Stress signals indicate a dog is not comfortable in his environment. You want to help a dog feel safe. And if he’s showing stress, he’s either trying to calm himself down or calm down a dog or animal near him. Either way the stress signal is a good sign for you to identify and realize the dog needs some assistance.
Causes of Stress
As you know from Canine Body Language, there are a wide range of reasons why dogs can become stressed. What might be stressful to one dog may not be stressful to another dog. Here are some common reasons a dog might become stressed.
- Being in a new place
- Over stimulated from too much noise
- Anxiety from being alone
- Unable to relax
- Even being hungry or thirsty can cause stress
- Need to eliminate without access to a potty area
- Pain and or illness
Impact of Stress
It’s important to identify stress in dogs because as stress increases, an animal’s tolerance decreases. The more stressed the dog becomes, the more fearful he is likely to be and the more willing he may be to show aggression. As a dog’s stress level increases, his body prepares to fight or flight. So, you want to help bring his stress level down.
We had heard story from a Doggie Daycare owner, where there had been a dog to dog incident in their small daycare group one day and their policy is for the supervisor to review the webcam video of every incident. When the supervisor reviewed the video, she immediately noticed the amount of hair surrounding the victim dog immediately after the incident. She realized the level of stress caused by the incident to this dog, and considered that in making the final decision to revoke the play privileges for the instigator dog. Stress is an important cue to use in keeping the dogs safe.
Stress Signals
There are numerous stress signals and whole books are dedicated to explaining all of them. You also learned several during Canine Body Language. Let’s look at the most common stress signals that you may see in an off-leash playgroup setting.
These are the list of the top 10 stress signals you’ll see in the group. You’ve seen photos of many of these before and as you begin to supervise the dogs you’ll get better at identifying all these signals during playgroup.
Stress signals are relatively easy to see once you know some of them. Here you can see an open mouth versus closed mouth in the photo on the left. A closed mouth is usually the first sign a dog displays when he starts to get worried. If you wait a second and he opens his mouth again, there’s no problem. But if their mouth remains closed and other stress signals start appearing, you should intervene to help the dog.
Changing in breathing patterns are also important to recognize. If a dog is breathing deep, shallow breaths and he hasn’t just exercised, it’s likely that he’s stressed.
Lip licking is another easy signal to see. Notice the tongue flick of the dog being chased in the photo on the left. It looks like the dog in the back has his tongue hanging out due to panting. But the dog in front has a closed mouth with a tongue flick due to being stressed. In the other photo the Beagle is trying to pretend that the Collie doesn’t exist by doing a look-away. Look-aways are an attempt to defuse some sort of stressful situation.
Both scratching and sniffing can be stress signals. These are obviously everyday behaviors that dogs do, so how do you tell the difference? Well, normally scratching and sniffing that is done as a result of stress will be a little out of context. For instance, a dog that suddenly stops to scratch after being told to stay or after meeting a new dog would indicate stress. In the picture on the right, the small brown
Shaking off is sort of a neurological reset for a dog. When they encounter something scary, they will shake themselves off, as if they had a bath as a way to say, “Whew! Glad, that’s over.” We do this ourselves. Think of the last time you had an argument with someone, you may have walked away and shook your head as if to say, “Wow, I can’t believe that just happened.” Yawning is another easy stress signal to identify in group play. If you see a dog yawning frequently, he may need a change in environment or a different playgroup.
Take a moment now and look at these photos. For each one, identify the stress signal you see in the dogs and we’ll go over the answers together.
Okay, let’s see how you did.
Starting with the top row of photos, with the two brown dogs laying down together the dog on the right is doing a look-away.
In the center top photo, the little Rottie mix puppy is showing half-moon eyes and has a change in breathing pattern.
In the top right photo with the Chihuahuas you can see a few stress signals. One dog has a closed mouth; the other dog has a half-moon eye and is starting to yawn.
Let’s look at the photos in row above.
On the left you have a brown mixed breed who is scratching.
In the center you have a bulldog and Cocker Spaniel. The bulldog is looking away in response to being barked at by the Cocker. There’s also a half-moon eye in the bulldog. And it’s also possible that the Cocker Spaniel’s barking is a stress vocalization.
On the right, in the bottom row, the last photo, you have another look-away and vocalization from the black dog.
Now we will watch a video to see a few of the common stress signals occurring as dogs are playing. Dog behavior is very fluid and it can be a challenge to learn to recognize stress signals when dogs are moving and playing. Slow motion video can sometimes help to train your eyes to see this behavior.
Response to Stress Signals
Good leaders are attentive to the subtle stress signals of dogs in play. As you noticed in several of the video clips, dogs were looking to staff leaders when they felt stressed and less able to cope. When dogs paw or jump on you, it can be a cry for hope. You want to have the dog’s back as a good leader. Assess each situation when you observe multiple stress signals or instances when dogs approach you for help. The steps you will take as a leader baby depending on each situation, the individual dog and the severity of the stress.
Responses can be:
- Recognition
- Assessment
- Intervention
- Proactive Management
How can we help manage the stress?
Now that you can identify some stress behaviors, how do you help alleviate them in the dogs? Here is K9 Club’s Guide to Managing Stress.
Identify the Cause
You have to identify the root cause of the stress and that will help you to understand which tool is the best to use. Common tools include exercise pens or crates to separate dogs. You also want to have areas where dogs can get away from the excitement and activity by going under a chair or a piece of playground equipment. Mental diversions can help some dogs, and using your leadership management tools such as obedience cues and games can help alleviate that stress. Finally, if your center allows use calming sprays which are holistic remedies that can be put on a dogs collar, in the mouth or sprayed in the air.
Let’s use an example. you have a dog in playgroup for the fist time and he’s jumping at the walls and gates. What should you do?
The jumping is most likely stress related behavior because the dog is anxious. You can try a calming spray such as Rescue Remedy, and begin working on obedience cues to distract the dog to call him away, or move him around by walking him on a leash. As you talk to the dog and build a relationship with him, most will settle down and their desire to escape will go away as they feel more safe and familiar.
What about the dog that is hiding underneath something?
If the dog is able to relax while hiding, you may want to leave him there for a few moments and see if he’ll come out on his own. However, if you notice more stress signals even after the dog has been hiding for a while, you can try to call the dog out, use a calming spray or change the playgroup to a more calm environment for that particular dog.
Here’s another example. You have dogs in daycare or playgroup and a thunderstorm is approaching. What should you do?
Thunderstorms can often affect dogs and you might see stress but not understand the cause. If there is no obvious sign in the daycare that is causing this stress, it’s likely that the approaching thunderstorm is creating some type of stress since some dogs are thunderstorm phobic. For these dogs you can try suing a Thundershirt, which is a tight fitting shirt that goes over the dogs and can sometimes help a dog feel more safe and secure.
You might also try using a calming spray, or try to distract the dog with games or other environment stimulation. Sometimes turning on a radio or a television set can help to calm the dog down and cover some of the sound.
Remember that as you begin to try different methods with different dogs you’re going to have to experiment to see which tool works best for each particular dog. Finding the right solution can often be a case of trial and error, but keep trying. If one thing doesn’t help, try another solution and see if that works.
Now let’s practice a few times and see how good you are at identifying stress signals in video.
Each video is going to play twice. As you watch, try to identify as many stress signals in the
dogs as possible. Write down your observations in your notebook and then write down an action
you would take to eliminate the stress in the dogs.
The Wheaten is barking in the face of the Labradoodle. This is rude behavior and the Labradoodle responds by looking away. He’s actually trying his best to ignore the Wheaten and pretends he doesn’t exist. The Labradoodle closes his mouth and he does a shake off. Now, to eliminate the stress of the Labradoodle you could walk in between the two dogs, remember this is splitting or to redirect the Wheaten. If the behavior continues, you may need to separate the two dogs into different playgroups.
After vocalization, there is sniffing from the dogs that barked. The other puppies close their
mouths and do look-aways. I would allow the dogs to continue to play but monitor their
interaction to make sure they play well together.
In this video you should have seen a closed mouth, look away and lip licking. Since both dogs
left on their own, I would just monitor them.
In this lesson you’ve learned to understand common stress signals during playgroups. Make sure you watch for signs of stress of all the dogs and use approved tools to help relieve the stress and create a happy, safe environment for the dogs.