour. So this is the time to be preventing. It's also the time to discuss fear because during adolescence, it's often common for puppies to change from avoidance, inhibition and appeasement to more repelling behaviours such as growling, barking and even biting.

And therefore, this is the time when we can be. Explaining that those emotions, those behavioural responses come from the same emotions, and that if we are allowing resolution through avoidance, if we are understanding appeasement and inhibition, we can help to reduce the risks of repulsion developing. So in conclusion, preventing behaviour problems has lots of aspects to it.

It is important to consider health triad and look at this by thinking about optimising physical, emotional and cognitive health because they will all reduce the risk of problematic behaviour. Rearing an animal that's emotionally stable is really complex. It takes a lot of thought, it takes a lot of patience.

And we all need to have a part in it. Breeders, caregivers, and us as a profession need to play our part. But it requires an understanding of emotional motivation, emotional stability, emotional intelligence, in order for us to Put prevention into practise.

The veterinary profession has a responsibility, of course, to safeguard the health and welfare of all non-human animals, but of puppies in this context, which involves physical, cognitive, and emotional aspects. And if we can develop emotionally intelligent, stable puppies, that's a key to them becoming sociable, confident, but really importantly, adaptable members of our human society. So thank you very much indeed for listening.

I'm just gonna leave this slide up. If any of you do want assistance in your general practise settings with behavioural advice, we do offer the behavioural advice subscription service at behavioural referrals, and you can get more details by emailing, this email address. Thank you very much.

And back over to Bruce. Sarah, thank you so much. That was absolutely fascinating.

And I know we've run over, but you had us all absolutely hooked and spellbound on everything, and nobody is left, which shows that I'm telling you the truth. So thank you so much for sharing your knowledge and clearly your passion with us. I did, see with interest that, you are now starting or that the scheme of dog-friendly clinics is starting.

It was quite interesting because today I was listening to a presentation on the importance of cat-friendly clinics. And now it's about time the dogs got a showing there as well. It is.

It's been a long time coming, and I'd really urge anyone who's listening to this to go and, and look up about the dog-friendly clinic scheme from Dogs Trust and BVBA and get more details about it. Yeah, these schemes are fantastic because they make us all think about our clinics and oh, should that cat be sitting there and should that and it's, it's brilliant. It really is absolutely brilliant.

Once again, Sarah, thank you for your time tonight. Apologies to everybody on that we did run over, but I'm sure you agree with me in the fact that you didn't leave, that it was really worthwhile. So, to all of you that attended tonight, thank you very much.

And Sarah, to you again, especially, thank you, and I look forward to being on with you again in the future. Thank you very much. Good night.

Thanks, everybody. Good night.