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Help! My Dog: The Podcast. Dog Behaviour & Training Strategies that Work!
Ep 113 The Hidden Impact of Hormones on Dog Training and Behaviour
00:16:51
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This is a really fragile time for dogs. And it's not a short time either, is it? You know, two months? Two months every six months, right. Four months of the year. We probably need to be, we need to be mindful of the situations that we put our dogs into in this time and the things that they are exposed to before we dive in. A warning. The content of this podcast may not be appropriate for some, some young listeners. This is real life and that means that sometimes it can be a little bit graphic. So listen on at your own peril. As a veterinarian, dog behaviorist, best selling author and trainer over the past decade, I've had an obsession with transforming the behavior of dogs, understanding their brains, and creating practical strategies that you can implement easily at home. I know all too well when the dream you imagined when you first got your dog is far from your daily reality. So in fact, out of the blue, a few months ago, my little dog, Gorse, was bitten by a dog 20 times her size. And suddenly our life of stress free walks, a calm and cuddly household, and being teammates was replaced with reactivity, anxiety, and worrying about what's around the next corner. I'm Dr. Tom. This is the Help My Dog podcast. And this is me documenting that journey of transformation, sharing my knowledge and experience with you, and having a few laughs along the way. All right, welcome to this episode, the Help My Dog podcast. And today we're talking about a very, very, very, very, very requested topic. Okay? Very, very, very, very requested. And that is entire females when they are in season, okay? And in fact, it was the catalyst for this was, despite being very requested, was a listener who said her dog is currently experiencing their first season. What, what should she do? Right? What, what does she need to know? And I thought, okay, right, we need to get this information even more out there, right? Something that I've spoken about and taught on a lot. And yet it's also probably one of the least known and yet most important things to understand, especially if you have an entire female dog, right? And, and that is the hormones are powerful, powerful, powerful things. And the dog, the canine is unique as a species in that every time they have a season, which is, you know, for most dogs, around every six months, yeah, they have the hormonal changes following that season as if they were pregnant. Okay? So that is that they have about 63 days of high circulating progesterone, right? Much higher than, you know, in a, in a non hormonal state and a non post season state. And, and that has significant consequences and that's very unique as a species because actually most of a species they only have the hormonal changes associated with pregnancy if they, if they become pregnant in that season. Right. And the thing about progesterone, and I should also say the reason why that is, is because the ancestor of the domestic dog, the wolf, also has this. And it's evolutionarily beneficial for the wolf in that what they will often do is co rearing of pups. Cubs, Cubs, cubs in their family group. Okay. So the thing about family living species is that they're all about the perpetuation of the genes to the next generation. But that doesn't mean it has to be that individual's genes because they're a family. So their contribution to the family gene pool progressing to the next generation is as good as if you're a family living species. Right. And so, yeah, that's the reason why. And it's kind of like an evolutionary sort of remnant that is still there in the dog now, progesterone, high circulating progesterone levels for 60 odd days after the, after they've, they've finished their season. Right. What does that mean? Well, what that means is progesterone is a very powerful and slightly tricky hormone in that it can cause their individuals with high circulating progesterone to maybe perceive things in a more pessimistic way. Yeah, they might perceive things to be something to worry about more. Why? Well, it's the hormone of pregnancy, so it makes sense. Now this individual, their choices are geared towards how do I keep myself safe, but not so much myself safe, but the little individuals that are growing inside me. Right. And that kind of superchargers for some dogs. It supercharges startle responses, it supercharges reactivity sometimes it can also taint interactions with other dogs in that increasingly you might find that they perceive the behavior or body language of another dog to be something to worry about because it's better to err on the side of caution. Right. If you're not sure if that other individual, that dog, cat or human, is a threat or not, well, sooner assume they are a threat because that's safer than assuming they're not making a mistake. Right. And so it can cause breakdown in relationships. That's especially true when they're exposed to those individuals, potentially 24, 7, because they're having more conversations. So a very common scenario to develop with, in this, you know, couple of months after a season is actually breakdown in the relationships between dogs that live within the same household. Yeah. Extra little, just fun little tidbit of progesterone is that it's that hormone that can make you feel nauseated. Right. Think about, you know, that whole like morning sickness phenomenon that, you know, can be very extreme. Yeah. And certain individuals are more prone to feeling nauseated under the, the influence of progesterone. So what you've potentially got is a dog that is potentially less foodie at times. In fact even inappetent at times. But what progesterone also does just for fun is, can make you really, really hungry. Really, really foodie. I'd say female animals have the rough end of the deal because they've got the lemon progesterone that causes all kinds of issues. And, and so what it can create is this cocktail of a dog that might even be prepared to compete and struggle to disengage from resources more than if they were not under the influence of progesterone. They're also perceiving the behavior of other dogs in the household or generally more likely to be something to worry about. Can you see how that's also like a recipe for resource guarding situations that might develop, especially if you have a multi dog household, but also not if, you know, it could be human directed as well. And so this is a really fragile time for dogs. And it's not a short time either, is it? You know, two months? Two months every six months. Right. Four months of the year. We probably need to be, we need to be mindful of the situations that we put our dogs into in this time and the things that they are exposed to because it's a fragile time where behavior struggles can develop like reactivity or resource guarding or breakdown in relationships between dogs within the same household. But then learning happens where it persists in the absence of progesterone because we've had bad experiences with those individuals or with the, you know, the dog across the road or the person that popped up for behind a bush at a park. And now we're going to move forward with that learning. That learning is there not because of progesterone. That learning happened. Right. And now that learning persists. And so it's a common time where behaviour struggles can develop and then persist in the absence of doing anything about it. So what we'd say is we need to be mindful of the situations we put our dogs in. We need to potentially assess them and day by day, because what we see is that progesterone can have kind of almost like waxing and waning changes on behavior based on potentially other Stuff that's going on as well. And so in those two months, yeah, you might have had a plan to go to training class, but actually you look at your dog and you're like, they're a little bit more startled today or they're a little bit more alert or they're a little bit more vigilant. So I'm gonna have to say no to that class today. Yeah, and that's tough. And I get it. And it's, you know, it's one of the downsides of having entire females, right, is that we have to accept that two months, a year they're going through this and it's, you know, it's tough on them and it's about being kind of kind to them. Not kind of kind, kind. You got what I was saying? And so. It's almost like us making better decisions is the key piece here and what we expose them to. The second thing, though, is also thinking, right, well, if progesterone is working to grow pessimism in them, I'm going to work really hard to grow optimism in them. So I'm just going to go doubly strong on. Every time an event happens, every time a person appears, every time another dog, you know, appears, or they see another dog or they end up having an interaction with another dog, I am going to follow up with a positive outcome of some of their daily food allowance. Right. And that daily food allowance might have to be a bit better than daily food allowance. It might have to be higher value in this period because they might be feeling a bit nauseated. Right. But you know, we've all been there where it's like, oh, I'm a bit, I'm a bit nauseated for broccoli, but I'm not nauseated for, I don't know, pizza. Right. And so, you know, it's kind of all relative. And so you might also have to accept that you need to be working with higher value food in this, in this time. But that's kind of a nice way to look at it. Like we're control, we're managing the situations we put them into. Then secondly, progesterone is working to grow pessimism. Well, progesterone hasn't met me, and I'm going to work really hard to grow optimism in this time. It would be the second tip that I've got for you and then the third tip that I've got for you so that you're fully armed is, hey, guys, I just want to take a moment to answer a question that has been coming in literally 10 emails today. And that is how can we help you with your dog's behavior struggle, Whether that be reactivity, separation anxiety, resource guarding, maybe you've got multi dog household struggle right now maybe your dog's just so over aroused on a walk that they just can't listen to you and they're chasing everything in sight, like can I get Tom's help? And the answer is that actually you can. And you can do that by booking a Behavet behavior consultation. That's where literally my team give you the plan on how to transform your struggle and get you to that dream that made you get a dog in the first place. Right? Your world's got smaller and smaller and smaller and actually it doesn't need to be that way. You just need to reach out for help. Now a couple of things to say on that. First of all, if you're insured, if your dog's insured with Pet Plan, Kennel Club, Agria or many pets, we actually do direct claims with them, which means that that's covered by your insurance. So you don't pay out of your pocket, your insurance covers that. And the second thing to say is that we have loads of options. If you're insured with another provider or if your dog's not insured at all, that's also totally fine. We have loads of options that we've developed to make this so accessible for you because we're aware that you've already invested a load of, a load of money in getting your dog, looking after your dog, caring for your dog. But the last thing we want is for you to have done all that and still not be living the life that you deserve with your dog. And we know we can get you there. So all you need to do is go to the Behave Vet website and the way to do that is go B E H A dot V E T that's beh vet and it will take you there. Or just Google Behave Vet, right? And you can get scheduled in and we can literally get you booked in for a consultation as soon as possible. We normally can accommodate it within a week, right, so that you can be getting to your dream asap. And then the third tip that I've got for you so that you're fully armed is be mindful of not, you know, even if everything seems absolutely fine with their interactions with their dogs or people. This is a time where I don't necessarily stop all interactions if I don't think that's needed based on the individual. But I Do keep interactions short. I do give dogs a lot of downtime and a lot of decompression time. And that's especially true in a multi dog household. This is a time when potentially I wouldn't be having my dogs together all day, every day. I'd be giving the individual that is currently experiencing high progesterone plenty of time to be away from the other dogs. Right. And when interactions, one to one interactions are occurring, I'd be more mindful to kind of call them away, give them each a treat, and then, you know, get them onto a different activity that isn't directly interacting with each other so much. And the reason being that, you know, think about it. We have people in our lives that we could spend three weeks with. You could go away, you could go traveling with them for three weeks and everything would be, you know, everything would be fine. We have people in our lives where, you know what they're A three minute. Right. Can do three minutes, that is it. And that's fine. We all have different tolerance levels based on the individual that we're interacting with, but also probably other stuff that's going on in our lives. And what we've got to realize with our dog's post season high progesterone is that effectively that window is probably much smaller and they need opportunity to be away, to decompress. And ultimately that then unlocks longer lived relationships. Okay. And this is compounded, this is especially important if you have two entire females in the house where they've both recently had a season. Okay. Like that is a cocktail for chaos and for a real breakdown in relationships. We see so many behavior cases where unfortunately, and two dogs that were the best of friends came into season at the same time. They had a few altercations while they were in season. Now they can't even be in the same room. And we create a behavior plan to get them integrated and back to loving life together again. But the point is, is that happened really because they probably just spent too much time in each other's presence rather than, you know, it being about any time at all. Right. Progesterone is powerful, but it's not that powerful. Yeah, this is about, you know, not pushing our luck when it comes to keeping our dogs in situations, just being mindful. And as I said in point two, let's try and counteract what progesterone is doing. Because then once progesterone goes and we've been doing all this work on optimism, well, the optimism then shoots up because now it's not being pushed down by pessimism. All our work really then shows. So in a way, bit of a reframe. It's a great opportunity as well. Good luck with your dog's first season as always. If you got value from this guys, then make sure to leave us a review over on Apple Podcasts and we will see you next week.