Does Your Dog Particularly Like Routine?

[corvus]

I'm researching coping styles and personality in animals. What surprised me was that pro-active animals that are bold and aggressive are actually not very flexible about coping with changes in their environment. They have one way of dealing with things. In contrast, a shy animal is usually cautious and slow to approach new things, but tend to be quite creative and flexible about coping with changes. Bold animals form rigid routines and shy animals don't so much.

For a while I've been trying to figure out just by guessing where my dogs sit on this shy-bold continuum. I had Kivi definitely down on the shy end, although he's quite confident in general. He is not the pro-active or aggressive type. He lets things happen to him and tends to be easily discouraged. I call him an oxytocin fiend, because he likes a lot of social contact and whenever he's worried or unsettled he looks for social contact. He tends and befriends like a woman. ;)

I wasn't sure about Erik, though. He can be a bit reactive and easily unsettled. He doesn't approach every novel thing pro-actively, but he doesn't take anything lying down. He has to explore and try to control and make things happen. I wouldn't describe him as having a rigid coping style, but then again, he's very sensitive about his routines. The slightest detail out and he gets all upset. He is improving as he gets older and learns that when a detail is different it's not a whole new situation. So at the moment I'm putting him on the bold end, but not right up in the bold end. Somewhere just above average in boldness.

So the question is, is your dog a creature of routine? Do they get particularly upset if their routine is disrupted? And how would you describe their coping style?

[W Sibs]

Charlie is very calm and very chilled. His way of coping with change is that he gets clingy, he needs me around to show him that everything is OK. But, he settles down very fast once I set out the rules (or routine) again. Nothing really phases this guy.

Emmy sounds a little like Erik. She easily unsettled and not a big fan of change. I just redid my study room, and Emmy let me know how she didn't like it. She spend about 1/2 hour in there exploring and trying to made sense of the whole situation. She did some redecorating in the study room too, like move her bed back to her the usual corner of the room.. and got upset when she was in her bed, she couldn't see me properly.

[Earthdog]

We don't have a 'routine' so they aren't anywhere on your continuum.

[cointreau]

No routine in this home either.

[Vehs]

Dieter understands what the general routine is, but doesn't get put out if I'm home late/don't walk coz of rain/have visitors over/go to bed late - actually he'll put himself to bed! or if he gets babysat etc.

the one time he does get funny is when I sleep in on weekends and he gets fed later than 7:20am - even if I give him the freedom to come in and out of the house (he gets bones for breakfast) he basically won't eat, you think he'd be hungrier, but no ;)

I wouldn't say D's aggressive, but he's dominant

[SeeGee]

purposly dont keep a routine so there is no issues with not getting fed at a certain time etc.

[Jetty]

No routine here. They get fed when I feel like it (its after or before dinner but dinner is not at the same time everynight)

They don't get walked the same days everyweek. Just depends on what I am up to.

[lovemesideways]

Nothing really stresses out either of my boys. We do have a routine we follow daily, but if you break from that general routine they don't have any problem with it.

They'll try to remind you with some general lurking that its time for Walk/bone/dinner ect, but if it doesn't come, they tend to just settle down and wait. No problem.

[Little Gifts]

We aim for routine here. It seems to be a comfort to our pack. The one thing that they decided themselves though is that they should all be inside before dark or else there will be trouble! So we try and plan so that someone is home from work to let them all in before dark but on the one or two occassions each month when that doesn't happen the dogs go on and on and on and on about it. Mainly in the form of following us around and lecturing us. Oh and they will bark a lot more extremely and bash on the back door until we let them in the house on those nights too. The normal nights they are just sitting outside the backdoor with smiles waiting to come in, they have a bit of a chat then go off and do their own thing till dinner time.

One routine that drives me insane though is my almost 16 year old girl's middle of the night routine. She needs a toilet break up to 3 times a night now after we go to bed regardless of what time we go to bed. So I usually wake up as she drops onto the floor off the bed (she's noisy). Then she has to go into the laundry for a looooooong drink. Then downstairs and outside (all lights must be turned on!) for a sniff around before deciding on whether to do onseies, twosies or both. All three have to occur in different parts of the yard you see. Then we need to sniff the outside water bowl, realising that we have already drunk inside and don't need a top up. Then we turn around and retrace our steps, turning off lights as we go, which ends up with me lifting her butt back onto the bed and not turning the beside light off until she has decided where to settle or else she just stands there in the dark all eerie. Oh and I have to talk to her encouragingly the whole time or it takes twice as long!

[Bubitty]

Bubby is too mellow to notice a change in routine. Nothing ruffles him. He takes things easy and sort of glides along.

Bitty just crashes through life. I don’t think she is sensitive to routine either. She is a very passionate soul though but consistently so regardless of what happens.

[LDR]

Yep, my boy wakes at six on the dot and sits patiently on the bed *staring* at me - until I either a) feed him or b) walk him. He'll remain vigilent in his pose for 20 minutes max then crawl back under the covers for sleep - up to midday on a weekend! ;)

He knows exactly where his "things" are and gets confused and hunts and puts them in a right spot if out of order (toys, blankies etc). He also barks and is skittish when strange new items bought in the house - a Dora The Explora doll left on the dining table for my niece, my new umbrella, an exercise matt. He'll bark twice then skirt around the object. We just bring him to the item and encourage him to sniff then he's sweet.

I think quite a bit of our issues come from getting him so young (please don't flame, we knew no better) from a BYB, he is velcro dog and very feline like - almost as though he didn't learn the ropes properly?

efs

Edited June 24, 2010 by LDR

[corvus]

You don't have to have a routine for your dog to have one. For example, we don't feed our dogs at the same time every morning or evening, but Erik knows all the little signs that lead up to getting fed. That's a routine to him. We go to bed at different times every evening, but before I go to bed I take the dogs outside and let them toilet, then come in and clean my teeth and go to bed. When Erik was younger we had him refuse to go to bed one night because I had a headache and went to bed early, so OH came to bed after me and Erik felt this must mean it wasn't bedtime. I had to literally get up an hour later and do a fake version of my bedtime routine, and then he settled. He learnt that the bedtime routine doesn't have to be performed by me and now he's okay with whoever goes to bed first.

In a more relevant example, Erik has a routine for greeting dogs he doesn't know. Kivi also has a routine for this. Erik's routine is moderately flexible. Kivi's is very flexible. Kivi greets strange dogs depending on what he predicts they will do. He has about a half dozen different ways of greeting a strange dog. Erik is still young, so it will be interesting to see if this changes, but he has basically two ways of greeting a strange dog. Recently we had a situation in which Erik's way of talking to a strange dog was not working out very well for him. It upset him. In the same situation, Kivi changed his behaviour and hit on something that did work well for both him and the strange dog. It doesn't upset him much when something that usually works doesn't. He adapts.

I'm sure that everyone's dogs fit somewhere on the shy-bold continuum. Routine is just one possible indicator for where they fit.

[wagsalot]

Id definately say Riley prefers to sticking to our routine.

For example, I do the same thing every day I go to work. When I turn the light off he automatically gets up, walks to the laundry and waits for me to carry his bed in and say bye.

The other morning OH's mum called in really early with her dog. She was only here for about 10 mins, but Riley got to play with her dog etc. Then when they left and I went to leave, Riley got all exited and thought he was going too, which ofcourse he wasn't.

I had to them tell him several times to go the laundry as Im going to work. He didn't want to go in there at all! Whereas if the routine went as normal, he quite happily goes into the laundry without even being told. So then he went from being really excited to being left by himself and sulking. He even whined a bit when I left, which is rare!

Edited June 24, 2010 by wagsalot

[claireybell]

Both my girls now the routine and they live by it. My cocker is terrible with change. When we moved house last year she vomitted three days after moving in. We ended up at the vet.

We're moving again later this year but this time i have more time to get her used to the new house. We've planned a few sleep overs and day trips.

[HollyE]

No routine in our home :D

[Rappie]

One of mine thrives on routine - she's a little shy but bursting with love and energy, the other is much better behaved when we have them all in place but he's Mr Independent. He likes to push the boundaries just to see what happens. Still have my work cut out for me convincing OH that the SAME thing has to happen regardless, lol.

We don't have a set daily routines, but we have lots of mini routines that mostly seem to let the dogs know where we are up to. They cope pretty well with our "we're not doing anything of interest now" cues and they can entertain themselves. We're continually working on 'calm'. My little one, Dusk (the shy one), she gets conflicted easily but now she just sits and holds a foot up when she's confused. It's easy enough then to give her a direction.

We've been moving house over the last 2 weeks, and have been fully in the new house for just over a week but they've been settling in really well. The routine for eating is the same, their beds are the same, they have a dog door for outside just the same. They do have some new rules like not being near the door when we leave (used to be in a unit, now the front door opens on to our driveway) and sometimes you have to stay in, sometimes you have to stay out. We have been leaving the roller shutters open when we go out (so we can spy on them). Mostly when we come back they are sound asleep on our bed. So much for getting up to mischief in the backyard.....

[percyk]

our dogs do have a routine but it isnt based so much on time but patterns

what i mean by this is they get used to certain cues on weekdays ...i dont think theyre aware of the time but then again im not home to observe

they seem fine with being fed as soon as we get home and they hold their bladders til then too

one of ours...the youngest but dominant male ( all desexed) is a real routine person lol...he will do anything in his routine

he trots obediently to his part of the house when he knows we are leaving for work and school but try to do that on a random weekend and he protests

we never trained him to go to his room so to speak...he just gets off the morning couch position and trots into his room and plops down on his cushions

he is stubborn wilful and aloof and was the most difficult to train but is the most clever of the dogs...wiley in his wisdom..a real street smart dog who can work things out

the others are doughy and soft...lol

i love and respect him the most ...even though he is the worst dog in the household by our pet standards

[Niques]

James is very extroverted and loves novel things. And thus isn't fussed when things don't happen to plan. The location of his bed, toys and water bowl in his pen move nearly everytime I clean it. He can be put to bed, woken up or walked at any time of day without a worry.

Except, as I found out yesterday, for breakfast. He was vomitting during the night and I wasn't going to feed him breakfast until he threw an absolute tantrum when he realised the usual morning Kong was not forthcoming. Needless to say, puppy got breakfast. Dinner is normally at the same time each night but he's never bothered when it's late, even by several hours.

[all that glitters]

We don't have a routine of when Shyla is alone, but we do have a routine of HOW we leave her alone. I get my bag, place it on the ledge near the door, then we both run to the kitchen and I prepare her meal, put the radio on, and put her round bed down (the only time her round bed is put down is when we are leaving). I swear she even knows the cats have to get out of the room? Cos she runs at them all whiny and herds them out. Then she jumps on the roun bed waiting for her food. Then I put her bowl down say "back soon" and shut the door.

She's left at random times though, never just in the mornings, it varies.

If I was to just walk out without doing any of the above I'm sure she would get anxious and confused!

It's the only aspect she has shown a struggle in coping with when younger, being alone. She's a gem at everything else! (except she has a weird fear of my water bottle I take to work... go figure)

At night time when she hears my computer do its turning off jingle she gets up and goes to bed (under our bed)

I think she thrives on routine in some way or another

[Bundyburger]

Bundy thrives on routine, but as a rule we don't have one. He chucks total spaz attacks if he's not fed at the same time each day (which we ignore even though he can keep going for an hour!) as when he was little we used to be really consistent, not so now when he's on the same feeding schedule. He got into the routine of going to training, when i'd pack up his stuff he'd go wait by the door until it was time to leave, now we don't go he ends up really lost for about an hour as he expects to go places. If I go to leave normally during that time he'll get hyper thinking he's coming too even though he stays home.