Hello there. My name is Linda Ryan. I'm a registered veterinary nurse, a veterinary technician specialist in behaviour and also in oncology, a certificated clinical animal behaviourist for cats and dogs, and a certified animal trainer.
And I'm delighted to be here to chat to you about behavioural first aid and how we might help caregivers now with their concerns regarding their pets' behaviour. In this webinar we are going to consider the concepts of first aid in behaviour management and the types of advice we should give to help caregivers now. Also think about how we might recognise so-called normal or adaptive behaviour or perhaps even lack of training from abnormal or maladaptive behaviour where there are perhaps emotional or behavioural concerns or where there might be a medical condition included.
And then think about how we might provide behavioural triage under those conditions. We're also going to consider the importance of the human animal bond and how we might protect and honour that in providing good behavioural advice and of course consider how we fit into all of that, what our remit is, what our limitations are, and how and when to refer and who to refer to. And as with all disciplines that we work in, behaviour is part of health and we want to make sure that in our work with behaviour and advice that we might give, that we do no harm and that we're always doing good for our patients.
When clients come to us with a concern about behaviour, often our first contact is at the point of a problem. So we may not know that the client's been having difficulty with their pet's behaviour until they come to us asking for help with it. And it may be that we haven't seen that patient very often, or it may be that we're not surveilling behavioural health as we should be with every other discipline of health that we're looking at.
And then our client comes to us, perhaps at the end of their tether, perhaps with a really severe problem or one that's been going on for a really long time. And says I was told I should come and ask my vet about this. We're rushed.
We're busy. We've got lots of things spinning in the plate department. We might not have very much time.
We may not have had any education in behaviour and we're then expected to give them some support and some answers to help them when it may already be a fairly protracted issue. So that can be quite stressful for us. And in some cases it can be fairly straightforward because the behaviour problem or problem behaviour may be due to the animal's needs not being met.
So are the cognitive, social, and physical needs for the species being met, depending on what that species is. I tend to deal mainly with cats and dogs, but you know, in practise we see so many different types of animals, and it could be that they They have a need to hunt and play. They have a need to nest.
They have a need to migrate. There are reproductive needs. And in addition to all of the things we think about with our domesticated animals, our non-domesticated species being kept as so-called pets may have very complex needs which are very hard to meet, and these needs may be being missed, and that may be the problem, and that can actually be helpful for us because often that's something we can fix with good knowledge and good advice.
It may be that there's a medical or physical cause involved, and when we think of behaviour problems versus problem behaviours, my definition tends to be a behaviour problem is one that is impacting the animal's well-being, which is causing a quality of life problem for that animal and possibly for the caregiver as well. It is one where something is wrong, so it's perhaps a maladaptive behaviour. The behaviour is not serving that patient.
And oftentimes there's an emotional component. There may be a pain or a physical component. It may be that it's been going on for a really long time.
There may be a genetic or an epigenetic or a heredity component. So it's a, it's a problem. Versus problem behaviours are oftentimes related to the above point.
They're normal. They relate to the species or they relate to needs not being met and the animal trying to find an adaptive way to deal with that. So these behaviours tend to be adaptive.
They tend to work for the animal, but they may be disruptive or annoying or maybe even sometimes dangerous for the client. But they're not abnormal per se. They're not a problem for the animal.
They're a problem for the human. So we want to consider all of this when we're thinking about is this a behaviour problem or a problem behaviour and who's it a problem for and what is our first priority in terms of meeting the needs of that animal. For me, it's always about meeting the animal's needs and then usually what the caregiver wants comes along for the ride as a side effect.
So we want to be really careful that we're not working to meet the caregiver's wants, but that we're working to meet the animal's needs. And a lot of the problems that we're presented with again are not problems at all. They may be related to human misunderstanding, human lack of understanding, and there may be a huge amount of love for that animal, but no real understanding of what that species is.
Or what this behaviour means. And there are also, you know, particularly at the moment post pandemics and widely held and very outdated beliefs about human animal relationships, dominance in dogs is one that springs easily to mind, . Where you know the client ascribes behaviours and social hierarchies and meaning to an animal's behaviour that are completely irrelevant to the behaviour and to the animal, but the human perceives them to be a problem, you know, the cat's being bossy or trying to be dominant with another cat.
I mean, whatever about dominance in dogs, we definitely, definitely don't have dominance in cats, but these behaviours, or sorry, these. Beliefs tend to trickle through and it can be really dangerous. So we want to be really careful about anthropomorphism and or unrealistic caregiver expectations, pressures, or understanding.
And part of our job is educators to help the client understand and then hopefully empathise with their pet and therefore we can turn around and make things an awful lot better once we have better knowledge. And then there are those normal behaviours which are Essential, I would say, as part of what an animal does that are disapproved of by the caregivers, and I often have clients, you know, very upset that their dog is sniffing a poo on a walk or sniffing another dog's bum when they greet. They consider it rude.
They don't want them to do it, but it's a normal part of communication. So there's a lot to it, but actually sometimes it's a case of, well, actually that's normal. Let me help you understand that, and maybe that isn't normal.
Let's see what else we need to do about it. So whilst it may seem overwhelming when that client tells tells you that they've got a problem and you need to fix it and you feel unprepared for it, oftentimes it's a case of breaking it down step by step into the kind of logical things that we're really good at. We know that behaviour is really complex and often it can take a lot of time to dig in and unpack all of that and in a 10 or even 20 minute consultation, it can be very, very hard to do the work of, say, a clinical animal behaviourist.
So in my job I'm lucky in that I get the luxury of 2 to 3 hours for my first consultation and then I follow up with a couple more hour long sessions so that we can really unpeel the layer of those onions, and that can feel like a lot of pressure. And so really we're thinking about what can we do right now, but remembering that there's so much in terms of internal and external factors that go into behaviours, so the physical health or illness, and that can include wellness versus unwellness and just things like appetitive behaviours, circadian rhythms, reproductive status, genetics, hereditary, the sensory ability of that patient, and that again will Really be influenced by their life stage as well or individual factors, the experience and learning of that individual, and that starts in utero. We need to remember epigenetics as well are very important there whether you're dealing with a domesticated species or not, what's normal for that species, what are their breed specific behaviours and species specific behaviours, their emotional and cognitive health and lives.
And this is all the internal stuff that we can't even see, but we know it's going on. And then externally we're thinking about the social and physical environment and what that animal is being exposed to sort of generally and specifically stressors, weather, temperature, whether they have autonomy, there's so much to it. And we know that each of these factors will be uniquely combining in any individual at a given moment and that behaviour is dynamic and it is going to be changing depending on life stage, depending on what they're exposed to, depending on learning, and that can be a really daunting thing to think about when you're asked that quick behaviour question.
But thinking about the preventative healthcare and the triage and first response, understanding this in the background is really key to welfare, but it doesn't mean that you need to dive in too deeply for the purposes of what we're doing here today. Our job when we're asked that bombshell behaviour question and our heads in all sorts of different other places and we weren't expecting it and we didn't know it was, we didn't know the client was having a problem and now they're desperate, is to really think about putting the fire out. Our job is not to investigate what caused the fire or even to demolish and rebuild the house when it's all done and look into the planning permission if we want to take this analogy to the whole, you know, nth degree or find out if there was an arson.
We don't need to do any of that stuff in terms of first aid and triage. Yes, behaviour clinicians like myself and my colleagues, we do all of that. We, you know, that's something that we do in great detail.
But for folks in practise juggling all the plates and trying to, or sorry, spinning all the plates, juggling all the balls, really what we're thinking about here today in terms of what we're, what we're focusing on is how do we just put the fire out right now? How do we keep everybody safe? How do we stop it spreading, if you know what I mean.
So first response really is about triage and helping clients right now. So we want to think about, can we predict and prevent the problem. We'll talk about this in a bit more detail in a minute.
Can we manage safety and welfare for all humans and animals involved? Can we prevent unwanted learning or further learning? So this could be sensitization, which causes an anxious patient to feel even more anxious and have a worse quality of life, or it could be that, you know, we're allowing reinforcement for something which is dangerous and, you know, puts everybody in a very difficult situation.
We're also looking at preserving the human animal bond, knowing that rehoming and even euthanasia happens very commonly for behaviour problems, and it's one of behaviour problems are one of the most significant reasons that animals will be rehomed or even euthanized, particularly younger animals. So we really want to think about preserving that human animal bond for the patient, for the client, but also for ourselves because if that Human animal bond breaks. We've lost that client.
We've lost access to that patient. We can't help them. We've lost the client, so it matters to us from a financial perspective if you want to break it down that far.
So we're really thinking about trying to stop everything in its tracks and just hold it off until we can dive deeper if we need to. We want to remember that by the time clients tell us that there's a problem or come to us seeking help, for us it's the first time we've heard of it, but for them they may be significantly distressed. It may have been going on for a really long time.
They may even be grieving because the pet, the pet that they loved is no longer that pet. Or that young gorgeous animal that they've adopted and they had dreams of a wonderful long happy life together is not, and it's sort of grief for what never could have been if you know what I mean. They may already be at sort of at the end point and we'll come to that a little bit later, and they may be grieving for the decisions that they're on the verge of making.
So our clients may be very stressed at the same time as dealing with a patient with a behaviour concern. It can be really easy in these situations to try and get sucked into that story or that narrative that the client is giving you, and part of our job is we're scientists, we want to stick to the facts, ma'am. And we want to try really hard not to get dragged into what my my mentor Susan Friedman always called explanatory fictions.
That's not going to serve us. It's not going to serve the patient. It's not going to serve the client.
So we want to really think about what's happening, what does it look like, how do we prevent it? What can I do right now to help you? So yes, empathise, yes, be on the client's team, absolutely.
But let's try really hard to stick to what we see in front of us and also maybe change the client's perceptions, which we'll come back to again. And part of this can involve managing their expectations, so we can't necessarily fix everything today. There may not be a fix even if we send you to a specialist, but you know, this is what you can expect.
We can try to do today together. But also, you know, we know that social media or God bless Walt Disney, there are expectations of the human animal bond and the life that we live with animals which are not realistic. They're not necessarily going to be applicable to every animal in every situation.
Not everything works out as we want, and not everything works out as it does for everybody else, and relationships can be hard, and that includes our relationships with animals. So a lot of what we can do is empathise and manage expectations and, you know, try to really help clients understand that if you have a square peg of an animal, let's not try and hammer it into a round hole. Let's try and create a square hole for your animal so that they can live a good life in your care, at least temporarily.
So we're really thinking about how we communicate with the client to keep them on our team, to make sure that they are still with us and that we're still relevant in, you know, what, where they're seeking help, but also, you know, directing them in the right direction if you like. So when we're thinking about behavioural first aid, we need to remember, as I've already mentioned, that physical and mental health are part of health. They're part of preventative health and they're part of remedial care for health.
We cannot have one without the other, and Sarah Heath always talks about this health triad where she talks about The importance of giving equal consideration to physical, emotional, and cognitive health. We cannot consider one without the other. We cannot treat one without the other.
I work a lot with iCA care, and we talk about giving equal importance to physical and mental health in cats and always seeing and caring for both at the same time. So we want to remember. That that has to happen at the baseline of everything that we do and it's very important when we're looking at behaviour problems as well to think about well it goes both ways.
So sometimes we have a behaviour problem that relates to a physical health, cause sometimes it's a cause, sometimes it's an influencing factor. And the amount of cases that I get sent in my role as a clinical animal behaviourist that have a physical component is a lot, a lot. In many cases it's pain, sometimes it's gastrointestinal, sometimes it's dermatological.
They're probably the most common ones I see. I regularly see neurological issues, and sometimes I'm sent cases which aren't even behavioural at all, and we treat the underlying medical cause and all of a sudden we don't have a behaviour problem. So the first and most important thing, whilst always keeping mental health in our minds is looking at physical health and diagnosing and treating any medical concerns that we can.
And this can seem daunting because when you're presented with a behaviour case, you may think, well, where do I even start? So there are some lovely, really high quality free resources which have all come out over the last couple of years, and I would say the first one that all of us, everybody involved in working with animals should read and have by their bedside table and in their desk is this one from Animals, which is pain and problems. Behaviours in Cats and Dogs, which was a multi-author, paper that came out in 2020.
It's a game changer. We all need to be very familiar with this and understand that physical and mental health are very closely correlated and pain is frequently a cause, but animals rarely tell us it hurts here and this is why I'm biting people, and oftentimes it can be super subtle and cranking joints to see how much something hurts or pressing on a spine. Is not going to tell us anything.
So very often a physical exam for pain in a in a clinical setting like a consulting room is absolutely meaningless. We'll get false positives, we'll get false negatives. So very often things like videoing and behaviour diaries can be super useful for this.
And also imaging sometimes you might see something physically. Abnormal on X-rays, for example, but it doesn't tell you what the animal's experience is. So even imaging isn't necessarily the most useful way to determine what's going on in terms of pain and behaviour.
Sometimes it is those behaviour changes or those movement changes that we can see when they're in their own environment. So I'm a huge fan of videos and behaviour diaries. Considering the physical and the mental stuff and the behaviour diaries, there's a really nice article that came out by Daniel Mills and Kevin McPete recently.
I want to say it was in the vet record, free to access, which is the types of behaviour or the types of veterinary assessments that we should do from a medical perspective when we're faced with a behaviour case and perhaps in advance of referring it to a behaviour clinician, and that's really helpful, very practical, and you can access that online. The other one that's recently come out, which I think is really helpful for us, is this one by Lisa Reddoster. I can never say her name properly, Red Dota, and this talks about behaviour changes associated with metabolic disease in cats and dogs, and again it's a bit of an eye opener.
So these are really useful, free to access, easy to read resources which you can start with when you're presented with a case and you think, well, I don't even know where to start. But what we really want to ask ourselves is, can we rule in or out anything which is potentially a physical cause? Sometimes we can't, and that's OK.
But we're asking, is there a reason for pain? Is there a reason for itch? Is there a reason for urinary or gastrointestinal or neurological issues?
Has there been previous physical trauma? Sometimes we don't know, especially a lot of these European rescue dogs that come over, they may have been hit by cars. We don't even know.
We don't know what's happened in their first few years of life, and that could be for any rescue dogs or cats, but it tends to be quite common in these animals that have lived free on the street and been rescued. We might never ever know. Are there any sensory problems, you know, what's the animal's life stage?
Is there anything there that could be making an issue? So it could be an older animal that's going a little bit hard of hearing, and we might think that's a great thing if they're noise sensitive, but it may be that they then only hear the scary noise when it's really intense because they missed the preamble to it, couldn't use their behaviour to escape, and all of a sudden they're faced with this like really, really scary thing that's happening and they didn't see it coming, . Again, I see a lot of cats with stress-related cystitis or FIC as we might call it that again, I always think of that as a behavioural condition with medical symptoms or signs.
So there's so much that might be overt and obvious, but again, are we referring these cats every time for a behaviourist? Maybe we should because it's a, it's, you know, we need to look at both sides of that. We want to think about a minimum of a physical exam, but knowing that that isn't necessarily going to give us all of our answers.
And also sometimes in cases which have behaviour problems, it's not possible to do a physical exam. It's not safe and it's not OK for welfare, so we kind of have to guesstimate sometimes. But again, this is where videos and diaries can be really helpful.
In some cases we might want to do a minimum database of things like bloods and urine and maybe some other kind of imaging, and that will be at the discretion of you as a veterinary surgeon and the veterinary team. Then we ask ourselves, well, did we find something and can it be treated? Sometimes we don't find anything, but we do maybe sort of trial treatments.
So in some cases we might do trial analgesia. That can be a really nice way of diagnosing pain because if we suddenly don't have a behaviour problem, hm, that's interesting. And again, if we're using things like analgesic trials, we will generally do multimodal and for a couple of months because of the sensitization and the learned history of having pain, you know, 2 weeks on an NSAID isn't going to tell you whether this is a pain-related issue.
We need multimodal protracted analgesic trials. And sometimes that's really helpful. Sometimes there's something over that we can treat like the hyperthyroid cat that's aggressing towards everybody in the family.
We get that cat on, you know, the appropriate treatment and all of a sudden there's no problem. They're not attacking people over food, etc. Etc.
So sometimes there's a very obvious cause that we can treat and it instantly solves the problem. Other times it doesn't. It, it maybe mitigates the problem, but we've got a learning history and maybe it's a patient that already had anxiety or already had a behaviour problem and now they've got a medical problem.
So sometimes it would be lovely if we can give the magic pills, solve the problem, everything's disco. But back down here on planet Earth, in reality, we want to do the basics in the beginning and then get your referral underway because actually very commonly we're co-managing cases. So you've got the veterinary team doing their piece from the physical health, and then you've got your behaviour clinician doing their piece from the behavioural health side and very often the two go hand in hand.
So often it's that one can't resolve it without the other, and often the collaborative approach is so much better than the sum of the two halves. And even if we can treat something medically while we're waiting for that behaviour referral, we want to think about what can we do to remove pressure or stress from the patient and how can we prevent problems from occurring, and that can get going at the same time as any medical treatment and also how do we prevent unwanted learning. But generally things like behaviour modification programmes are not part of what we need to do as first aid, and we generally aren't going to get those going during initial treatment and certainly during trial treatments and diagnostics.
We really just think about prevention and management in the initial phase. And then if we do manage to treat something and it gets better, and we're waiting for referral or we're considering referral, you know, what are we left with? So.
Are we left with an animal that's really much more comfortable after a month of analgesic trial, but there's maybe another month to go before we know for sure, but they've learned how to keep their people away from them when they're feeling insecure by use of protective behaviours like biting and growling and lunging. That definitely could have a behaviourist input to help with the emotional and cognitive piece of the problem, even though the physical medical stuff is working. Maybe none of our treatments have made any difference at all, in which case we might say, well, it's definitely not physical, it could still be.
We definitely need to get them referred because, you know, we think it's purely behavioural. In my experience, that's less likely, but you never know. And then very often we've got ongoing medical and behavioural treatment going together and they dovetail.
So we consider medical health, we rule that in or out as best we can and we may collaborate with a behaviour clinician. But let's perhaps go back a step or two and first of all ask ourselves, is this problem that the client is coming to us with normal? Is it adaptive?
And very many of the concerns that we're faced with are commonly normal, or at least ish. It's the animal doing what's normal for them and what works for them and what is adaptive in the environment they're being kept in, and that can be great because it means that we just need to meet their needs and then everything will be better and or sometimes just reassure the client this is normal, it's OK. So some of the really common things that we see, particularly with the youngsters, and youngsters are the ones that very often are, you know, brought to us with, With concerns of things like nipping and jumping up and chewing and destruction, you know, a lot of that is normal and just getting some good prevention in place can be very helpful.
So we might just say, well, you know, if he's nipping at your hands and your feet and your clothing whenever you interact with him, let's predict that and prevent it. So let's think about before you open that crate or before you open that door and walk in there, have a handful of really high value treats that you throw on the floor to distract. The dog before they're jumping on you or ragging off your clothes or have a really long attractive floppy toy or a toy on a rope or a wand toy if it's a kitten that you can throw out into their space before they get into your space so that before they're in your space and doing all the things you don't want them to do, they're actively engaged in an appropriate way, doing the same behaviour but in a legal way.
Standing still, not making a fuss, not doing the ek, which, you know, people were back in the day told to shriek and walk away. All that does is make you exciting or it could be punishing if you have a really sensitive dog or cat. So we want to be really careful that we stand still and we predict and prevent rather than react.
But many, many of the issues that we have are normal. And yes, some of the toys, some of the issues that I deal with are abnormal or they're maladaptive or they're what we call clinical. So there is a change in behaviour perhaps in an adult animal or it does involve a medical condition or there are emotional things, all of the things that we talked about before.
But much toileting behaviour that clients have a problem with is a lack of training or a lack of the right opportunity, and that can be normal. So again, finding that out is really important. You know, making it clear that dogs looking after their stuff is normal, but when it comes to the use of, protective behaviours or repulsion behaviours, biting, lunging, growling.
You know, that's something which we may consider it normal, but it's not safe, and we want to get on top of that. And if it's too much, then of course it's a welfare problem for the animal. So you know we move it out of the normal category.
But again, just educating people, don't annoy your dog when they're eating. Don't take their toys away from them. Don't be doing the stand in their beds so they know who's boss thing.
All of that is going to cause a problem. And so, you know, again we want to be really clear on what's normal and what we can do easily to prevent through good education. And if they come to us with, you know, my dog's counter surfing and constantly stealing food and my cat keeps nicking the cheese whenever I cut it up for the sandwiches, that's a really quick fix, right?
Just Don't have them in the room. Close the kitchen door. Put the bin in the cupboard.
But of course, you know, some of those things, the expectation is too high on the animal. They're expected not to do the things that humans don't want them to do, but actually they're just doing what comes naturally to them. So sometimes helping them now can be really straightforward, you know, and again, oftentimes you'll get nighttime activity.
Cats waking everybody up, whizzing around as the springtime comes. That's a normal behaviour. It's very annoying and it's not an easy one to get a, get the fix on because, you know, clients are generally going to inadvertently reinforce that in the middle of the night or they're going to punish it by knocking the cat out, causing frustration and making things worse.
So that is a more tricky one, even though it's normal. And again, barking is often cited as a problem, but barking is talking. What do you mean by that?
What what are the contexts? When do you see it? It could be fear.
It could be frustration. It could be boredom. It could be learned.
It could be social. It could be loneliness. There's so many things there, so that could be normal.
It could be problematic. And so again, finding these things out and giving good advice, and if it's a simple thing like, you know, every time my dog's lying on the back. The sofa, he's watching out the window and barking at roller skaters going by.
That's a pretty easy fix again. That's just move the sofa away from the window, put some window film on to stop them watching, and make him a nice quiet place to sleep. So we want to look at is it normal?
Is it abnormal? Can we fix it with really straightforward advice and or even if it is normal, sometimes it's too difficult, or is it veering into something that is less adaptive or less safe? So we want to ask questions, but not too many.
We're aware that you have 10 to 15 minutes of 20 if you're lucky in a consultation. And so the temptation can get into to be to get into a behavioural history. That's going to take up all your time and it's not going to leave you with any room for advice.
So you know, I always teach my students a behavioural history is not a first aid measure. That's something we dive into later if necessary. So find out enough about this patient to give you useful information, but you don't need to know, you know, what colour their favourite toy is and where it lives overnight and all of this stuff.
So there are some things which are going to be useful for you to know for the for the thing in question. But there are other things which you don't need to know for first aid. So we really want to think again about triaging of the information that you are gaining and how that's going to help you, but history taking is not first aid.
The other thing I want to caution against is not getting too enthusiastic with the old history taking and wearing out goodwill, because if and when you refer them to a clinical animal behaviourist, we are going to give them a form that's probably going to take them 4 hours to complete. So if we've already worn out goodwill for that, it can be. Very difficult for the client to then come to terms with having to really fill out a form.
So think about what's useful rather than wasting too much time asking lots of questions which aren't going to give you answers that you can do anything about. So we'll come down to in a minute what you should be asking and what might be helpful for you. So useful things to ask about include husbandry and welfare needs for that species, for example, and we are very good at that as veterinary professionals, you know, what's this guinea pig's housing look like?
Does he have any company? What do you feed him? Does he have any enrichment?
Where is the thing located? And you know, if it's a single guinea pig living in the middle of a busy kitchen with a space the size of a shoebox and no mental stimulation, that's gonna be something which is pretty obvious to us that there's going to be a behaviour problem and that's Something that we can give clear advice on. So again, we can just find out what does the animal need?
Does the caregiver understand this and what do we do to fix it? And can we provide those needs and oftentimes there's your fix. So questions about that, really helpful.
And thinking about their physical comfort, their ability to retreat and rest, can they sleep enough, you know, this is absolutely huge, particularly, you know, as I say, most species of dogs and cats largely a behaviorally healthy dog should be sleeping between 16 and 18 hours out of 24. Cats should probably be sleeping for about 18 hours out of 24. Is there a facility for that to happen and how much are they sleeping, and could that be impacting what, you know, what's going on?
Do they have outlets for normal behaviour? You know, can this guinea pig be a guinea pig? Thinking about in the wild, they would be living in large groups and they would be potentially travelling kilometres per day, mooching about being very, very social, foraging, grazing, .
And hiding and following each other about, that's not going to happen in a shoebox if you live by yourself. So is there anything that we is preventing normal behaviour from happening and how could we either address that or simulate something that would make it better for them, even if we can't address living in, you know, the high plains and the Andes with 24 guinea pigs? What could we do that would simulate some form of success for that animal?
And then really honing in getting our little focus in on what facilitates or triggers or allows the problem behaviour to happen. So this is where we can really ask useful questions. So what are the contexts that it happens in?
Who are the people that it happens around? Does it happen indoors, outdoors, you know, and really try and pin that down. If it's something simple like counter surfing, it only happens in the kitchen when we're making dinner, really straightforward first aid fix there, right?
And we want to think about preventing the animal from having access to the problem context. It's my dog is always aggressing other dogs. When we're out on walks, runs towards them, barking, lunging, snapping, jumps on them, bites them.
Again, super simple first aid advice there, make sure the dog is always on a well fitting harness that's very secure. Make sure they are never off lead in a public space, and walk in quiet, enclosed locations until you've had a chance to speak to the behaviourist. So again, we're always preserving welfare.
We're always looking at risk and mitigating risk and legal liability. You know, all of this kind of stuff we're looking at what facilitates it. My cat scratches me every time I pick her up.
OK, well, don't pick her up. Don't approach her. Don't look her in the eye, don't wind her up.
Don't instigate interactions. Just leave her alone, give her a safe place. So we're really thinking about what are the specific problems that are allowing issues to happen and how can we mitigate those or prevent them.
And we also want to be thinking about not just the physical environment, but the social environment, and this could include other animals, but very commonly includes how humans are interacting with the animal. So you know, every time I pick my cat up, she scratches me on my face and I smack her and she knows she's getting it wrong. Mm, I wonder why that cat is feeling like they need to smack and swipe and try to get away from the human because they're being punished every time they interact with them and they use their behaviour to try and feel better.
So the human interaction is making this so much worse through picking the cat up and then disciplining the cat. So again, we can really make sure that no punishment is being used, make sure that human behaviour is respectful and considerate of what the animal needs, and again, really just honing in. What we call our ABCs of behaviour, so the A being the antecedent, what happens in advance of the problem behaviour, and that's really the big piece that we need for first aid.
And then the behaviour is what exactly does the behaviour look like. So if the client tells you, oh, he just goes mad, that doesn't tell you anything at all. It doesn't look, you know, specific.
You can't, you know, what going mad looks like in one animal might look completely. Different in another animal and whoever's telling you might have a different version of what that looks like. So really pin it down.
What do you see? He stands still, we get a hard stare. His whiskers go forward on his muzzle, his mouth is very tight shut.
He leans forward, and then he lunges. That's really specific. When does that happen?
Whenever I'm close to another dog and they're walking towards us on the pavement. Cool. Now.
We know what the problem is now we know how to prevent it. Don't be on pavements with your dog where there's lots of other people walking about. Choose quiet places and don't get involved in that.
So you know, let's think about trying to pin it down. The C of the ABC is about the consequences, and that's something really which is looked at far more in behaviour modification. So it's not something that we really need to worry too much about in behavioural first aid.
Our remit really is what's the problem, what allows it to happen, prevent it. So again, when we're thinking about prevention, we're wanting to avoid the problem situations and preserve welfare, safety, prevent unwanted learning and possibly be thinking about legal and liability risk as well, particularly in the case of dogs. And so we want to think about what I call the three P's predict, prevent, positively redirect.
And so here's an example of this and remember that prevention takes from the animals, so we need Be sure to replace, to prevent anxiety or frustration or arousal. So here, this is a picture of my sofa and I adopted a cat, adult cat, very quickly I realised, oh, hang on a minute, my couch is going to become a scratching post and I don't want that to happen. So I thought about what do I need to do?
I predicted this is a cat and she will scratch. I prevented through covering the soft furnishings that I didn't want to be scratched, but that in itself isn't enough. It's going to cause frustration.
So I sprayed with Fairyway Classic spray to say feel free to mark here, but please do so with your face, not your claws. And I provided a scratching substrate right in the pathway of where she'd shown a preference for going really, really quickly. So We're really thinking here about prevention is not enough.
We need to provide an outlet for that behaviour and a meaningful one for the client. Sorry for the patient. So we want to prevent problem situations and contexts and facilitators.
It's always the first step in a behaviour modification programme, so the behaviourist is going to get that going first thing. But in practise as veterinary professionals, that's our first step. We can get that started while we're waiting for referral if necessary, remembering that all behaviour is for a reason for animals.
So if we Preventing access to a problematic situation or we're preventing a problem from happening. Remember that in itself is not good enough. So shutting the cat or the dog out of the kitchen because they're counter surfing is going to cause frustration.
It's not going to meet their needs. It's going to take something away from that animal that was valuable to them, that they were doing for a reason. So we always want to try and think about can we have a positive alternative.
So rather than just shutting them out of the kitchen, we give them a sprinkle bomb of food, a treasure hunt, a snuffle mat so that their needs are being met in a different way. They're in the kitchen looking for food, looking for social interactions, looking for fun. We shut them out of the kitchen with food and fun, and they're not feeling like they've got the worst end of the deal.
So we need to make sure that we're reducing pressure and distress, particularly for patients where we've got an anxiety or a frustration or a dangerous situation, but we also want to remember that prevention in itself isn't enough. We need to swap that so that dog that can't be running around loose attacking other dogs on the common, take them to a secure field where you can pay for an hour and they can have the whole place to themselves. So you've got the positive bit as well.
Brainstorm with caregivers how they might get to that because some will have a problem for every solution and all you can do is give them basically a sort of a recipe of what they should be trying to do, then ask them how do you think you can make that work, you know, so we want to prevent them from doing the thing you don't want them to. We want to swap it for something that is OK for them to do. Here are some suggestions.
And the client will then I find it's much better to offer them the options is to say how do you think you could make that work. So we're really including them and we're really bringing their ideas into it, helping them feel like they're part of the solution. So we're preventing and we're replacing with something positive.
So if we said to the client, you know, he's never to be off lead in a public place because public safety or other dog safety is at high risk. You know, and he must wear a muzzle, all of this stuff. What's the, what, you know, and then say to the client, but of course we don't want to take away all the good things.
What do you think he could do instead? There are all these wonderful dog meadows around. Do you have any of those local to you?
And they might say, Do you know what, my friend has a field. I could ask if I could borrow it. And so they're becoming part of the solution.
They're becoming part of the team that is helping to fix things rather than us dishing out things that are unachievable for them. So some common examples that I see in my work are separation related problems. So we might want to think about in that situation in the very short term.
Can we prevent that animal from being left? So that's our preventative bit. And if not, can we mitigate it with anxiolytic medications in the very short term to manage the situation if they absolutely have to be left?
But could we think about a pet sitter? Could we think about them going to a different place like coming to work or going to A friend's house while the owner's at work. If it's interspecies reactivity, so I don't know, we have cat to cat conflict, can we create two separate territories within the home and keep those cats completely separate until we can get to the problem behaviour and and really work out, you know, how we, how we fix this, or if it's dogs that are, you know, as we said, out on a walk or whatever, on lead, don't walk in busy places.
So we're thinking about what is going to prevent the problem from happening. Ingestive stuff, so animals are eating things they shouldn't. We've already mentioned the counter surfing, but also, you know, if you've got a dog that eats stones and has to have multiple ex laps to get those out, positive muzzle training and stay away from gravel or whatever it is, you know, so there may be a behaviour solution, but in the first aid situation that's not what we're thinking about.
Fears and anxieties again, we want to see, can we identify what those are? So fireworks, loud bangs, pretty straightforward. Can we avoid them if possible?
So get out, get in your car and drive out into the countryside if you live in an urban area, send your dog to stay with somebody in the country who they love during firework season. That's not possible. OK, how about we mitigate with medication in the short term and then we work on a be mod protocol later down the line.
Or you know, the dog's afraid of the microwave. Put the microwave out in the utility room where the dog can't hear it and, you know, warn everybody not to let the dog within two rooms of the microwave until we can work on something that will help the dog more permanently. Again, human directed aggression, don't engage the animal, don't instigate interactions, don't talk to them, Don't touch them.
You know, just make sure that the humans are putting the animal in the right and making sure that the right safety protocols are in place, so the dog is on a tether when everybody's in the sitting room moving around. The dog is never left alone with children. The dog wears learns to wear a muzzle really positively.
All of these are first aid. And things like predation again, you've got that greyhound that chases all the neighbourhood cats. It's not OK for that to happen.
So long line, lovely places where they can go to walk, that they can be away from where cats are, muzzle if necessary, but let's not put them in the position where they have to be muzzled but wanting to chase the cat, . And, and so on and so on and so on, you know, there are loads of different examples. Territoriality, this tends to be a thing that we see a lot with cats, making sure the resources are right, making sure they've all got enough space, food or possession related aggression.
And when I use the word aggression, I mean this is a quick talk and I don't have a lot of time to dive into this, but I'm using this as a shorthand term. So aggression is really a communication signal or a constellation of behaviours aimed at communicating. Really, I want that or I don't want you near that or I'm trying to protect myself.
So it's a constellation of behaviours which looks different in different animals and so we don't want to get into the habit of labelling animals as aggressive or, you know, it doesn't describe an animal, it doesn't describe temperament, it doesn't describe behaviour, . But you know, again, if you have an animal who's using protective behaviours around food or toys, leave them alone to eat, put them in a different room where they can be quiet. Never challenge them.
Ask them out of that room before you pick the food bowl up. All of these things are preventative. These are the kind of things we want to be thinking about for first aid.
And again, being careful we don't get into those explanatory fictions or slapping labels on things, so separation related problems or separation related behaviours as we now call them. Used to be labelled as separation anxiety. We don't call it that anymore because maybe it's not anxiety, maybe it's frustration, maybe it's a combination of frustration and anxiety.
Maybe it's boredom, maybe it's a lack of training. Maybe it's a medical problem. So let's be careful with labelling and making behavioural diagnoses if we don't have all the information and we're not in a place to do so.
So that's something to think about. In many cases, many of the cases I see, it's a lack of sleep and it's overstimulation, and I'm seeing this in bucket loads since the pandemic. So again, can we facilitate that animal to sleep and rest?
Can we encourage people to just leave them alone and let them just be calm and let sleeping dogs lie? Can we move away from these labels such as aggression and actually pin down what exactly do we mean? What does it look like, when does it happen?
So we're thinking about prediction and prevention, but we're also thinking about the depth of the sink, to use Sarah Heath's wonderful analogy, and I give entire credit to her for this. And she talks about the animal's emotional sync being their sort of emotional capacity or their emotional resilience, and that is individual and it will be related to genetics and epigenetics. It will be related to early life learning and experience as As the animal sort of develops and grows, it will be related to their physical and mental health in general and to their temperament.
So how big the animal's sink is depends, but we want to make sure that if that sink is full, whether it's a big sink or a little sink, that the first thing we do is turn the taps off. And this is particularly true for our overstimulated animals or animals which are, you know, constantly being exposed to problematic situations. You know, if you've got a sink that's overflowing.
You don't stick your hand in to pull the plug out because that's going to increase the water level and you're going to get even more water on the floor. You're thinking about turn the taps off first. That's the most important thing to do, stop any more water getting into the sink.
And water can be hot or cold, so the hot stuff might be anxiety or exposure to things which are causing fear. It could be vet visits. It could be, you know.
Being attacked by another dog. These are all hot tap things which are awful, and yes, we want to prevent those, but there are also cold tap things which can be the kind of good stuff, and they can, you can have too much of a good thing. So taking dogs everywhere, everywhere, they have to be our constant companions, lifestyle dogs.
It's really tricky on these dogs. They're not getting enough room to rest and to chill and to just do nothing. So just because it's so-called good stuff, doesn't mean the tap should be on all the time and maybe the tap shouldn't even be dripping.
So we really want to think about this, and I see it a lot when we have a really overstimulated dog, perhaps a working breed, and somebody in their wisdom has recommended agility. That's not what this dog needs. This dog needs to learn to sleep and not do something super high energy and very frustrating that may not be taught well.
Maybe that might be part of a BMO protocol later down the line, but first we need to turn the taps off. So this is a really, really important thing to remember. But that we need to identify and stop whatever's going on, but also stop any dripping taps.
So really think about anything that could be causing stress or distress or arousal. And then later the behaviour professionals will pick up and do the sort of longer, longer term stuff if you know what I mean. And remember that those dripping taps can relate to so-called stress or stacking.
So it may not be that there's one big thing that's causing a problem. It may be that there's lots of little things, and this is a really nice infographic from the APBC where they're just looking at the specifics of a veterinary visit and that dog that bites you out of the blue or cat that scratches out of the blue, and we think, well, where did that come from? But there's an awful lot that was filling up the sink prior to actually getting to that situation.
So, you know, in a home where there's lots of children and they're all on school holidays and the dad's a metal worker and there's loads of noise and everybody works from home and they then take the dog on holiday. There's an awful lot going on there that is tricky and. Filling the sink.
So can we think of all the things that might empty the sink to help that dog calm down somewhat? And even if we can't remove the stressors completely, if we can get the sink as empty as we can, as much as we can, then that can be a really helpful thing. So again, thank you so much to Sarah Heath for that analogy, and I know there are various different versions of it like buckets and, you know, spoons and all that jazz, but we're really thinking about can we prevent what we don't want.
One of the most important things we've already touched on this a little bit, but I just wanted to dive a bit deeper on my species. I'm a cat behaviourist first and I love dogs too. I work with both of them, is meeting needs.
So what about cats? They've descended from a solitary survivalist. They're territorial.
They're selectively social, and they have What we call high frequency low intensity interactions. Humans can often do the absolute opposite. And so living in a human world can be pretty tricky for them, particularly if we suggest that they live with other cats or they live in an environment that is indoor only and it doesn't really suit that individual.
So this can be tough on them. There'll be individual factors that don't relate to Kaus but that are in the context of Katniss, such as the learning history of that individual, the genetics and heredity, and this goes for dogs as well, you know, the individual factors. So we want to make sure that we're meeting their needs in a species specific way.
So we've got ICA care's lovely five pillars where we look at making sure there's a safe place and somewhere to hide, making sure that all Resources are provided multiply and separated and that each cat has everything they need and multiply and separated, making sure that there are outlets for natural behaviour and play and predatory behaviour are very closely linked in cats. They need to be able to do both. Making sure that we've got positive and consistent human-ca interactions, and this goes across the species, all species we can apply this to.
And making sure that there are attention to the senses, and scent is considered in this infographic, but I think we should be thinking about all their senses. And this again goes to all of our species that live with humans, both domesticated and unomesticated. In general, their senses are far more acute than ours, and our homes are busy and loud and bright.
So can we create some spaces that work for that individual animal? So cat specific stuff, you know, are the litter trays right? Do they have a safe hiding place?
And this is fairly standard stuff for us to look at as veterinary professionals, but also if you don't have time and you can't, refer them off to the iC Cat Care website, and there are tonnes of fantastic resources on there. And again, full disclosure, I work very closely with them and proud to do so. So you know, send them off to those excellent resources so that they can find what they need and meet the cats' needs, and again, oftentimes that solves your problem.
Dogs and cats are really different, but they can coexist beautifully. But dogs, I think, are misunderstood a lot, and they're still falling victim to some really old fashioned ideas and advice, particularly now post pandemic, where there's a boom in population and a boom in unqualified trainers and behaviour professionals who are not regulated in any way and calling themselves experts, and we're sort of sadly reverting back to this idea of dogs needing to know who's boss, and I, you know, wouldn't it be lovely if we could move away from that. Dogs are socially obligate, the total opposite of cats.
They need us to be their best friends. They are collaborators. They are our best friends.
Let's be their best friends. So we need to be, I think, a little more a cat when it comes to dog in our awareness for what they need and looking after their senses and looking after their sensibilities and really respecting them and being considerate of them. We need to move away from this idea of dominance.
And also obedience. And if we have a behaviour problem, the last thing we want is to be trying to enforce obedience on an animal that is scared or having problems or overly aroused or frustrated. That's not the issue.
That's not relevant. We can come back to training later if that becomes a relevant thing, but for now, let's try and move away from all of this and counsel clients away from all of this. For cats and for dogs, let's teach about body language and behaviour and communication.
Let's get fluent in it ourselves. There are loads of resources. I don't have enough time to go through all the individual pieces of these, but you know, if we can actually listen to what our dogs and cats are telling us, we can prevent problems before they ever happen, and I think teaching about communication and body language is super valuable and again providing resources on this because sometimes it's just a culture clash or a misunderstanding.
Let's be as proactive as we can with client education and interactions, so if they tell us they're concerned about behaviour, let's take an active interest. We also know that they're going to get on the internet, so we can't keep them off it, but we can send them to good sources of information and making sure that they're getting reputable evidence-based, up to-date advice. And if we don't have time to talk them through all of that, we can signpost them correctly.
So international cat care, cats protection, dogs trust, fellowship of animal behaviour clinicians are all excellent sources of information. So you know, let's try and do our best to give them the right advice. Refer early.
Don't wait and see. Many clinical animal behaviourists will have a 2 to 4 month waiting list, so we don't want to wait for things to be at their absolute worst and for us to have tried a couple of bits and bobs, and it not really worked out and then refer them. So we want to get first aid in place, get the referral underway.
Make sure we've ruled in or out any medical things, analgesic trials, anything like that that you think are important, but our best chance of success and preservation of that human-animal bond is to move forward quickly and proactively and letting clients see that you care and you're taking it seriously and that you want this to work out well for them. Choose wisely. So you know, as mentioned, there's a rash of people calling themselves experts, but really we need to be careful that we're choosing appropriately qualified, experienced, and independently accredited professionals who are specifically accredited for their species.
So that would be a certificated clinical animal behaviourist from ASA or a veterinary behaviourist, and you'll be able to find those listed on the Fellowship of Animal behaviour clinicians. List as well as the ASA, CCAB or veterinary behaviour list. You can also see, the Animal behaviour and Training Council list of clinical animal behaviourists for behaviour problems or animal training instructors for training problems.
Avoid trying to diagnose and treat unless you are appropriately trained and qualified in clinical animal behaviour in cats or dogs, whatever your species is. So really let's just think about first aid, triage, let's stay within our lane. Remember the RCVS code of, you know, not going outside our area of competence because A, it's hard, and B, takes so much time, and C, it can be really hard to follow up on, and D.
You know, if we can only do so much, but then we need somebody else to pick up the rest of it, it's, you know, it's better if we can to work collaboratively. There's a lot to consider the medical and the physical health, and often it's multiple and interrelated. So teamwork really does make the dream work.
Working with a professional certificated clinical animal behaviourist or veterinary behaviourist should be collaborative and it should be enriching and it should benefit everybody involved. So we want to really think about this Geordie and not of the pet, the caregiver, behaviourists and trainers, the vet team, everybody working together with the pet at the centre of everything that we do and all of us working for the same interest and the same reason, which is welfare and safety and quality of life. We want to think about, whatever we do needs to be the least intrusive, most positive and minimally aversive intervention.
So whatever we're advising, we need to make sure that we're up to date, that we're not reaching for anything punitive, anything that might cause frustration or increased. Danger or arousal, nothing that's going to be detrimental to that human animal bond. So moving away from these ideas of telling animals off, showing them who's boss, and instead thinking about prevention with a positive redirection is is really what we want to be thinking about and addressing physical health.
Again, I think we've kind of touched on this already in terms of client education and creating empathy for the pet. But one of the big pieces that we can do is is busting myths and moving away from, we've already mentioned this idea of dominance in dogs and You know, dogs are not wolves. They're not trying to take over the world.
Let's help clients to understand that and make lives better for dogs. Also, you know, sometimes animals don't do things because they either don't want to, and why should they? They're not our slaves, or because they're scared to, or they've learned something else in that context.
So again, we want to be really careful that just because an animal doesn't do what we want them to doesn't mean they should, and maybe we should look at why. Cats are not sneaky. They're not aloof, they're not low maintenance.
They're not spiteful. They're doing cat stuff and we need to help clients understand that cat stuff is probably the reason that they're doing the things, and I would say the majority of behaviour cases that I work with cats is a lack of understanding of who cats are and what they need, and once we get that in place, we're all good to go. Animals don't time travel, so punishing them when you come home for something they did 5 hours ago, they can't mentally time travel to what it is that you think they've done wrong, and that would imply that they understand the rule structure for what you think they shouldn't have done, and then they remember doing it 5 hours prior.
You know, all of this is really important to help clients understand that animals are emotional, they're sentient, they're amoral, they're constantly learning and behaviour and communication matters, so they're doing what works for them. In an ideal world, we wouldn't need to do first aid because we would include behavioural health care for behaviour from the very, very beginning. And so if we think about one of our primary responsibilities as veterinary professionals, it's preventative medicine, preventative healthcare, and this should Apply across all disciplines, behaviour is no different.
And, and we know that an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. So please get talking about behaviour. Normalise it.
Have clients expect that we're going to ask about it, and then they won't come to us when it's really severe and they don't know what else to do. Help them select the right pets in the right homes at the right time for the right people, from the right source and avoid those terrible sources of pets that set them up for a lifetime of misery, . You know, and really have them think about the difference between domesticated animals which are, you know, set up to be in some way prepared to live with humans versus, you know, fancy pets which are non-domesticated and have been, you know, raised or imported in ways which are just don't even bear thinking about and they're not designed to be pets.
So, you know, we can do a lot through preventative behavioural health care to keep everybody in the right and you know, not have these terrible. Situations where we're presented with awful behaviour problems and also really thinking about the early life learning, you know, the right socialisation and habituation, gentle, positive, low key, peripheral, diverse within the coping ability of that animal, not a checklist that exposes them to everything whether they like it or not, no matter how aroused they are, no matter how they're coping with it, but really individualised, careful, . Socialisation and habituation which is appropriate for the species and the individual.
Get veterinary nurses involved. We are very often very interested in behaviour. We're great at communicating and listening and getting the whole story.
We're great at being that link in the chain that holds everything together, and nurses can consider to be like the case manager liaising with the vet, the behaviourist, the client, keeping it all the plates spinning with a case. They can prevent misunderstandings. They're really good at not overwhelming the client.
They give great instructions, you know, giving clear advice. And you know, it's really, it's a wonderful thing to get veterinary nurses involved in the management of cases, but again, always understanding limits and remit, staying within the RCBS code, you know, looking at what am I qualified to do, where should I stop, and again, Not trying things and hoping that they're going to work, but making sure that everything we do is evidence-based and knowing who to who to liaise with, you know, those appropriately qualified trainers and behaviourists, understanding those professional memberships and keeping that communication open between all the professions can be incredibly helpful. And again, just giving great advice on proactive preventative stuff from the beginning if we possibly can, like setting animals up to live well in our care and our crazy lifestyles that aren't necessarily made for animals.
So helping them to learn to be calm and relaxed and resting and busting boredom and you know, we expect our animals to be. The majority of the time and then take them out of the box when we want to play with them and we need to teach them how to do that and how to have good lives in our care. So teaching them to relax, teaching them to notice and not worry about things, train them, you know, to chill in various different types of contexts, including the veterinary environment, teaching them to be happily and self-sufficiently alone.
And to sleep. Lots of mental stimulation and outlets for normal behaviour, thinking about the modal action patterns of individual species, and you know they're designed, they're built to behave as Susan Friedman always says, animals are built to behave. So let's find ways to to let that happen in a species specific and individually appropriate way, how we use our food, how we use our exercise, how we use our interactions, and there's a lot more to be said about this, but I don't have time to dive in, .
Thinking about relationships, you know, keeping kids and animals safe together, particularly kids and dogs. We tend to think it's it's a hand in glove thing. And it isn't necessarily, you know, we need to make sure that everybody is safe and that interactions are appropriate and that they're always supervised, understanding body language, understanding that any animal can use protective behaviour if they don't feel safe and trying to find ways to have lovely hands off interactions.
So moving away from this top picture, which might be very cute on Instagram but entirely inappropriate, to more like these interactions with the chickens where it's much more hands off and everybody's got choice and control to interact. So there are lots of different ways that you can do that from playing Find It to toys on long strings to teaching waving rather than touching, hug a puppy, hug a stuffy, not a puppy, all those kind of things, backs of hands to touch, 5 2nd rule for touching, teaching calmness to kids around animals, and you know I've put dogs here, but any animals and some really great websites to take a look at are Family Paws, the Blue Dog Project, and Dog OnSafe. Also thinking about choice and control, the majority of our pets' lives are completely controlled by humans and the environment that we choose for them to live in and the animals and people that we choose for them to live around.
So even if we can't give them complete autonomy over their lives, and we probably can't for safety and practical and legal reasons, what can we do to simulate that? What can we do to give at least that illusion of choice and control and autonomy, you know, cats love to climb trees, dogs love to run in the open space. Let's try and find ways, even if we can't do that, to find a way to simulate it.
And you know, let's try and teach what's expected positively, facilitate human desired behaviours, but really what we want is for humans to get what they want from their animals as a side effect of animals needs being met. And thank you very, very much for being with us. I hope this has been helpful for you and helps you to feel confident and empowered when you are asked that question about what should I do about X behaviour.
And yeah, please do go forth and advocate for behavioural health. This is where you can find me, this is where you can contact me through my website and all my socials, and please feel free to join me there. Thanks.