Some clues that your pet's behavior problem is not all in their head
Sometimes dogs and cats arrive at our veterinary behavior practice and we immediately know they are not in the right place. These cases have big red flags that tell us veterinary behaviorists that they have a physical illness, but their primary symtoms cause behavioral challenges so they are assumed to have a “behavior problem.” There are a few heartbreaking examples of this that stand out clearly in my memory, such as one particular dog that came to me because she was peeing all over her home. When I entered the exam room, the dog that greeted me looked as if she had walked right out from a textbook page describing all the symptoms of Cushing’s disease, a metabolic disease that causes increased thirst and urination. Patient’s rarely present exactly as described in textbooks, but she did and she even smelled like Cushing’s, something I’d heard tell of but hadn’t yet experienced personally. This dog was peeing all over her home because of this disease, not because of a training failure or an underlying anxiety disorder, and treatment of her Cushing’s disease was what was dearly needed.
This particular case stands out not only because of how advanced the dog’s disease was, but also because, for one reason or another, she was not evaluated by their primary care veterinarian before scheduling with me. That meant her very well intentioned humans had waited for months for our appointment to resolve her house soiling issues, months during which the dog could have been improving had she been evaluated by her primary veterinarian first. This is just one of the many, many reasons I stressed the importance of checking out your pet’s physical health as the first step to addressing any behavior problem in the last issue (and there are so many more).
Most of the physical health issues that land on our doorstep aren’t quite so clear cut as my Cushing’s case, however, and the symptoms can be subtle and confusing and definitely look like behavior problems on the surface. There are a few important clues to look out for though to make sure you bring your pet to the right place for treatment.
Clue 1: Your pet’s age when the problem started
Most of the dogs and cats we see at our practice are around 2 years of age, primarily because issues related to fear and anxiety manifest early and progress rapidly during the first few years of life. These issues can even be seen in very young animals—one study was able to identify signs of impending issues puppies that were only 2 months old. As dogs and cats mature and learn from their experiences, how they cope in what they perceive as scary or confusing situations changes and their behaviors can intensify. That means a dog that retreats behind you and avoids interacting with other humans on walks as a puppy can advance to lunging forward while barking, growling and baring their teeth at approaching humans as a young adult. In most cases, we can look back over the past several months or years and identify that the problem started while the pet was still young, what it looked like then, and how it changed over time. There’s a logical progression to follow and the behaviors make sense for that particular species in that context.
What is unusual, and therefore a red-flag that there’s another illness brewing under the surface, is when a mature adult animal shows a sudden change in behavior. Once animals reach social maturity (around 3 years of age for dogs and 2 years for cats) their personalities are pretty stable. Barring any traumatic events or huge changes in their environment (ex. move to a new home, drastic changes in work schedules or routines), how they interact with others and cope with day to day stressors shouldn’t change too dramatically. If it does, there’s likely an underlying condition that is either causing pain, discomfort, or chronic stress and allostatic overload. So if you have a dog that has tolerated hugging from you for years but is suddenly snapping when hugged now, or a cat that has reliably used her litter box every single day of her 7 years in your home and has just started pooping outside of it, get them in to your veterinarian for a check-up and let them know just how unusual these behaviors are for your pet.
I realize that many people adopt adult animals, but these rules still apply. Most behavior problems that we see in animals adopted as adults (>3 years of age) are either seen right after adoption or within a few months of adoption.
There are always exceptions
Some behavioral issues do develop later in life, most notably cognitive dysfunction syndrome. This affects both senior dogs and cats and it’s related to pathologic changes in the brain that are very similar to Alzheimer’s disease. This disease usually gets slowly worse over time and it can cause many behavior changes that impact both the pet and the pet parent’s quality of life. Thankfully treatments are available that can help slow it’s progression, but they work best when the disease is caught early. Let me know if this is a topic you’d like me to dive deeper into in a future issue.
Clue 2: The pattern of the behavior
Learned behaviors usually follow an ABC pattern:
A = Antecedents: the events, situations, and stimuli the precede and influence a behavior. In lay terms these are often referred to as “triggers”
B = Behavior: what the animal does
C = Consequence: the event that occurs after the behavior that may reinforce or modify it
While antecedents/triggers can sometimes be hard to identify (animals can perceive some things with their senses that we cannot) and it can be difficult to understand how certain events reinforce behaviors when you're not able to assess the situation objectively, we can usually identify this ABC pattern in the behavior problems we treat. In fact, it’s a really important part of our initial assessment because much of our treatment will focus on modifying the antecedents and consequences to change the behavior.
Since most learned behaviors, even those with strong emotional components, follow this pattern, a red flag for a non-behavioral illness is a behavior that doesn’t follow the ABC pattern. A good example of this comes from a patient I saw last year who was fly-biting—lifting his head and neck and snapping at the air. While sitting on the couch quietly with his human, who was watching TV and not interacting with him or touching him, he would suddenly start shifting around, licking his lips, fly biting, and chewing at his flanks. Nothing had changed that his human could perceive, there was no sudden noise from the TV, the room, or the outdoors, she hadn’t moved, and he wasn’t trying to interact with her—there was no identifiable trigger. This didn’t fit the expected ABC pattern, so I recommended she have further testing done to evaluate his gut health. Lo-and-behold, he had inflammation in his small intestines! Those behaviors were in response to an internal trigger, discomfort in his gut, not due to an obsessive compulsive disorder, frustration or anxiety.
Some triggers get dismissed because of our preconceived notions
We do frequently have clients tell us that their pet’s behavior “came out of nowhere” which implies it lacks the expected ABC pattern. However, if we look at the situation from the dog or cat’s perspective, we can usually find the trigger. In my experience most of these “out of nowhere” behaviors involve dogs or cats biting humans in response to interactions the humans consider kind or loving. When we start asking questions about what was going on at the time of the bite, people will say “I was just petting him” or “I just walked up to her bed to say hello.” There are clear triggers here (petting, approaching), but the behavior (biting) doesn’t make sense to the human from their perspective. “Why would my dog or cat bite when I was being so nice?” The behavior doesn’t make sense and seems random to the human because they don’t understand that from the dog or cat perspective, the interaction is unpleasant, confusing, or scary, and therefore something they are motivated to stop. It’s always a good idea to assess the behavior from the dog or cat’s perspective as much as we are able, and in most cases that will make these patterns a whole lot clearer.
Next week I’ll cover common behavior symtoms caused by gut and skin disease. These are issues we frequently encounter at our practice so don’t forget to subscribe so you don’t miss it!
Godbout, M., Palestrini, C., Beauchamp, G. and Frank, D., 2007. Puppy behavior at the veterinary clinic: A pilot study. Journal of Veterinary Behavior, 2(4), pp.126-135.
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