What's Influencing Your Dog's Behavior?
What influences a dog’s behavior? What effect can we have on these influences? Behavior modification goals should always consider internal and external influences, be realistic, and promote welfare.
Key Internal Influences on a Dog's Behaviors:
Genetics and Breed
Genetics internally influence sociability, startle responses, and aggression thresholds. Breeders capitalize on gene selection when deciding which dogs to breed for a particular purpose.
This is why helping a Doberman Pinscher accept and befriend strangers may feel like a sisyphean task, just like asking a Cavalier King Charles Spaniel to protect the home from burglars. Breed-related and genetically influenced behaviors are not immutable, but there are limitations. Behavior modification should always honor the breed and the individual dog.
Food (nutritional aspect)
Dietary carbohydrates, lipids, amino acids like tryptophan (precursor to Serotonin which reduces anxiety and aggression) and tyrosine (precursor to catecholamines like Dopamine which manages stress responses) impact a dog's brain development and behavioral health. Food quality can internally affect structural development, coat quality, gut / brain health, and behavior through dietary neurotransmitter and hormone precursor availability. Therefore, dogs should be fed the highest quality food their people can afford.
Health and Pain
A dog's behavior change may be acutely noticeable or subtle secondary to pain or imbalances in endocrine, gastrointestinal, and neurological health. Aggression, restlessness, and inappropriate elimination can all be symptoms of underlying health issues.
An acute health change may be more readily noticed than a chronic health change. If a dog steps onto a burr, an acutely painful health concern, one is likely to notice little or no weight bearing plus licking or chewing on the affected paw. The dog’s guardian immediately examines the dog’s paw and removes the burr. However, if a dog’s nails are overgrown, a chronically painful health condition, one may not notice the dog’s frequent paw licking/chewing or gait abnormalities. Unnoticed, these chronic symptoms may cause the dog to avoid painful activities like going for walks, using stairs, or jumping on/off furniture or into/out of the car.
In this example, both the acute and chronic paw health concerns cause similar symptoms. However, since acute health concerns are more often immediately recognized and subsequently resolved than chronic health concerns, behavior changes are often the first noticeable symptom for undiagnosed chronic health issues.
Chronic discomfort sensitizes the central nervous system which amplifies pain perception and pain-related behavior responses. Not wanting to be removed from the gene pool, dogs have evolved to be subtle with physical symptoms of health concerns (which are more easily noticed by predators than behavioral symptoms).
Chronic pain may cause dogs to become withdrawn, irritable, hypervigilant, or intolerant to being disturbed when resting. There may be changes in their appetite, reduced participation in activities of daily living, and increased vocalization. Chronic pain/stress-related cortisol and immunological responses negatively impact a dog’s quality of life and lifespan.
Please keep an open mind and listen to qualified professionals correlating behavior changes observed with possible undiagnosed health concerns. Stay curious about changes in behavior and how these observations can help your veterinarian identify health concerns.
Key External Influences on Dog's Behaviors:
Family Dynamics
After reading the previous section on health, you may be wondering: How could someone not notice their dog has stopped jumping onto the sofa for evening snuggles from overgrown nails? A single person or couple living with one or two dogs may notice acute health changes well before a family busy with human children and multiple pets. Living with agents of chaos such as children beginning to walk, teens practicing instruments, other non-human animals, frequent family gatherings, or one family member having completely different rules than another family member can reduce a dog’s resilience.
When the busy family notices their older dog slowing down, what do they do? They might bring home a younger dog to ‘help keep their beloved older dog spry.’ However, the older dog may have undiagnosed arthritis or other untreated sources of pain and therefore gives a younger roommate the cold arthritic shoulder. Rather than research young dogs to adopt, ask a qualified professional to evaluate your dog’s behavior and lifestyle, highlight underlying discomforts, and help you make an informed decision regarding adding another dog to your family.
Environment
Such a qualified professional can also help you see your home and the surrounding environment from your dog’s point of view. Shadows, low light, slippery floors, open staircases, ambient noise, temperature (inside and outside the home), plus the scents of seasonal wildlife activity are examples of external behavioral influences on your dog. Dogs who suddenly stop walking on unseasonably warm days or stop to air scent at dawn during the critter commute aren’t being stubborn — they haven’t yet acclimated to the heat or they’re using their super computer to catch up on the critter hot goss.
Take notice of dogs who avoid daily activities previously performed with ease, rooms with slippery floors, or using stairs, or who become intolerant of particular sounds. Dogs will often subtly make their worlds smaller when experiencing discomfort. These behavior changes may be early symptoms for dogs experiencing pain.
Our State of Mind or Health
The world is, well, a lot. Sometimes we barely have the energy to take care of ourselves, let alone notice the subtleties of our dogs experiencing discomfort. Our own state of mind and health are external influences on our dogs’ behaviors. We’ve all seen dogs comfort people feeling unwell. Some dogs activate protection mode when the community delivers meals or medical caregivers visit. We may notice behavior changes but postpone intervention due to our own well-being. We may resist treatment recommendations due to our own biases. Your qualified pet professional can meet you where you’re at and help you make small changes that make a big difference to your dog.
Dog Walkers and Daycare
It takes a village to care for our dogs. Many times we rely on dog walkers or doggie daycare to provide companionship and potty breaks during our work day. Such team members and experiences are external influences on a dog’s behaviors.
Do your dog walkers and daycare attendants share your welfare philosophy and training approach? Or, do they offer outdated unscientific advice which often appeals to egos but is in fact against best practices? Either way, the dog walker’s and daycare attendant’s approach to dogs will impact a dog’s behavior.
Due to sociability, resilience, sound sensitivity, and health factors, daycare isn’t appropriate for every dog. If you notice your dog becoming more irritable or withdrawn after consecutive days of daycare, adjust the schedule. Daycare is a very active, stimulating experience and many dogs benefit from a physical / mental rest day at home between daycare days. If your dog isn’t a good fit for daycare, find a dog walker who aligns with your dog welfare values, will listen to your dog, and provide alternative enrichment whenever your dog says “no thanks” to a walk.
Previous Life Experience
Previous life experiences, like being accidentally pinched during harness application, having items snatched from mouths, being bullied by another pet, or being picked up without any warning, are all external influences on dogs’ behaviors. If traumatic experiences trigger lasting heightened stress responses, PTSD can develop. Behavioral symptoms of negative life experiences include hypervigilance, sleep disturbances, fear of being alone, avoidance of people, places, or situations, decreased interest in favorite activities, or aggression. A good qualified professional does a bit of behavioral forensic analysis to help you identify triggers from previous families or experiences, improve associations with triggers, and recommend behavior medication veterinary evaluations as needed.
Equipment
For instance, your qualified pro may notice your dog avoiding walking equipment application. You’d be amazed by how changing something as simple as the harness type or the weight of a leash can completely change your walking experience with your dog. Of course, ceasing use of aversive equipment follows best practices. Aversive equipment may suppress unwanted behaviors in the moment, but over time, a dog’s reaction to triggers intensifies thanks to pairing painful stimuli with triggers and neural pathway sensitisation. Work with a qualified professional to choose humane, least invasive, properly fitted, and maximally beneficial equipment to promote cooperation and enjoyment on walks.
Food (reward aspect)
“Please sir, may I have some more?”
— Oliver Twist.
When given within 3 seconds of desirable behavior, food is a communication tool increasing the likelihood of your dog repeating a behavior.
Dogs should be enthusiastic about food, come to eat when called, anticipate mealtime, move quickly to the food bowl, seek food when aware of its presence, and eat most or all offered food within 15 minutes or less. Any aversion to food can indicate an underlying health condition. Dogs who wolf down meals at home and when training inside but refuse food outside may be experiencing anxiety. Food can be a barometer measuring previously discussed internal and external influences on behaviors.
Since dogs are so commonplace, everyone has advice to share. Oftentimes, this advice is based on superstition, hearsay, and TV shows. Such advice rarely, if ever, takes into account all that has been discussed here. Please find a qualified professional who understands and is curious about all of the external and internal influences on your dog’s behaviors. I am a Dynamic Dog Practitioner capable of evaluating your dog’s posture, gait, movement, and activities of daily living to highlight potential concerns for veterinary evaluation. Please let me know if you are curious about your dog’s behavior and how it may relate to underlying discomfort.
References
A Review of Medical Conditions and Behavioral Problems in Dogs and Cats Camps (2019)
Behavior Problems of the Dog and Cat (4th ed.) Landsberg (2024)
Genetics and the social behavior of the dog. Scott, J.P., & Fuller, J.L. (1965)
The effects of fear and anxiety on health and lifespan in pet dogs Nancy A. Dreshcel (2010)
Impact of nutrition on canine behaviour: current status and possible mechanisms Bosch (2007)
The effects of using aversive training methods in dogs—A review Ziv (2017)
Caring For A Dog With PTSD Teller (2020)
Dynamic Dog Module 3 Hodson