Answering Questions About Dog and Cat Behaviour
About this episode
In this episode, Zazie and Kristi answer wide-ranging questions about both dogs and cats that were sent in by listeners.
We talked about:
- brain games and the attention span in senior dogs;
- suggestions for new things to teach dogs; why dogs bark at e.g. people in hats or people going by the house;
- cooperative care for kittens;
- creating a local resource list for anxious and fearful dogs;
- enrichment and caring for fearful cats;
- the best tone of voice to use when speaking to your dog and whether dogs can detect our levels of stress;
- how to advocate for your dog;
- whether to teach a chin rest to cats for cooperative care or to be wrapped in a towel for vet care;
- is watching TV good for pets;
- how to teach cats to cooperate with having their claws trimmed;
- and we shared some tips on desensitization and counterconditioning for anxious and fearful dogs and cats.
This episode was recorded with a live audience. Thank you to everyone who submitted questions and who came to the event!
Links and resources
This page contains affiliate links which means I may earn a commission on qualifying purchases at no cost to you.
Bark! The Science of Helping Your Anxious, Fearful, or Reactive Dog by Zazie Todd is out now and available from all good bookstores.
Kristi Benson’s courses on barking and on grooming
The Husbandry Project from the Academy for Dog Trainers
Train Your Dog Like a Pro by Jean Donaldson is also available from all good bookstores.
BC SPCA desensitization and counterconditioning for cats. You can find the infographic on Bailey Eagan’s website
Companion Animal Psychology blog post on desensitization and counterconditioning
This episode was recorded in early 2024. Very sadly, Zazie’s cat Harley, who is mentioned in this episode, passed in February of this year. And more happily, Zazie’s book Bark! The Science of Helping Your Anxious, Fearful, or Reactive Dog, which is also mentioned in this episode, is out now and getting rave reviews.
There's no books section in this episode as we focused on the questions that were submitted.
Highlights of the episode
K: We got a lot of questions. So our first question is from Jaden who says, I play brain games with my 13 year old dog one to two times a day. He is enthusiastic and maintains his concentration for about five to 10 minutes. Is this okay or, or should I build his attention span? And I thought when I read this question first I was like, oh, I can't wait to hear what Zazie says about attention spans. And if there's research on that with dogs.
Z: And this is such a great question actually. And it makes me really happy to think of a senior dog who is having the opportunity to take part in brain games every day. Not just once, but maybe sometimes even twice a day. And I think this is fantastic. This is a wonderful thing to be doing. There isn't that much research specifically on this in senior dogs, but there's a little bit and it tells us that senior dogs benefit from training. So brain games and that kind of thing seem to help. And I think a 5 to 10 minute attention span is great because, you know, dogs are not going to be paying attention for hours. That sounds like a really good length of time to be doing this for. And so long as your dog is engaged, I think that's fantastic.
And what the research on this seems to tell us is that doing brain games for senior dogs is good for them in much the same way that when people do things that keep their brain active as they're getting older, it helps to keep their brain healthy. And it, it's one of those things that is thought to help with preventing dementia, for example, in people. There's been some recent studies actually that show several modifiable things you can do that prevent dementia in people. And brain games is one of them, or keeping your brain active. And the little bit of research we have on dogs does show that, that training for senior dogs is really good for them. So this is a fantastic thing to be doing. Keep on doing it. It's great for your dog.
K: I loved how the question sort of was wondering, is 10 minutes of attention span enough? And I'm like, I don't even think I have 10 minutes.
Z: I think that's really good. And especially because this is a senior dog that we're talking about, I think that's, that's really, really good. Okay, so thank you for that question, Jaden. And I'm going to move on to another one. This one is from Henry. He says, I taught my Chihuahua Shisha to recognize her written name. It was easy for her to do. Is there another thing that I can teach her? In August, she passed the AKC Canine Good Citizenship Test.
K: Right. So I think this is kind of like a dog trainer's dream. You know, as someone who says, what else can I teach my dog? I mean, oh, the lights shining. So I put some thought into this and I thought, so if there's things that are going to be useful for an adult dog, especially as they age, I think husbandry training is definitely something that I would put at the top of the list of just something that dogs have to go to the vet.
So teaching them to be comfortable at the vet, teaching them to be comfortable being restrained in the way that dogs are restrained and having various husbandry sort of, you know, veterinary things done to them. We can absolutely train our dogs to be comfortable with this. And the Academy for Dog Trainers where we both graduated and I work has a set of free plans with instructions that you can download. So that would definitely be on the list of things I would suggest that anybody trains for something like a Chihuahua.
I think it would be useful if they're not already comfortable, comfortable being picked up. Just thinking ahead about as they age there, there's the likelihood that they will need to be picked up. And so I would say that that's something, and that that's something that's included in the husbandry plans, but just, you know, for, for, for something extra to train. Toothbrushing for sure. If you're not already brushing their teeth. Dogs that are that size have a dentist in their future kind of thing. I think that's goes kind of without saying so. And you can definitely train your dog to be comfortable and happy to have their teeth brushed. So I would do that, um, again, for little dogs, something like going up a ramp, you know, like things that, as they, as they age into adults that they might need to, for them to be comfortable.
And then tricks. I think I just love seeing people who are having fun with training do tricks. And there's programs even that you can join into. Trick Master is one that is a trick meister that comes to mind. It's a pet professional guild program. And so all of it is very force free. There's no, um, you know, anything worrisome about the training that they're sort of recommending. And you can go through levels and, and they're, they're very much like sort of, they're not super cute tricks. They're, they're tricks that sort of challenge you as a trainer. So I think it's kind of fun. You're, you're, you're learning different cueing strategies. Um, and then you're getting little titles and it's all very fun. Um, and then there are definitely trick programs that are absolutely. For the cool, cute tricks.
And who doesn't want a dog who does super cute, fun stuff, you know, like party tricks? You know, training is so enriching and so glorious. So when the, when the output is a cute trick, I mean, everybody kind of wins. But not all of those trick programs are purely positive reinforcement. So there's something, you know, if you want to participate, just keep in mind that you may be having to make decisions about, you know, technique choices. So those are the ones that came up to my head. Did you have anything else?
Z: I love those choices. And they would be my first choices as well, I think, because such useful things, for one thing, and then fun and interesting things. And I guess the tricks can be extended to maybe like parkour. If you like spending time outside with your dog, then you can teach them to get onto things and to walk along things and so on. And it is the type of tricks, basically, but it's called parkour. And you can teach your dog to do different things, interacting with the environment outside. And I think that's quite fun as well.
Everyone who tries nose work with their dog seems to really get into it. So that's another thing if you think you might be interested in that. Ultimately that's something where you can teach your dog to be like a sniffer dog, like a professional sniffer dog, and they go hunting out a scent. And beginner classes are easy and they're fun. So if you like the sound of that, that's something you could try. I think it's best to go for the type of class where the dog is in charge instead of you telling the dog where to look. Some of, some of the classes have the dog decide where to look and you follow the dog. And I think that's a really fun thing to do as well. So, yeah, I'm always a fan of nose work. I think dogs really enjoy that.
And one of the things we say about enrichment for animals is that it's really important to involve their most important sense. And for dogs, that's the nose. So nose work is always a fun thing from that point of view as well. Yeah, I think, I think there are so many great choices of things that you can do.
K: So a lot of these are kind of like extras, but just like, we're, We're. I think we're both assuming that the dog already has a great recall, can wait at the door and other sort of safety behavior. So if you. If that's not in your dog's repertoire yet, then definitely I would. I would put a recall up probably at, like, the top of the safety list and train it. But I think that's something that is covered in most dog classes. So most dogs already kind of have that if they're. If they're already canine good citizens?
Z: Yes, I think so.
K: Okay, so the next question. We have two questions that sort of work together. Henry also asked, why does my dog always bark at people who wear hats? And then Linda asked, why does my dog want to bark at anyone or any car that drives by the house? I live on a cul de sac. This behavior began during and after Covid. Didn't happen before COVID and we did not have this barking problem for the first five years before COVID So how do we stop this?
Z: So I think these are both great questions, and they're actually very common questions. People are always asking me about barking. It's such a common thing, and it's important to remember that barking is a natural behavior for dogs. It's a normal thing for dogs to do. And, for example, it's one of the ways that they alert other dogs and us to things going by. So a lot of barking is just watchdog barking. They say, oh, something's happening. But it can also sometimes be a sign that the dog is afraid of something. They might be barking because they've seen something. They want to alert you to something that is potentially fearful, making them fearful. So. And sometimes they're just barking because they haven't seen something before. So maybe they're barking at people with hats. Maybe going back in time, maybe this dog as a puppy, didn't see many people with hats during the sensitive period for socialization.
That's one possibility. I'm not saying it is for your dog, obviously, and this reminds me something I should have said at the beginning, which is that we can't give specific guidance on individual dogs. We're talking generally because, of course, we can't get a full history on your dog in this time span. So we're only talking generally, and it's not specific guidance. But for some dogs, they will bark at people with hats because they weren't socialized to people with hats as puppies during the sensitive period, from three until about 12 to 14 weeks, when we really want them to have positive experiences with as many different kinds of people, different things, different environments as possible in order that they grow up to be friendly, confident, adult dogs.
Now, that's not necessarily the why in this case. It could always be, for example, that someone wearing a hat was once unpleasant to your dog, whether intentionally or unintentionally, until your dog became scared of people with hats. That's possible, too. And as for barking at things out of the window that they see going back, this is incredibly common. It's just. It is a normal behavior for dogs to do. And so because of that, the thing to remember is that we can't expect dogs not to bark. But what we can expect is for dogs not to bark too much. So we can train them to do their little bark at the beginning and then to stop. I don't know what you want to say about that, Kristi, because I know that you've got a lot of info about barking on your. You've written some fabulous blog posts on this, too.
K: Yeah, I agree. I think when I hear those two questions, and again, not about any specific dog, and we would encourage anyone who has questions like this about their dog to reach out to a dog trainer, but someone whose dog is barking at someone with hats, I would lean towards the likelihood that that dog is a little bit freaked out by that picture. That's just a weird picture for that dog. It's like, okay, I like people. I like people. Whoa, what's that? You know, So I would say that dog is more likely on the kind of the. Whoa, what's that? That's upsetting me. Scale dogs barking at stuff out the window. I would lean more towards that being, you know, less likely to be a dog who's upset. It's more likely that this watchdog barking that you were talking about is triggered.
So I would say if your dog is upset about something, what we want to do is make the dog not upset. And I think you cover this well in your book and a lot of your blogs. How do we help dogs who are upset at something? We want to make them feel better about that thing, and then the barking goes away by itself. Because we don't want to be like, stop barking. We want to be like, you don't need to be upset. This isn't actually an upsetting thing. You think it's scary, but I'm going to show you that it predicts good things for you. So I would tend to go for a technique that helped the dog feel comfortable with whatever it is that's triggering that barking.
And for dogs who are barking, are having watchdog barking triggered, which is sort of like they're not scared, they're not happy. It's just a thing that dogs do, like, kind of like blinking. Um, then I would say we have kind of a lot of techniques at our fingertips. Um, yay, we don't have a scared dog, you know, um, but I would say you can put, you can buy on sort of Amazon or other places, you can buy a sticker that goes on your window that obscures the dog level stuff and down so the light still comes in, but you have. The dog is seeing less. And that makes a big difference for a lot of dogs.
And then you can also train another behavior so you can train your dog to come to you and get a little treat. So they bark a couple of times and then they turn around and run up to you and get a treat. So you can train this other behavior so that they sort of see the thing that makes them bark is a cue to come to you and get a treat or to do something else, run to their mat and get it, get, you know, something like that. And that involves some training.
And then there's always negative punishment. So timeout. So if your dog is truly not upset and is just doing this thing, you know that because it's part of their natural repertoire, you can say, okay, if you, if you get, you know, if you bark more than two or three barks, we give you a couple because you're a dog and we're going to let you dog. If you continue to bark. And some dogs who watch dog bark, really bark a lot. We're gonna, we're gonna give you a 30 second little timeout. And that works remarkably well as well. So we do have a lot of tools at our disposal to sort of handle this type of barking.
Z: Yeah, I think that's a really, really good answer. And you know, with my own dog, I decided I was going to let him bark at the tv because when he first came to live with us, he was silent for months. He never made any noises at all. So when he first started barking at things, I was like, well, this is a novelty. This is a really good thing. It shows he settled down and I let him. And after a while I'm thinking, okay, now this is too much barking at the tv.
But what's really interesting about teaching a dog to come to you for treats instead is that they will also then start looking at you for treats when anything else happens and you learn what they're categories of things that they think deserve treats. And it's not just necessarily people going by or things on the tv, like seeing other dogs on the tv. But I think it's nice to know that that is an approach that works really, really well. So, yeah, it's a normal behavior. You do have to accept some barking, but depending whether or not the dog is fearful, there's lots that you can do about it.
K: Yeah. And if you're not sure if your dog is fearful, then that I think it's time to reach out to a trainer. Because if a dog is fearful, that's affecting their wealth. For like a dog who's watchdog barking for a minute, I'm not worried about their welfare. I'm worried about the dog's guardian's welfare at that point. But if your dog is fearful, then that's really something that we want to get on top of. We want to protect that dog and then we want to change that underlying emotional state if we can't protect the dog.
Z: Yeah, yeah.
K: Okay. So next up, Melanie asks, as a foster parent who takes care of one to two litters of kittens every year, what are the key steps to developing cooperative care? For toothbrushing, what I've tried so far has either not worked at best or backfired. I'm fairly good at training the cats to not meow for food, to go into their carriers on command, to sit, to go to their stations, as well as vacuum and doorbell desensitization. But toothbrushing has me stumped. I want to send these kittens off to their best lives possible, and it would be great if they didn't need preventable dentist dental surgery 10 years down the road.
Z: I think this is such a wonderful question. And also I'm so impressed at the kittens having been taught all these things already so far. That's brilliant. And this shows that you're also a really good trainer. So the thing is, I think toothbrushing is one of those things that is more difficult. There are things where the cat, or if we were talking about dogs, the dog tend to be a bit afraid, can often be the things where the training is much harder to do and it can very easily backfire if you go, especially if you go too fast. And we all have that tendency to go quite fast.
And so one of the things to do is to really slow down. And the other thing to do is to break it apart into even more tiny, tiny bits. So you do the training in different parts. You obviously, you don't just go up to the cat and brush their teeth and then give them some treats because that's going to freak the poor cat out. And that's obviously not what you've been doing either. But you might start with showing the toothbrush and giving the cat treats.
And if the cat has already got a negative reaction to the toothbrush, maybe the toothbrush has to be a long way away from them and you probably just want to build up to the cat licking lovely treats or very tasty chicken flavored pet toothpaste off the toothbrush before you do. Any attempt at actually trying to brush their teeth, and even that is probably going to be good for the cat just to get, you know, the toothpaste into their mouth is a start, perhaps, but the other aspects of doing this is that you have to be able to hold their head and open their mouth and that's something to train completely separately and something that cats generally don't particularly like.
But the added advantage of training that is that it's also training them something that they need to know to be pilled if they ever need to have medications in future. So that's really helpful and it will help them with the vet looking at their teeth when they actually happen to be at the vet as well. So even if you don't succeed in all of this training, especially because you probably only have the kittens for a short period of time, even little bits of training in this direction are really, really going to help them.
And then as for actually brushing their teeth, when you finally get to that point, take it really slow, like just put the toothbrush up to their mouth and then, then give them tons of treats, that kind of thing. Really, really slow. So the main thing is to take it incredibly slow so that you can tell that they're happy all the way through it and they're wanting to take the treats and they're looking excited to come and take part in the training. And the thing that I think is so common a mistake is to go too fast and then instead they become a bit afraid.
I don't know, you've probably got some things to add to because I think teaching a dog to have their teeth brushed is very similar to teaching a cat to having their teeth brushed.
K: Yeah, I think I was thinking about the separation of restraint and, and the sort of the implement. Um, and I think that's, that's awesome that, and they do need to be trained separately and then brought together.
But I would also say, because it sounds to me like Melanie is, is really an awesome Trainer. Um, so I would say if Melanie, if you are not using like, like a professional type production training, that now might be a time when you would find it really useful, you'd find it even more efficient. So I would say if you check out the Academy's Husbandry Project, it's for dogs, but you'll get some learning. Or Jean Donaldson's book, Train Your Dog Like a Pro, which goes over how to do production training. So it's, you're, you start really paying attention to how many repetitions have I done? Um, when can I push the next step? When, when can I realize that the next step is too much? So then I make a middle step.
So all these things, it's, it's, it feels like quite a bit of front loading learning that you'll have to do. But in the end you become this just like a crackershot trainer, right? You'll, you'll be training much more quickly than you were before. If you were just, you know, sort of free shaping without a real plan or, you know, so I would say just based on looking what you already can train, if you're not already training in a production style, this would be something where you would be like, this really makes a big difference. So that would be my recommendation for that.
Z: Yeah, I think that's a really good idea because you're obviously already a brilliant trainer. So this would be one way to, to help move through these issues and get even better at it. Yeah. Yeah. Great. So we'll move on to our next question, which is as the owner or family of our beloved fearful and anxious dog who is fearful of people, if one would create a local resource list for fearful dog families, what particular guidelines would you suggest specifically looking for veterinary and pet sitting providers with the knowledge of fearful and anxious dogs? And she says, he or she says, I've contacted animal shelter staff, certified fear free professional directory, certified dog trainers and behaviorists, dog day care staff, cold calling, vet hospitals, holistic vet services, local dog training businesses, and fellow dog owners of fearful dogs.
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