Do you stop to consider your Dog's Point of View?
Ms Michelle Masters 
Taking a moment to consider the potential impact of something from your Dog’s Point of view could help you minimise stress & behaviour problems.
Anyone who follows me may know that we all moved home 4 months ago, and I’ve been meaning to share something about that with you for a couple of weeks now, so here it is.
I knew I was moving home.
I knew exactly when I was moving.
I knew where I was moving to.
I didn’t move very far so I was still in an area that was familiar to me.
Nothing about the dynamics of my household changed when I moved, nobody stopped living with us, and there wasn’t anyone new that started living with us.
The house I moved into is beautiful, a lot more space than my old house and has the most gorgeous large garden for the dogs. It’s in a wonderful rural location in the middle of a woodland that most would call ‘idyllic’, and I fully appreciate how lucky that makes me.
Sky & Tramp coped with the house move fabulously, and with minimal stress during the packing up stage and the move itself, and they both LOVE the new house, garden, and woodland walks.
As we didn’t move too far from our old house, we were still able to go back to some of our old familiar walk locations that we’ve been doing for years.
Just to clarify, both my dogs have been with me a long time. Sky is a very robust 10-year-old Border Collie & Tramp is my 8-year-old Romanian rescue dog, who has been with me since he was 5 months and whilst not as robust as Sky, is by no means a highly fearful or anxious dog, but he is sensitive.
They’ve both moved home with me twice before, and we’ve had a couple of unsettled periods in our lives, so we’ve all been around the block a few times you might say and have a decent level of resilience to life.
But why am I telling you all this?
Because despite all of the above, it still took ME well into month three before I began to feel settled and ‘home’.
And it took Sky & Tramp a good 6-8 weeks to feel settled in the new house & location.
For the first few weeks Tramp was noticeably more ‘edgy’ on walks, even in old familiar locations and even though we had been driving to & walking from the new house for weeks before we moved.
There were also observable moments of disorientation, in particular from Tramp in relation to ‘where do I sleep’, ‘where do I take this chew to eat’, ‘where does my food bowl go down.’
All of these things Tramp had PPPs in place for at our old house (predictable patterns of precedents) but in the new house, it was all different, he had to start from scratch and establish new PPPs.
In addition, there was an increase in alert barking to external noise from both dogs, as well as a big increase in alert barking in the garden from Tramp.
But probably most significantly, both dogs also struggled with separation distress the first time I left them home alone for a brief period, and this is something neither of them have EVER had difficulty with before.
So, despite there being no major changes other than the house itself, with all the other things that help provide stability, security & a sense of safety remaining in place, it took all of us quite some time before we felt ‘settled’.
So, take a moment now if you will, to picture this in your mind:
Imagine being ‘collected’ from your home, not knowing where you are going or why.
Imagine leaving behind EVERYTHING that is familiar to you, even if it was awful, it was still familiar.
Imagine a long journey travelling in a vehicle - an experience you’ve likely never had before, with people who are complete strangers.
Imagine being taken off that vehicle and seeing an environment that looks NOTHING like what you are used to, with more complete strangers. Nobody & nothing, human, canine, or otherwise, is familiar to you.
Imagine being taken into a building full of strange objects, smells, and sounds - again something you may never have experienced before.
Imagine complete strangers staring at you, maybe trying to touch you, trying to get you to ‘do’ things, trying to put strange items of clothing or equipment on you.
Imagine nothing about your day feeling familiar down to when (and where) you can go to the toilet, to what time food is available.
How Would You Feel?
How long would it take you to start to feel relaxed?
How long would it take you to feel safe?
How long would it take you to begin to trust the new people or animals in this place?
How long would it take you to learn to navigate the environment around you, to find your way around, to acclimate to what happens where and when?
This is what it is like for your Romanian dogs (and any overseas rescue dogs of course) when they come to live with you. Especially if they are arriving straight from overseas, but even if your dog was in a kennels in the UK or a foster home before coming to you, a lot of this still applies.
Can you imagine just how disorientating this must be? It would be difficult for us to navigate, so how challenging must it be for them.
Much of what your dog will have learnt in terms of behavioural responses to external environments & human behaviour up until this point is suddenly different, and they have to RE-LEARN it all in this new space.
For the most part these incredible animals actually cope pretty well with such an insane level of life disruption that would completely disorientate the majority of humans if the same thing were to happen to us.
But of course, some of them can really struggle.
For the most part these incredible animals adapt amazingly, but dogs, like us, are creatures of habit, they thrive on routines and predictability and when ALL of that is altered, adaptation takes time.
Your dog is having to adapt to a whole new social group, environment, daily life structure, interactive experiences & situations which, even for the most robust dogs, takes TIME.
Some will be completely thrown by all of this and display big observable behavioural signs that they are struggling. Extreme fear, aggression, guarding, trying to escape, but even for those dogs who don’t outwardly display these big feelings, it doesn’t necessarily mean they’re not feeling them.
Some dogs shut down or internalise & suppress behaviour when they feel vulnerable or unsafe.
Anyone observing me over the first few months of moving into my new home wouldn’t have seen any significant indications of stress or upset. I didn’t ‘look’ like I was struggling. I didn’t ‘look’ like I felt disorientated or a bit upside down about things, but I was.
Anyone who doesn’t know dogs well, would most likely not have noticed anything obvious that indicated my dogs were out of sorts and experiencing elevated anxiety.
So, whilst I could literally write pages on this, I will wrap it up now with three main points I wanted to make.
ONE: Despite everything about the house move being under my control, it still took ME close to 4 months to start to feel completely settled.
TWO: Despite my dogs having continued stability and security through being with their long-term safe person, and having their daily life structure remain much the same, they still showed signs of elevated anxiety in the form of disorientation, anxiety on walks, increased barking in the home & garden as well as separation distress.
THREE: Dogs, like humans, are adaptable by their very nature, but it takes time, and we can often fail to give them that when they need it the most.
One of the most common reason behavioural problems show up is because we overload and overwhelm our dogs with too much to think about, process & adjust to all at once.
This of course is majorly relevant to newly adopted overseas dogs, but it can also be relevant to any changes, upheavals, or trauma’s our dogs may experience.
Some dogs are more robust & resilient than others and may adapt quicker, but some need more time, in just the same way that some people are more robust & resilient, but others can struggle hugely in similar circumstances.
Please remember ‘Your dog is a thinking, feeling, emotional being, just like you but different’.
It can never hurt to take a step back and see the world from your Dog’s point of view and think about what it may look like and feel like for them, especially if there are areas or things you are both finding challenging right now.
Taking a moment to consider the potential impact of something from your Dog’s Point of view is a fundamental key to minimising stress & maximising success.
Categories: : Living with Romanian Rescue Dogs, Understanding Your Romanian Dog