The Bitey End of the Dog

Daniel Shaw CDBC

July 07, 2022 Michael Shikashio CDBC Season 3 Episode 8
The Bitey End of the Dog
Daniel Shaw CDBC
Show Notes Transcript

In this season, you might have noticed we’ve talked about systematic approaches to changing behavior several times, which is exciting for me to see happening as we can sometimes witness spaghetti on the wall approaches in dog training.
Daniel Shaw joins me for this episode of Fresh Bites on the Bitey End of the Dog for a wonderful chat around his systematic formulation approach to working with aggression in dogs. This can include principles such as CBT skills, systemic counseling principles, and psychodynamic principles. These might seem like fancy words, but Daniel does a fantastic job of breaking things down in an understandable way.

For additional resources on helping dogs with aggression, visit:
https://aggressivedog.com

If you want to take your knowledge and skills for helping dogs with aggression to the next level, check out the Aggression in Dogs Master Course and get a FREE preview here:
https://aggressivedog.thinkific.com/courses/aggression-in-dogs

Don't miss out on the third annual Aggression in Dogs Conference  9/30-10/2/22:
https://aggressivedog.com/conference/

Woof Cultr swag!
https://woofcultr.com/collections/the-aggression-in-dogs-conference


About Daniel:

Dog behaviour consultant certified with the IAABC. Trained with the Natural Animal Centre.

Interested in dog cognition, neurobiology and behaviour, formulation, philosophy and ethics in the dog behaviour world, and human behaviour change. 

https://animalbehaviourkent.co.uk/
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC1OXFnCQjItZ3w4YD3I0whA

Support the show
Michael Shikashio:

This season, you might have noticed we've talked about systematic approaches to changing behavior several times, which is exciting for me to see happening as we could sometimes see spaghetti on the wall approaches in dog training. Daniel Shaw joins me for this episode of fresh bites on the by the end of the dog for a wonderful chat around his systematic formulation approach to working with aggression in dogs. This can include principles such as CBT skills, systemic counseling principles, and some psychodynamic principles. These might seem like fancy words, but Daniel does a fantastic job of breaking things down in an understandable way. If you are enjoying the by the end of the dog, you can support the podcast by going to aggressive dog.com, where there are a variety of educational opportunities to learn more about helping dogs with aggression issues, including the upcoming aggression in dogs conference happening from September 30 Through October 2 2022. in Providence, Rhode Island with both in person and online options, you can learn more about the aggression in dogs master course, which is the most comprehensive course available anywhere in the world for learning how to work with and help dogs with aggression issues. Hey, everyone, I'm really excited for this episode, we're gonna geek out a little bit this week with Daniel Shaw, Daniel owns and runs animal behavior kits. He's a dog behavior consultant certified with the IW, ABC trained with the natural animal center. He's interested in dog cognition, neurobiology, and behavior, formulation, philosophy and ethics in the dog behavior world and human behavior change. He's working on his degree in psychology. So we're going to be talking a little bit about human psychology and the behavior of dogs that we work with. So welcome, Daniel. All right,

Unknown:

thank you. It's great to be here.

Michael Shikashio:

Yeah, so we're going to be talking about something called formulation. And that's maybe a forbidden word for some of the listeners coming in. And I will, I think one of the aspects that, especially for new trainers, or consultants, starting out is having a system in place that helps them navigate the process of assessing what's happening in sourcing in dog aggression cases, it's really important to determine all of the variables that can be impacting the dog's behavior. Because if we miss things, we might not be helping the animal as much as we can. And I know I don't know about you, but I know when I first started out, I'm like, oh, gosh, I'm gonna miss something or so I had this huge intake form, and all these ways of making sure that I canvass all the information. And even then I would miss things because I didn't have my own system in place. So I sort of developed my own kind of approach to assessing that, but you've got a really cool way of looking at that. So I want to jump in and, and hopefully, the listeners can get some of the value that you've got that you're gonna help us understand this more systematic approach that's got some roots in human psychology as well. So let's jump right in here and kind of define, you know, you were mentioning diagnostic and formulation. So for those of us that may not be aware of those terms, maybe you can expand a little further.

Unknown:

Yeah. So I think firstly, the technical definition for a formulation is basically just a summary of an animal's problems. So what is going on in that particular dog, and an explanation of how Firstly, they developed. So again, looking to things like maybe the animal's genetics, their development, their learning history, that ethology in terms of how that problem may have developed, and also how that problems maintained, which is, again, really important. So for example, in your case, as someone that deals with a lot of dogs that are maybe struggling with issues, such as aggression, what is causing that aggression to continue displaying in the dark? What is causing that aggression to continue being really reinforced or practiced in the dog's life?

Michael Shikashio:

Yeah, and it's, it's interesting, because there's a lot of different lenses in which we might approach assessing what's going on in the animal. So certainly, from a behavior standpoint, we might look at the antecedents and consequences, which is absolutely important during that functional assessment, and then understanding what's happening maybe from a distant antecedent standpoint, so the underlying medical conditions and things like that, but there's a lot of different lenses we need to understand. And so how do you approach that and combining a lot of those different frameworks and sciences to formulate these assessments?

Unknown:

Yeah, absolutely. So one of the key things about formulation is it provides us a way to kind of look, or provide us provides us with an overview for all those different potential lenses that you that we might be seeing things through. So for example, you've mentioned ABA assessment, right. And that's a really big part of kind of behavioral formulation. So that kind of formulation, where we look at an animal's behavior from very much a learning history standpoint, and very much in terms of whether there's been reinforcement of this behavior, whether there might have been punishment of this behavior. And as you know, all the other sort of more distant antecedents, as you say, that might be influencing that behavior. So that kind of comes into the behavioral standpoint, which again, in human psychology, we would mostly see that Under the kind of the big umbrella of cognitive behavioral psychology, so cognitive behavioral psychology for humans provides one way in which we can understand again, the development and maintenance of distressing humans. That's particularly looking at how development of human impacts their thoughts, their feelings, their emotions and behaviors in such a way that their presenting problem is either maintained, or, or initially developed as well.

Michael Shikashio:

Do you see parallels with what's happening in the canine cognition labs? And there's research in that aspect in parallels in what you were just talking about?

Unknown:

So yeah, absolutely. So in terms of the sort of work on canine cognition, the more we're starting to understand about canine cognition, the more we're going to be able to see whether actually, some future treatments for dog behavior problems might be looking really different than they are today. Because, for example, if we are using a cognitive behavioral formulation, so if we're looking at a dog's behavior from a way in which we're again, looking at the sort of the different cognitive and developmental and learning history aspects of a behavior is formed, we know with humans, a certain array of treatments tend to be really successful for resolving some of those and issues. But many of those certainly aren't applicable to dogs, that's absolutely fine. We can't modify thoughts in dogs, we can't, we can modify thoughts to certain extent that we can't modify sort of core beliefs in dogs and tackle thought processes in this way that we might do with humans. And we can't particularly looking at the way they deal with stress and the way they cope in the in the sort of cognitive sense that we do with humans. But actually, some training methods that we use with humans to help them actually gain a little bit better control of their thoughts might be applicable for dogs. And actually, we don't know whether they will be or not. So actually, another interesting aspect that you've kind of touched on with this formulation, sort of approach is actually if we are borrowing from something like CBT, and to create a formulation for our dogs, then it might indicate some new treatments that are useful for dogs in the future, as well. So to give you one example, that's occurred to me a few times is in something called meta cognitive therapy, and humans, they use something called attention training. And basically, that's just as simple as teaching a human to become get really, really good at attending to one thing, and nothing else. And that's really, really good for them in terms of controlling negative automatic thoughts that might be again, contributing to maintaining the distress they're experiencing or maintaining, if we're thinking of a dog, the fear they're experiencing. So if, again, we were to think of that in the context of a dog, that could be something that's potentially quite useful, because it might help them navigate their sort of visual and perceptual field, both externally and internally, away from potential threats.

Michael Shikashio:

Really interesting. I'm thinking about how I should get some of that therapy myself, my mind starts drifting off. But yes, can think of an example that we might use for a dog in a particular situation? Yeah, absolutely.

Unknown:

So I think probably best to start from the beginning, if we were taking a dog, and we were trying to formulate, okay, what is going on with this particular animal? So for example, if we were looking at dog and in your case, I know, you see, primarily dogs that are suffering from issues with aggression, would certainly look at the different aspects of development that might cause that issue. So again, the breed of that dog, whether that's going to obviously contribute to them potentially being more prone to those aggressive behaviors, again, the development of that dog will experience that that dog may have had during development. Obviously, hopefully, most of us have heard a little bit about the the effects of trauma on behavior as well, so that dogs experienced a trauma. So that's really, really important to understand all those aspects that might contribute, again, on a more distal level, to the dogs current issues, but then also the current environment. And in terms of what's going on, in the dogs, immediate circumstances. So whether that behavior is being reinforced by every time that dogs going out, it's maybe barking at a person having that fear response, and then that person goes away. So then there's a certain amount of reinforcement of that behavior, there's a practicing of the fear response as well. So it's just going to become much, much stronger every time that the dog performs that behavior. But then we can also think about what else might be perpetuating that behavior in terms of maybe thinking about the owners behavior, as well. So if the owner is maybe trying to respond by punishing that dog really heavily every time it does have that bad response, then again, that's going to potentially further exacerbate that problem, because the owner might think, Oh, my gosh, I've seen a person. That means that my owner is about to go mad at me. So we can think about all those different things that might be perpetuating the issue. And we can also think about it on again, a slightly wider scale in terms of the owner situation. For example, if you've got an owner that's very stressed, that can that only be a part of a formulation of what might be causing that distress for that dog. So if you've got an owner that's very stressed, that's maybe not coping too well with life, or not coping too well with things generally, then their patients with their dog might go down. So that's something we need to understand as a maintenance factor in distress, it's something that might cause that distress for that dog to be continued. So actually addressing that is very difficult in practice, but it is at least something we need to consider. So then in terms of looking at potentially treating the dog and potentially moving forward with that, hopefully, by creating, firstly, some sort of formulation, we are going to start seeing where solutions might be viable. So if we know for example, that the owner's responses are a problem for the dog, then we know that it's something we can very easily address, we can very easily say, actually, if your dog is in that situation, again, this is how you can respond. But also, we are probably going to be wanting to avoid putting the dog in that situation in the first place. Because it's not great for the dog to be out there, reinforcing that behavior, practicing that behavior, because that's just again, gonna really increase the chances of it happening in future, it gives us some of these specific points that we can address in terms of what's going on with that dog's behavior. And as I say, in the human therapy world, we've got lots of potential solutions for these as well, obviously, the more specific things to the issue and how we can specifically manage that issue. But also, some more sort of contemporary treatments that we're seeing pop up in human psychology. And like I said, the attentional training could certainly be interesting and useful for dogs. And I suppose if we were looking at translating that one for dogs, and I, I, sadly, I can't tell you whether this is something that would work or not, because there's just not the research there. But we could look at something like trying some sort of attentional training with dogs. And we could look at working on some sort of idea that, that if they become very attentive to perhaps one aspect of maybe your clothes, or maybe if you're an armband, and we teach the dog actually, if they look at that, for most of their walk, and they focus on that for most of their walk, then they're going to get some sort of reward for that. And that's actually kind of creeping into the territory of attentional training, sort of mindfulness training, even, that we often see in human therapies. So as well as giving us a really solid understanding of, again, the development and maintenance of an issue that adults facing, it also might point to some potential solutions and some potential new solutions as well, which could be really, really exciting.

Michael Shikashio:

Yeah, so many questions are coming to mind. And it's really interesting how that framework, you know, kind of, again, looks at the whole picture, but it's also digging a little deeper into the understanding of why the dogs are doing what they're doing. So you also talk about sort of these five P's and your formulation? Who can you cover? Kind of give us a brief synopsis of that? And then and then we can maybe plug a case into that and see Yeah,

Unknown:

absolutely, yeah. So that's something that's really, really useful, especially when you're starting off from this perspective, to understand again, all those different factors that I've kind of mentioned, that might be influencing a dog. So something, as you say, that we use is this five piece, and it's five, five of the kind of key aspects. So the five P's are presenting issues. So that's the issues that the dogs having that persists pertaining factors. So things that occur before the onset of again, if we say in most examples, we're using probably on this podcast, aggressive behavior, that predisposing factors. So that's things that make dogs put dogs at higher risk of developing potential behavioral problems, the perpetuating factors. So those are things that are, those are, I think, probably the most one of the most important aspects of the five P's, those are things that are causing that issue to be maintained, they are causing the ongoing maintenance of that problem that the dogs having, those are things like your own is potentially punishing the dog. Those are things like the dog being put in a situation where He's rehearsing those behaviors. And finally, as well, which again, is really, really important, is the protective factors. And I think this is something we often neglect to consider in dogs that we see because we're always thinking about, Oh, okay, he's at risk, because he's this breed, or he's at risk, because he's had this tough experience, or she's at risk, because she's had no socialization or something like that. But there's actually often really good protective factors that dogs have, and actually really good things that might indicate that they respond really well to behavioral treatments, that they respond really well to whatever we might do with them to try and get their stress under control and get maybe whatever behavior problem they are having a little bit better and better controlled.

Michael Shikashio:

So I love this because it really in my mind, in my mind, you know, works analytically a lot in terms of you know, I love systems and frameworks, and when I'm thinking it's more mathematical, and I guess, if you're gonna put a label on it, and then abstract when I'm working on assessing a case. And so I love this aspect of it. Because you know, as you're saying all these things, I'm like, yes, yes, that's exactly a great way of assessing what's going on. So let's pluck a case. So let's let's have some fun with this. And let's talk about a dog that I actually show a case, when I'm at conferences and workshops, every once in a while, it's his dog, Leo. So he's an American, Staffordshire, purebred American staff. And he's about two years old when you come to see him, but he starts biting at around a year old. And he's been in, let's say, five different people. So if you were like, so and I'm sure the listeners could follow around and play behavior consultant here, when you get that information, what are the first questions you asked? And sort of that five piece framework and also formulating? What's happening? In this case? We'll work through this case together.

Unknown:

Yeah, absolutely. So the first thing, obviously, that we've kind of been given a fair overview of, are the presenting issues. So we know that he has started biting people is people, right? Yes, just with great with dogs, he started biting just people. And he's great with dogs. So that's, that's great. And we can come back to that when we're thinking about Protective Factors later, but the issue that we're facing is biting people. And I would want to dig a little bit deeper into where he's biting those people. What is the situation in which he bites people? Do we have any information on that? We do.

Michael Shikashio:

So he bites from the waist down. And so he likes to bite, ankles, calves, you know, a hand if it's lower than the waist level, so I hand that reach out to him. So his five bites have all been towards people's legs. And it is generally towards strangers. So people he doesn't know, generally when they're approaching him. So if he's if the person is at a distance, he doesn't seek out to try to bite them, it's when they kind of break into his critical distance or his personal space.

Unknown:

So it's that kind of invasion of personal space, that seems to be the big trigger that we can see. Yeah. So I think that certainly is then a really, really good overview of what the presenting problem is, we know exactly what's going on. If someone needed to know why you're here, you could explain it extremely well with that information. So that's a really good start. But then obviously, we do want to understand what is causing that on a number of levels. So I would normally start off with the predisposing factors. So those are the factors that put that dog at maybe higher risk of or put Leo, in this case, at higher risk of developing some of these problems, again, we know is a Staffy. And is that right? Yes, yes. So yeah, so obviously, we've got the breed aspect, and there is a potentially theological contribution to that, as we hopefully know, with staff ease, and they are a little bit more prone to those kind of bite hole behaviors. But we also know that there's certain perceptual differences in how people respond to staffers when they see them out and about, because, for example, I live in the UK. And I travel kind of all over the southeast when I'm seeing dogs. So I see some dogs in London, and I see some stuff is in London. And this is a big generalization. But in the area of London, where I see a lot of staff is they are super popular, that everyone loves them, right. And if people see staff is they want to give them a hug, they want to say hi to them, because they're just a really popular breed in that area. And they're really considered really affectionate, they're considered really good pets. So the behavior of people towards dafis in that sort of area of London or ice dogs is very different to my hometown, where it's a little bit more, a little bit more of a sort of, I would say, a cockapoo, poodle Labrador sort of area. So you get a very, very different perception. Whereas if a staff has been walked in my hometown, as if a staff has been walked in the area of London, where I often see them. So the different behaviors that we might be seeing from people can certainly influence the way that the dogs developing as well. And that's definitely something to consider in those predisposing factors. Where is this dog location wise? And how might that influence the development of their issues, and he also has this dog moved, because him you might have a dog that, for example, come from an area, as I say, where staff is really, really loved, and then suddenly got to an area where there's not a lot of staff is around. So when people see this Daffy, they're thinking, Oh, my gosh, what's this thing, I'm not used to seeing this sort of this sort of dough in my area. So there's certainly a lot of variation in between in just how people respond to dogs. So that's just one kind of predisposing factor. The other thing again, without wanting to repeat myself too much, we can think about the genetics of the dog, we can think about the theology of the dog, we can think about whether that dogs had any developmental difficulties and a developmental trauma that could be influencing their behavior at all as well. So we can certainly dig around all those sorts of areas for thinking about the predisposing factors.

Michael Shikashio:

Yeah, it's really interesting, you bring up the cultural aspects and the influence of humans because we sometimes forget about just how much the humans are influencing the behavior of the animal and their interactions and their perspectives. And you go in an area, if like, as you mentioned, if it's a dog that everybody's kind of steering clear off avoiding in versus scenario where I was ago, I love these dogs, and they've always coming up to the dogs just how much that can impact the overall social behavior of that animal. And we don't think about I don't think enough so it's I'm glad Had you brought up that point, Daniel, because it's an important one to consider. So yeah, so continue on with your line of questioning about Leo. Yeah, absolutely.

Unknown:

So the other thing that we might look at, again, from an early standpoint is the protective factors. So what is actually Leo got going in his favor, that means he might respond really well to treatment. So we're going to get a bit of a clue just from the fact that the owners have come to see you. Because actually, they obviously have a certain amount of dedication to wanting to help the dog out, right. But upon meeting them, you're going to get a bit of information in terms of what sort of timescales they're working with, what sort of work life balance that they've got, they might be working from home, they might be in the office nine to five, very different stories in terms of how much input they're going to be able to put in for Leo. And then also his personal factors. So whether he's maybe come from a really, really good home, and previously, so maybe spend lots of time with his mom had really good developmental experiences, been socialized really, really nicely gone through all those things, that might be really, really good. If he has done that, then that's gonna be good news for us, because that indicates that he might have some protective elements in his favor.

Michael Shikashio:

He has a lot of protective elements in his favor. He has literally one of the best owners on the planet, and so dedicated to this dog, she's mentioned many times that I'm not going anywhere, and the dogs not going anywhere. Meaning I'm, I'm stuck with her as her consultant and trainer. And she's completely dedicated to this dog. So and she lives by herself, so no other people in the home to worry about closing doors or anything like that, and managing the situation. So yes, a lot of positives in that protective factor.

Unknown:

Brilliant. So yeah, so we that's definitely a big positive as well, as you say that living by herself, in her case, is a big positive and, and we could, if we had something like another adult in the home, that could potentially be a protective factor. But particularly with a dog that's maybe got some aggression issues, if you had two kids in the home, and I know kids being kids obviously want to have friends around, and they want to hang out with their mates and they want to do stuff like that, that could then be slipping into more of a perpetuating factor, something that might make that distress a little bit worse. And we can talk about that in a little bit. So certain factors aren't necessarily guaranteed to be a factor as well, it might be something in for some dog, this might be a protective factor. For some dogs, it might be a sort of predisposing factor or perpetuating factor. So different sort of items or facts about the dog can fall into these different categories, depending on the situation as well. So it is context dependent. So yeah, that the next factor that we might look at is that precipitating aspect. And this is something that actually I wouldn't say we see with every single dog. But it is something that occurs quite a lot that there's this one off incident that might have come just before the distress started or a little bit before the distress started. And the dog. So an example of this in humans would be that we'll look at in humans, if we're doing this sort of formulation is we'd say, okay, maybe there's been some sort of change in your life, some sort of bereavement, potentially, some sort of accident, something like that some sort of big change loss of a job, that might be influencing the future behavior for a certain period of time. So if we're thinking about dogs, this would be things like maybe if they've moved home, or maybe if they've been attacked by another dog in the park, or maybe if they've had a bad experience with a human coming along and and hurting them, or maybe not even hurting them, but just scaring them. So in the case of Leo, that's the kind of things that we might be looking at whether he's had any bad experiences with humans, whether there has been some sort of one off event, or something like that, that might have sort of triggered the initial cascade of these issues developing.

Michael Shikashio:

All right, we're gonna take a short break. And when we come back, we're going to hear more about Daniel systematic formulation approach to changing behavior. Hey, friends, it's me again, and I hope you are enjoying this episode, you may have figured out that something I deeply care about is helping dogs with aggression issues live less stressful, less confined, more enriched, and overall happy lives with their guardians. Aggression is so often misunderstood. And we can change that through continued education, like we received from so many of the wonderful guests on this podcast. In addition to the podcast, I have two other opportunities for anyone looking to learn more about helping dogs with aggression issues, which include the aggression in dogs master course, in the aggression in dogs conference. If you want to learn more about the most comprehensive course on aggression taught anywhere in the world, head on over to aggressive dog.com and click on the dog pros tab, and then the master course. The course gives you access to 23 modules on everything from assessment, to safety to medical issues to the behavior change plans we often use in a number of different cases, including lessons taught by Dr. Chris pockle, Kim Brophy and Jessica Dolce. You'll also receive access to a private Facebook group with over 1000 of your fellow colleagues, and dog pros all working with aggression cases. After you finish the course you also gain access to private live group mentor sessions with me, where we work through practicing many different cases together. If you need see us, we've got you covered. We're approved for just about every major training and behavior credential out there. This is truly the flagship course offered on aggression in dogs, and it's perfect for pet pros that want to set themselves apart and take their knowledge and expertise to the next level are we doing for pet owners who are seeking information to help their own dog and don't forget to join me for the third annual aggression in dogs conference, either in person or online from Providence Rhode Island on September 30 Through October 2 2022. This year's lineup includes many of the amazing guests you might have heard on the podcast including Suzanne Cole the air, Jen Shryock, Simone Mueller, Dr. Ampere, Batson Kim Brophy charisma voire. Learn Monaco to rally Dr. Simone Gadbois, and many more, head on over to aggressive dog.com and click on the conference tab to learn more about the exciting agenda on everything from advanced concepts and leash reactivity to using positive reinforcement to work with predatory behavior. And if you'd like to show off your support for the podcast this year, we teamed up again with the folks over at Wolf culture for some catchy limited run conference merchandise. Wolf culture is known for their witty, nerdy endo nonsense apparel that was created in 2019. To spread more awareness towards the use of humane training methods there PowerShell is here to help you start conversations, advocate for your animals and rep force retraining in a different way. Don't forget to get your conference gear it leaves the site after 1231 2022. If you want 10% off your order, use the code bitey 10, bi t y one zero at checkout. All right, we're back with the insightful Daniel show where we're working a simple case study with a dog named Leo, using Daniel systematic formulation approach to behavior change. So I guess I'll ask you this question or I'll give you the details. First, he's adopted at an early age, I think around 10 weeks old. So not a whole lot of background on where he came from. He was from a rescue. She did a lot of socialization early on, in her recollection, started to see more barking at strangers growling at some strangers, avoidance of strangers. And this started at an early age. So she hired a trainer before she started working with me using a prawn collar or sort of dominance based techniques, because of the barking and lunging on walks. So growling, barking lunging, pulling on leash towards people on walks. And that was the initial presenting behavior. And then they were effectively able to suppress those signals. So the barking and the growling stops with the use of the prong collar. But he still was going to biting so the signals were effectively suppressed. But the biting was still happening so that the actual first bite started happening. I think that he was about seven or eight months old, pretty pretty young when he first started. So where would that fall? Would you Would that maybe be early experiences? So predisposing factors or because it may not necessarily be precipitating factor, right? Because it's we can argue that the behavior was occurring before the training started. But the training was maybe something that was a perpetuating factor. So how would you how would you counter? How would you categorize that?

Unknown:

Yeah, absolutely. And this is where it gets messy, right? Because this is where we could probably argue about this. And all both very, very reasonably argued that this could fall into different categories. To me, it is something that's probably made that distress a little bit worse. Although he had those behaviors beforehand, it does sound like it exacerbated them, because no dog responds particularly well to being brought out and choked every single time he sees maybe a person because that's just from a behavioral perspective that is going to condition more fear around those humans or, or whatever he might be being choked in the context of right. So it certainly could have enhanced that distress. But I think probably the best way to think of it is while that training was ongoing, that would have been perpetuating the distress that would have been making it worse for him, it would have been encouraging him to continue associating humans with bad things. So it would have been maintaining that problem. But once it had stopped that is something removed that was previously maintaining that problem. So I think it would fall into potentially that sort of partially precipitating partially predisposing factor of something that has happened in the past that is going to influence that. But yeah, it's not clear and it does get a bit messy. And I think that's definitely a really important point in the sense that actually, sometimes these frameworks we all have a framework, right? But sometimes things don't fall in as neatly as we hoped. So that's where We need to consider the strengths and weaknesses of these individual frameworks that we're using as well. So the five P's, it's brilliant in terms of getting a really good picture of the case. But we could sometimes argue about what might fall into the different different factors that we are seeing.

Michael Shikashio:

And I think that's actually a benefit to it. Because if it can fall into several categories, depending on when it occurred, and how it's impacting the case, there's less chance of missing it, right, versus a framework where everything has to neatly fit into a category or doesn't belong in any of them, then we might actually miss something. So for me in my the way my brain works is like, I like that it can be put into macarius. Because it makes us think about it, it makes us say, Okay, what, what is impacting this case? What is impacting the behavior of that animal? And do we need to adjust for it in a particular part of the behavior change strategy? Right? So, okay, so keep going. So we've talked about his why he's doing what he's doing, we kind of have an idea of the protective factors and the perpetuating factors or influences. What else would you ask to continue forming this robust picture?

Unknown:

Yeah, so we know what's going on. We know what might what might have come before in terms of the predisposing factors and the protective factors are the kind of main one we haven't focused on so much, is the perpetuating factors. So what is causing that distress to be maintained for Leo? So we know that to a certain extent, we could have considered the the training he'd had with the other trainer as something that perpetuates the issue, but his issue is still going right. So there's something else that's perpetuating that issue. That's regardless of what sort of training he's in. So that's where we've got to think about what is kind of Leo's routine looking like, what does this dog do over a 24 hour period? And what during that kind of 24 hour period is maintaining that distress? So probably one of the big ones for him? And I don't know, if this is the case with Leo, is potentially going out and seeing people and having that bad reaction? I mean, was he going out? And

Michael Shikashio:

oh, yes, yeah, you know, daily walk in, and he would go to dog daycare as well. So there would be times where you'd have to be taking on leash, of course, past people. But, you know, he, he'd gotten to the point where he, again, that the effect of suppressing of the signals he'd be able to walk by without making a, you know, this big display that was embarrassing for the owner. But the issue started to as you had mentioned, they were occurring more so on leash, and more so outside the home, and one of the things I recognized was the hand leash handling aspect. So the owner would get nervous and kind of tighten up on the leash, and the dog would get frustrated, and also start biting on the leash. And he he also had this habit of biting garbage can wheels. It was, you know what he could take his frustrations out on when he was on walks. And if it was garbage day, he would go after the garbage can wheels and latch on to a garbage can wheel. So that was a actually, it sounds kind of silly. But it actually is very frustrating aspect for somebody that's just trying to take their dog for a walk in, they're getting pulled over to every single garbage can. And as you can imagine, there's one in almost every house. So. So yeah, there were some, I think some perpetuating things going on as well.

Unknown:

Yeah, so all sorts going on. And we can certainly think about that on a physiological level as well, in terms of if he is having those experiences where he goes out, and particularly even if he just goes by a person, and he doesn't react to it, because he's been suppressed, he's going to still be experiencing some sort of stress at going by that person. So we are going to get that sort of trigger stacking effects that we often talk about in dog behavior, because he is going to be flooded with adrenaline, he's going to be flooded with cortisol. So that's going to cause systems within his within his brain, particularly thinking of the amygdala to become more reactive to some of those potential triggers. So he might be more likely to react to humans after he is having that stressful experience. But he might also just be more stressed generally. So unable to manage that unable to sort of outlet that. So that might make him more prone to things like biting on the lead and going for trashcans and all those sorts of things as well. So, again, this is kind of interplay between are we considering the behavior? are we considering the the biting of the garbage bins? are we considering that a presenting factor? Are you considering that the main issue or we're considering that something that that is causing perpetuation of the issue because actually, him doing that and get himself really riled up doing that might make him more prone to having a bad interaction with a human next time he sees one as well. So there's this constant interplay between factors that maintaining the issue, and factors that are the issue. And I

Michael Shikashio:

love that because it also again, makes us think about how the presenting issues can also be perpetuating factors. So because if we don't recognize that, yes, sometimes we're focused on solving one issue or working on one behavior, but we the other behaviors still occurring, which can then impact the main issue we're working on. And if we say okay, let's just work on that later and not really worry about it. It's going to be a significant factor in our overall success. And you know, for instance, a separation anxiety case for where a dog is biting the people as they leave At the home, for me, that may be the major issue. People don't want to be bitten by their own dog as they're trying to leave the home. That seems to be the major issue. But I'll say, we're not going to really solve any issue until we address the separation anxiety component, which could be considered the perpetuation factor? Well, we need to put it into the presenting issue problem, right? The category?

Unknown:

Yeah. And if our dogs were filling in these forms, totally different to all their own filling. Absolutely,

Michael Shikashio:

absolutely. All right. So are there any other questions you would ask to complete this framework and creating this formulation, before you move into the treatment stage or the the behavior change strategy? Yeah, so

Unknown:

I think that's probably quite a good start. And I think there definitely will be other things to consider. And definitely things that will be so jumping into in a little bit more detail with the owner here. And obviously, if we have time to go through a full history, but those are kind of some of the key areas that we will definitely look at looking at, again, what caused the development of that stress, what's caused the maintenance of that distress. And that gives us a very sort of nice overview in terms of that five Ps formulation. And that is just one way of doing it as well. So the five Ps is a is a structure for formulating an issue. It's a structure for understanding an issue, but there are other ways of doing it as well. Yeah, it does depend on your approach, it depends on how the individual owner works as well. owners might respond really well to that kind of very formulaic, five P's approach, some owners actually might respond to an approach that puts things more in a sort of diagrammatic form, and allows them to kind of visually see perhaps how that problem is maintained. That's

Michael Shikashio:

a really important point to make, too, because it's, we concentrate on our learners as the dogs that we're working with. But we also have to remember the humans we're working with have different learning styles and in ways of visualizing or processing the information we're giving them. So really important point. So okay, so we've gotten the formulation, we know we understand what Mr. Leo is doing, and, and have, and I think the owner understands as well. So if you were to go to the next step, what would it look like in terms of for putting together a behavior change strategy, based on the limited information we have so far in a five minute consults between you and I?

Unknown:

Yeah, so unfortunately, with predisposing factors, there's not a lot we can do about them, right, we can't change the breed of a dog magically, we can't change their genetics, we can't change what's happened to them in the past. But we can obviously consider that the perpetuating factors, the things that are causing that distress to be maintained in the moment, we can change, we can change that dog's routine, we can change what that dog is doing, when he's out on walks, we can change that dog's arousal levels, hopefully to make him less prone to reacting badly when he is out on walks. So actually, again, having that formulation, having that very easy sort of structure that we can use with the owner as well is really valuable, because actually, by the time I've done this, quite often owners are like, okay, let's change this then, or, okay, let's do this. And they're suggesting things to me. And I'm like, Yeah, let's do that, we can actually start seeing the owners coming up with really, really good ideas, because they are the experts on their dog's routine. So they're going to be the experts on how they can negotiate things to actually get rid of some of those perpetuating factors, understand that distress a little bit better, and respond to that distress a little bit better in the moment as well.

Michael Shikashio:

So in a sense, where also, the behavior analysis term has be distant antecedents are setting events for that in terms of the perpetuating factors in a way. And so then the next step, of course, is addressing the antecedents and the maintaining consequences. And if we're looking at, again, through that applied behavior analysis lens, but if you were to get a more robust picture of it, from your viewpoint, what would you add in and when we start working on the presenting issue? So let's say Leo is biting feet. And we want to, you know, work on a behavior change strategy for that, kind of walk me through next steps on that?

Unknown:

Yeah. So I have quite a specific way that I work on understanding there's specific behaviors. And again, I really think diagrams are so useful in formulating an understanding of these specific behaviors, because there's something we can see and make sense of, it's useful for me, I'm quite a visual person. But it's also again, really useful for the owners. It's also useful for other professionals in the field. If, for example, with Leo, if I just emailed all the professionals working with Leo, the daycare, the vet, whoever else might be involved and saying, oh, Leo's got fear aggression, they don't know much, right? That doesn't give them much much to go on. They just know. Okay, gotta be a bit careful, because Leo might bite us at some point, but they don't know why they don't know what what that's about. They don't know when that's when humans or whatever. So I like to construct a specific analysis of what's causing that behavior in that individual situation. And it is really similar to ABA actually, but it's it what I tried to do is create an analysis that, again, allows more encompassing of emotions if if there are emotions involved to that. And that's not to say there has to be there's not to say that the dog has to be motivated by an emotion but it might be And similarly, thoughts and beliefs that that dog might have that are involved. So if that dog, for example, in the case of Leo, if he's had an association between humans and something bad happening, then he probably does believe that that could happen again in the future, whether that's an explicit belief or not, it doesn't matter too much. He's, he's probably not, you know, going to write a text on the dangers of humans. But internally, he knows human equals bad, right. So in those certain contexts in certain situations, so we need to understand all of those sorts of factors that's motivating the behavior. So as I say, a little bit like ABA, I would look at the sort of situation. So again, Leo, in the situation, he spotted a human, let's put him in obviously, the worst situation possible, he spotted a human, he's thinking, Oh, human, that's bad. That's causing him to experience fear, emotionally. And that's then resulting in a behavior to try and make that fear go away. So that's resulting in him, maybe responding with behaving a little bit aggressively towards that human, maybe going for the feet, the legs or whatever, to try and make that human go away to try and release his fear. And then I'll break that down, again, into into very similarly to the ABA, the consequences of that. But what I would focus on is the consequences on a slightly wider scale, in terms of the maintaining consequences. So what's maintained that behavior while the humans gone away, the fear has been relieved a little bit for Leo, which is going to reinforce that sort of safety behavior of barking at the human or grabbing and lunging and snapping, that humans make them go away. So that's the maintaining consequences, but also the programmatic consequences, in the sense that actually, that's got liaise, or alpha levels super high. So he's likely to continue reacting badly to things again, for a certain period of time, a couple of hours, while those sorts of arousal levels drop, problematic in terms of Leo's probably not enjoying having that reaction as well, actually, we've got to think of from a welfare perspective, that's not great for him to be in a situation where he's having those repeated bad interactions with humans. And from the problem consequences from the owners perspective as well. So actually, Leo's owner probably doesn't love taking her dog out and having her dog go and bite people, right. So it's, it's a problematic consequence for her. So again, we've got to think of the maintaining consequences and the problem consequences of those behaviors, because obviously, there is a certain amount of motivation to take part in their behavior for the dog. And we need to understand the thoughts that are motivating that behavior. So we're in association between humans and danger, we need to understand the emotions that may or may not be motivating that behavior. So in Leo's case, it sounds like there's some fear. And that's really becoming a strong motivator for that behavior, potentially, the physiology that's involved in that as well. So again, we'll be looking at things like adrenaline cortisol, and how that sort of HPA Axis sem axis might be involved, and how those things interplay in terms of resulting in consequences that maintain that behavior, and consequences that are problematic. And again, I draw that into a fairly similar sort of diagrammatic structure to we see with ABA analysis, but it's something that I think provides a little bit more of a coherent understanding for both the owner and the behavior consultant. And again, other professionals have exactly what is going on with that dog. So

Michael Shikashio:

it really forms a nice robust behavior change strategy in your mind, and how you're going to approach that behavior change because you have all this information. And I think what's super helpful is that it's going to help the clients really understand why their dog is doing things, and to be paying attention to things other than just the observable behavior they're seeing, they really have to understand all of the emotions their dog might be experiencing, and why it's so important for the whole behavior change strategy to recognize those things. So yeah, it's a very, very unique, but also important, all encompassing approach that you've kind of explaining here, which I love so. So there's a few different approaches, or actually a lot of approaches there systems in which trainers and consultants might use to assess behaviors. And you had mentioned earlier the diagnostic approach. And if you want to expand on that a little bit further. Yeah, sure. So

Unknown:

probably currently the most dominant approach that we use in our field for understanding and behavior problems. And this is the most dominant approach in the human mental health field as well as a diagnostic approach. It's this idea that if you've got a certain set of behaviors and a certain set of displayed symptoms, then you are going to be allocated this particular diagnosis. And that does work really well in many senses, because actually, you know that you've got these certain sets of behaviors that usually apply to this. And that means that we can use treatments X, Y, and Zed and they're generally going to be helpful for those conditions. Right? So it certainly got a lot of value. But what I do think is it's perhaps does lack specificity to particular clients because again, you I'm sure know really, really well Mike that if you get one dog with fear aggression, right, or that's been diagnosed with aggression, that could be completely different case conceptualization and work and training plan for you. And then another dog that you might be seeing, because of all those different factors that might be influencing the problems that that those two individual dogs are having. Right? So it does lack a little bit of specificity sometimes, which is why again, in the human mental health field, we are starting certainly in the UK to move towards either using purely a formulation based approach. So actually scrapping the whole diagnosis and saying, Actually, we're just gonna present a formulation of what's going on with this dog of what's going on with this human. I keep saying dog, and so the human apologies for that, what's going on with this human, and how we are understanding how that distress has developed and maintained, right, and the solutions that we might be working towards for them. But we're also more practitioners, I'd say most commonly, are providing this kind of synthesis between a basic diagnosis for the human of okay, maybe this humans got anxiety, or maybe they've got Generalized Anxiety Disorder, right. But then they're providing a more specific formulation of exactly what's going on with that human, right, what's going on with them, why that's developed for them, why that's been maintained for them, because that's actually much more useful for them to understand their condition for and their family to understand their condition, their different practitioners, they'll be working with to understand their condition. So again, I think if we apply that to dogs, and particularly if we apply that to working with owners working with all sorts of professionals, where everyone's got their own idea about what fear aggression is, right? Actually, a formulation based approach is really, really useful for sharing the information of Exactly Okay, so this dog's got fear aggression. But as we know, with Leo, that's been, he's been at risk for that, because of this, this and this, he's been protected against certain developments. Because of this, this and this, the distress has been perpetuated, it's been because of this. And obviously, it potentially precipitated by certain things as well. That's a really, really useful framework for anyone that's going to be working with Leo to understand what's going on for him, and certainly provides a lot more information than that, just that basic diagnosis. So I think it raises lots of questions in terms of whether the purely diagnostic approach is the right approach for dogs and the right approach for dogs owners. And what we can turn to in terms of whether we go for more formulation based approach or whether we kind of try and combine the two into this kind of nice synthesis where we've got that initial layer, which is yet great useful for particularly understanding the treatments that we might be turning to, but then we've got maybe this formulation as well for really digging down a little bit more deep into understanding what's going on with that animal and how we should be working with that animal as well.

Michael Shikashio:

Yes, I love everything you're saying, because it's just a perfect example of the benefits of cross pollination, or when we see other modalities and sciences, coming into the dog training community and applying those things. And clearly, that's where you're drawing from your human psychology experience. It's this, it's really been a great, an enlightening episode for me. So where can people find you now? Or what are you up to these days? And where do you want people to go for your social media? If you have any?

Unknown:

Yeah, absolutely. I am on most social medias nowadays. So if you look at animal behavior, Kent, on Facebook, that's probably my most active social media. But we've also got Instagram and again, animal behavior can tick tock Twitter, all the all the different ones you can imagine LinkedIn, all under animal behavior, can't there's no other way you can. So if you search animal behavior, you can you should find us. I am actually running a webinar at some point in the future on this sort of formulation based approach and the differences between diagnostic approaches, formulation based approaches and again, how we can potentially create a more synthesized approach that offers both these benefits at some point in the future. I don't know if that will be before or after this podcast is released, though. So I won't get this

Michael Shikashio:

will be linked in the show notes, whether it's a recording or so people can sign up for the live. So I'm looking forward to that. Dan, thank you so much. I appreciate you coming on the show. And I hope to see you again in the future.

Unknown:

Great, thank you. It's great to great speak to.

Michael Shikashio:

Thanks for joining me in this conversation with Daniel. It's really fantastic to see more systematic approaches being brought into the world of dog training so we can continue to bring supportive data to the work we're doing, and helping dogs with aggression issues by using evidence based approaches. If you liked the show, please feel free to subscribe, share and give us a rating and hop on over to aggressive dog.com For more information about helping dogs with aggression. From the aggression in dogs master course two webinars from world renowned experts and even an annual conference. We have options for both pet pros and pet owners to learn more about aggression in dogs