corvus Posted January 20, 2011 Share Posted January 20, 2011 Vallhunds are well known for being vocal, and I was prepared for this when I got Erik, I thought. I knew how to teach a dog to be quiet. What I didn't know was how to teach a 'nuisance' barker to be quiet. When I started working from home last year, I discovered Erik seemed to be running at higher arousal in general than he really needed to, which was why he was jumping up and barking at every minute sound he heard. I did some training with him and it helped, but sometimes he just wasn't in the mood to lie quietly on his bed and it was difficult for either of us to maintain. It was like fighting against a tide. Inevitably, he'd be up every few minutes to bark at something and it would take hours for him to settle enough to nap. One day I tried giving him a really good massage in the morning before I got to work, and to my shock he settled immediately and all day he ran at a more normal arousal level. He napped most of the day, ignored the majority of the sounds that usually set him off, and settled again quickly whenever he got up. Over the course of a week, I had him taking himself to bed at about 9am each morning and running at a normal arousal level all day. Then I went on holidays for a few weeks and when I came back he was back to being tightly wound all the time. Anyway, this week I thought I'd try repeat what I did the first time 'round, but I used a Thundershirt instead. I took it off after about an hour and again, he was calmer all day. Today I didn't use the Thundershirt, but went back to massage and just made sure that every time he got up to bark at something I called him back right away and took a few minutes to bring him down again. I did that about three times this morning and again, he's been calmer all day. I'm fascinated that doing something to lower arousal at the start of the day can apparently last for many hours. I wonder if it's possible to 'set' the arousal running level at the start of the day? Considering many problem behaviours occur when arousal is high, I can suddenly see the sense in Karen Overall's Relaxation Protocol as a matter of course before trying to modify problem behaviour. Steven Lindsay seems to be in favour of it as well, or his own version, which includes massage but a much more structured version than what I've been doing. I have found that if I leave Erik to be barky for, say, half a day and then do massage, it's not as effective, and same with the Thundershirt, although I think it varies. I'm wondering if I'm 'setting' his arousal level in the morning, or if I'm just bringing his arousal down from a lower level in the first place than if I did something halfway through the day. That probably wasn't very coherent. I'd like to hear what other people think about the role of manipulating arousal in behaviour modification. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
haven Posted January 20, 2011 Share Posted January 20, 2011 This is specific to humans, but I thought you migth still be interested.. My nephew has recently been diagnosed with a sensory prossessing disorder, which causes him hypersensitive to touch, sounds etc which in turn affected his behaviour. Since the diagnosis my Brother and SIL have been treating him by way of a skin brushing technique which also involves massaging his joints briefly every 90 minutes for about three months if I recall correctly. Apparently that is long enough to permenantly change the pathways that process external stimuli so that he is no longer hyper sensitive. Those close to him have seen a big improvement and although I've only seen him a handful of times since they started, he does seem a lot calmer and no longer so agitated, talks more, seeks out contact, makes eye contact etc where he never used to before. I don't know the technicalities obviously, and I haven't gotten around to researching in depth, but I googled it briefly and it's pretty inetersting stuff. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tatzelwurm Posted January 20, 2011 Share Posted January 20, 2011 To Haven that may be patterning as advocated by the Institutes in Mass. USA, Dr Glenn Doman. To Corvas there is some reserch implying that calm/serene owners produce calm serene dogs. Anxious/hyperactive/busy owners produce dogs which are always doing and going. Behaviior can be changed by owner changing behaviour around dogs, so it is intersting to learn what you are doing. The Alexander technique is something similar and possibly worth discovering. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sas Posted January 20, 2011 Share Posted January 20, 2011 (edited) To Haven that may be patterning as advocated by the Institutes in Mass. USA, Dr Glenn Doman. To Corvas there is some reserch implying that calm/serene owners produce calm serene dogs. Anxious/hyperactive/busy owners produce dogs which are always doing and going. Behaviior can be changed by owner changing behaviour around dogs, so it is intersting to learn what you are doing. The Alexander technique is something similar and possibly worth discovering. What if you have one of each Although I agree that owners influence the behaviour of the dogs, it's not the beeeeee all of it, natural personalities and temperaments come into place as well a bunch of other variables. Edited January 20, 2011 by sas Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
moosmum Posted January 21, 2011 Share Posted January 21, 2011 Touch and massage are being used a lot in work with horses these days too.Lots of "Horse whisperers" are using such methods to beginn work. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
raineth Posted January 21, 2011 Share Posted January 21, 2011 I know of research that indicates that highly strung people, or anxious people, who meditate every day are more relaxed for that entire day. It does seem to be important to do it pretty much first thing. I never thought about why that is though - its very interesting! my son has sensory processing disorder by the way. that sounds like a wonderful thing your nephew's parents are doing Haven We did a less structured version. Similar sorts of things lots of touch and new sensory experiences and he controlled how involved he was with it (we started as an infant although he wasn't diagnosed at that time). He has made huge improvements (he is 9 now). There are still certain clothes he can't wear and a few things like that. Our biggest problem has been vistibular and proprioceptive. We have made inroads on vistibular but it is still so bad. He so often thinks he is falling over. reading your post Haven has made decide to work on it some more. sorry for that bit being offtopic corvus Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Aidan3 Posted January 21, 2011 Share Posted January 21, 2011 Diane Garrod does what she calls a "behavioural detox", which as I understand it involves calming the dogs with touch (and behaviour mod) every day. She does this with reactive dogs. My guess is that neurotransmitters are released into the system, having long-lasting effects. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jigsaw Posted January 21, 2011 Share Posted January 21, 2011 Would the calming effect come from the hormone oxytocin? I understand oxytocin levels are increased with touch which would promote a sort of de-stress effect. Which could be why the thundershirt helps relax dogs too, just pondering there. Oxytocin is sometimes promoted as the cuddle hormone in humans! Cortisol levels are naturally higher in the early morning so it make sense to reduce the pile on effect of stressors during the day by reducing the initial normal stress before daily events both normal and abnormal increase the cortisol level further. Hmm does that make sense?? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Snoopy21 Posted January 21, 2011 Share Posted January 21, 2011 One of my sons suffers from sensory defensiveness due to his autism. I had a fascinating conversation with an OT yesterday about this very topic. I would assume that it would apply equally to dogs as people because the adrenalin/endorphin type system is similar. She was saying that we have 2 sensory inputs to our brain, the discriminative and the evaluative. The discriminative input tells us if something is hot, cold, sharp, hard etc. The evaluative tells us whether it is something that we need to pay attention too (i.e. is it life threatening). For some people the evaluative system is not functioning as well, so all sensory input is seen as life threatening, and everything is taken in. This means that as sensory input is accumulated across time, the level of endorphins in the body rises and has no chance to dissipate. Therapies used are therapeutic brushing as Haven mentioned or the use of scheduled muscle and joint work (including deep pressure massage) that allows the endorphins to dissipate faster. Once the constant elevated state from the endorphins is removed the brain learns to be more discriminatory about which sensory input needs to be paid attention to. I would say that by massaging Erik in the morning you are lowering the level of endorphins and allowing him to pay more attention to the input he is receiving. Maybe if you keep it up he will gradually improve? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dee lee Posted January 21, 2011 Share Posted January 21, 2011 Simply, I would imagine that it would be similar if I had a massage in the morning- I'd feel nice and relaxed for the rest of the day. I do when I go for a run too. Its fascinating reading all the other posts, amazing therapy! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Staff'n'Toller Posted January 21, 2011 Share Posted January 21, 2011 I've been told by my neurologist that a couple of minutes of deep breathing works well for migraines as there is documented evidence that it blocks adrenaline pathways. Just my two cents worth. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
corvus Posted January 21, 2011 Author Share Posted January 21, 2011 This is all very interesting. Thanks guys! I do wonder about return to 'baseline' arousal, though. It seems to me that lowering Erik's arousal in the morning means that later in the day if he gets aroused he comes down quicker and to a lower level than if I do nothing. And repeating that for a few days results in the same thing without needing to do anything to directly lower his arousal. Just conditioning, I guess. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
newfsie Posted January 21, 2011 Share Posted January 21, 2011 I've been told by my neurologist that a couple of minutes of deep breathing works well for migraines as there is documented evidence that it blocks adrenaline pathways. Just my two cents worth. we use breathing techniques at our work. We do a lot of injection procedures, with only local anaestetic.....It works Also i wonder if the Grooming of one another would be part of the calming technique......... My Previously People and dog aggressive rescue newf, is often Groomed by the dog she used to attack when she gets a little tense. Now it does not seem the same as the submissive licking, but almost a "hey all is fine" type grooming. Tessa is not actually submissive to her. but does seem to know when to "groom". She also used to do it to the newfie pup, when it was stressed or crying. Don't know, maybe I am seeing too much. But ti does seem to calm. I have been to Tellington Jones work-shops. And have seen it work wonders on a very stressed Thoroughbred. Did not make much difference on our chilled Q-horse. I used TTouch on my newfie girl a lot pre-training sessions. And I do know tha calm attitude makes all the difference with both dogs and horses. You can especially see that when a horse has been injured. If you remain calm, positive, quiet and use T-touch type motions or massage, you can get a lot done without sedatives Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
corvus Posted January 22, 2011 Author Share Posted January 22, 2011 I use Erik licking me as an indicator that I'm on the right track when I massage him. It usually starts when he's close to lying down and just letting me do what I like with him. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
raineth Posted January 22, 2011 Share Posted January 22, 2011 Corvus, could you describe a little more how you massage Erik please? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
luvsdogs Posted January 22, 2011 Share Posted January 22, 2011 Corvus, could you describe a little more how you massage Erik please? That's what I was wondering too? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
corvus Posted January 23, 2011 Author Share Posted January 23, 2011 I kinda use TTouch. Sort of. I started with TTouch and then found some things that he especially seemed responsive to, like quite firm circles on his haunches and long strokes down his back. Here's a video I made to show someone else: He wasn't in the mood for it, so lots of tongue flicks. It's a bit blurry because he poked the camera with his nose a minute earlier. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
raineth Posted January 23, 2011 Share Posted January 23, 2011 thanks corvus, very helpful Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
corvus Posted January 24, 2011 Author Share Posted January 24, 2011 I didn't even do anything this morning and he settled down to the calm level he was at with massage and the TS last week. How is it that two consecutive days of lowering arousal in the morning can have such a profound effect? I want to know if it's just Erik that is so responsive to it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
raineth Posted January 24, 2011 Share Posted January 24, 2011 (edited) I'll give it a go with my two if you like Corvus. Well actually maybe just with Delta, because if Digby relaxes anymore he may stop breathing. I'll try to do it as similarly to what you do as I can. ETA: Corvus, I have a thundershirt. I haven't used it on Delta yet. But maybe I could start with the thundershirt for an hour in the morning. I'll see if that lowers her arousal during the day. If not, I'll try the massage. Edited January 24, 2011 by raineth Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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