Have you heard about trigger stacking? Also referred to as situation-stacking, where short-lived and individual experiences (good or bad), happen one after the other, in quick succession, without time for the dog to calm down in between. The best analogy for this is thinking of lighting a candle per experience, the more candles that get lit the more heat that is generated, aka more stress.
Combined experiences can push the dog over their threshold which means they could react in an uncontrolled and/or aggressive manner.
If you have an anxious dog, try and picture them and the world around them. What has happened to get them to that place where they no longer feel safe and potentially aggressive?
Let me tell you a story and this may help ……
Betty’s (human) alarm goes off early as she is due at the office for a very important meeting. Betty was up late worrying about her presentation, so she hadn’t slept well and was very tired, perhaps a little grumpy. Somatic empathy, remember that article I wrote about human emotion affecting your dog? This is how the day has started or rolled over from the previous day depending on how you look at it!
Barry, her beloved Cocker Spaniel, greets her enthusiastically waiting for their normal walk (1st candle lit), Betty is focused on her work and grabs the lead not coping with Barry’s normal bouncy self, shouts at Barry to put a lead on (2nd candle lit), they leave house. There is a huge excitement for any dog (candle 3). They cross the road, get beeped by a car (candle 4); get to the park, wow Barry’s favourite place (candle 5). Eek Betty is late and heads home. Barry has done his ‘business’ after all – no play, not much sniffing, no exploring, no letting off steam for Barry today (candle 6). They get home Betty changes and goes to work (candle 7). What do you think the anxiety level at this point (good or bad) is for Barry, high?
All that heat and no release! Now, add to the heat when the postman comes and rings the doorbell, refuse collectors are on their rounds – reversing alarms and clattering bins, its howling a gale outside and it thunders? Worse case scenarios right? No – everyday things can cause small bouts of anxiety but it’s the accumulation without release that’s the problem.
Betty comes home after the meeting and finds Barry panting heavily, shaking and drooling. He has destroyed the cushions in his bed & pulled all the fluff out, chewed furniture and scratched at the door.
But can you blame him?
He needed some sort of outlet for all that heat/stress! Does Betty shout do you think? What are Betty’s emotions at this point? How does this affect Barry? What do you think is happening to Barry’s candles now? How are his anxiety levels?
How do we blow those candles out and help our anxious dogs cope in these situations? Surprise surprise – look at last week’s article!!!! But the whole idea is – to ‘blow’ out those candles that affect your dog, one by one, to reduce the stimulation and allow the dog to calm down or not achieve that ‘burning level’ in the first place.
Eddie-Jane Eaton. Tellington TTouch® instructor wrote a great article about horses but as the byline states ‘this concept applies to all animals, including ourselves!’ Check out Shedding Candlelight on Resistance – Tellington TTouch Training Canada it’s a really interesting read. Tellington TTouch is another brilliant way of reducing stress and anxiety in our dogs and it is simple to do yourself. I attended training courses a few years back and used various techniques in some of my Clinical Canine Massage sessions.
Another great tool for reducing anxiety is Reiki and I use this regularly with not only my clients but on my LJ too. In conjunction with other tools I discussed in the previous article – we have a lot of ways to be able to help our companions.
The main thing to remember is, whilst it may not be possible to ‘blow’ out every candle, we may be able to help our dogs enough so they can cope and enable them to settle, breathe and make calmer choices.
Thank you for reading,
Namaste
Love Lou xx