Arousal

Arousal.

The word we use when the dog has apparently forgotten how to dog.

“He's too aroused.”

It's become one of those phrases you hear everywhere in dog training.

The dog is barking.

Too aroused.

Jumping up.

Too aroused.

Running around.

Too aroused.

Playing with another dog.

Too aroused.

Chasing a ball.

Definitely too aroused.

Doing absolutely nothing?

Probably recovering from being too aroused earlier.

And like so many words I'm going to look at in this series, arousal is a real and useful concept.

The problem comes when we start using it as though it explains everything.

Because what exactly is arousal?

And perhaps more importantly:

Is arousal actually the problem?

First things first: arousal isn't bad

Let's get this out of the way.

Arousal isn't some terrible state we need to eliminate from our dogs.

Arousal is normal.

In very simple terms, it describes a state of physiological and psychological activation.

Your dog needs some level of arousal to do pretty much anything.

Want to play?

Arousal.

Want to chase a ball?

Arousal.

Want to go for a walk?

Arousal.

Want to investigate a new smell?

Arousal.

Want to respond to a potential threat?

Arousal.

Want to learn?

Yep.

Arousal again.

So when somebody says:

“We need to keep the dog calm.”

I always want to ask:

Calm compared with what?

Because we don't actually want a dog who spends its entire life lying on the floor looking like it's waiting for the batteries to be replaced.

We want a dog who can move between states.

High arousal isn't automatically bad either

This is where things get interesting.

Imagine a Border Collie working sheep.

They're intensely focused.

They're moving quickly.

They're watching everything.

They're responding to tiny changes in movement.

Their body is ready to react.

Their brain is working incredibly hard.

Their arousal level is probably pretty bloody high.

And yet we wouldn't necessarily describe that as a problem.

It's part of the job.

Take a Labrador retrieving a dummy.

They see it thrown.

Their arousal rises.

They focus.

They run.

They retrieve.

They return.

And, ideally, they can then settle again.

The problem isn't necessarily that their arousal went up.

The important bit is what happens next.

Can the dog regulate?

Can they disengage?

Can they recover?

Can they return to a lower level of arousal?

Or have we pressed the accelerator and discovered that nobody fitted a brake?

Arousal isn't the same thing as excitement

This is another common misunderstanding.

We often use:

“He's excited.”

and:

“He's highly aroused.”

as though they're interchangeable.

They're not necessarily.

A dog can be highly aroused because they're excited.

But they can also be highly aroused because they're frightened.

Or frustrated.

Or angry.

Or intensely focused.

Or anticipating something.

Or overwhelmed.

So when your dog is barking, spinning, pulling and generally behaving like they've just discovered they've won the lottery, don't automatically assume they're having the canine equivalent of a lovely day out.

They might be.

They might also be having a very difficult time.

Arousal describes a state.

It doesn't necessarily tell us the emotion behind it.

The accelerator isn't the problem

I quite like thinking about arousal as an accelerator.

Your dog has an accelerator.

That's useful.

They need it.

It allows them to get up and go.

The problem comes when the accelerator is being pressed harder and harder while we're desperately shouting:

“CALM DOWN!”

Which is, when you think about it, a slightly ridiculous instruction.

“Calm down” isn't really a behavioural strategy.

It's a request.

And quite often it's being made to a dog who is already struggling to regulate themselves.

And where's the brake?

This is the bit I think we sometimes miss.

We spend an enormous amount of time teaching dogs how to do things.

Go.

Chase.

Fetch.

Run.

Play.

Find it.

Work.

Perform.

Get excited.

MORE!

But how much time do we spend teaching them how to stop?

How to disengage.

How to pause.

How to settle.

How to recover.

How to do absolutely nothing.

Because a dog who can go from:

“OH MY GOD! BALL!”

to:

“Ball has gone away. I'll have a lie down.”

has something incredibly useful.

They have a brake.

And frankly, brakes are underrated.

“He's got no off switch.”

I hear this one a lot.

And sometimes it's a very good description.

The dog finishes playing.

Then wants more.

They come home from a walk.

They pace around the house.

They see another dog.

They explode.

They see a toy.

They explode.

Someone knocks at the door.

They explode.

And the owner says:

“He's got no off switch.”

Maybe.

But here's the important question:

Has anyone actually taught him where the switch is?

We often expect dogs to develop emotional regulation simply because they're dogs.

But regulation is a skill.

Some dogs are naturally better at it than others.

Some breeds have been selected for incredible persistence and intensity.

Some dogs have learned that frantic behaviour produces exciting consequences.

Some have spent years rehearsing the same patterns.

And some simply haven't had many opportunities to learn how to come back down.

Some dogs are basically furry caffeine addicts

This is where breed becomes really interesting.

We have spent generations breeding dogs for jobs that require incredible levels of motivation and persistence.

A Border Collie doesn't particularly benefit from thinking:

“I'll get around to moving those sheep after my afternoon nap.”

A working terrier isn't terribly useful if it gets halfway down a hole and thinks:

“Actually, this is all a bit much. I'll come back tomorrow.”

A gundog needs to be able to switch on when required.

A working-line dog may have considerably more drive and intensity than someone expects when they buy one as a pet.

That's not necessarily a behavioural fault.

It may be part of what the dog was bred to do.

The challenge is helping that dog live successfully in a world where their current job might be:

stare at the wall while their owner watches Netflix.

And then we wonder why they have invented their own job.

The ball can be a problem

This is where things get controversial.

We often assume that because a dog loves something, giving them more of it is automatically good.

A dog loves chasing a ball.

So we throw it.

Again.

And again.

And again.

And again.

And again.

The dog gets more frantic.

Faster.

Louder.

More obsessive.

We throw it again.

Because they're having such a great time.

Except perhaps we're not actually looking at a dog enjoying a balanced game anymore.

We're looking at a dog whose arousal is continuing to climb.

The answer isn't necessarily:

“Never play ball again.”

That's far too simplistic.

The answer might be:

Learn how to play without constantly pushing the dog higher and higher.

Build pauses.

Build disengagement.

Change the intensity.

Let the dog sniff.

Walk.

Pause.

Do something else.

Then perhaps play again.

The game becomes a conversation rather than an escalating feedback loop.

Arousal stacking

This is where things become particularly important for reactive dogs.

Your dog wakes up.

There's a delivery.

The hoover comes out.

Someone visits.

The dog gets excited.

You go for a walk.

There's traffic.

A cyclist passes.

A dog appears in the distance.

The dog reacts.

Then another dog appears.

Another reaction.

By the time you get home, the dog may not be starting from zero.

They're already carrying the effects of everything that happened earlier.

That's part of what people often mean when they talk about trigger stacking.

The final event can look like the cause.

But sometimes it's simply the thing that tipped the already-loaded bucket over.

And this is why I don't like looking at a single incident in isolation.

We need to look at the whole day.

Sometimes the dog wasn't:

“Fine until that dog appeared.”

They'd been accumulating arousal, stress and emotional load for hours.

That last dog just happened to be the straw that broke the camel's back.

Arousal can make learning harder

Another reason this matters is training.

People sometimes say:

“My dog knows this perfectly.”

And then wonder why the dog apparently forgets everything when something exciting happens.

But learning doesn't happen in a vacuum.

If the dog is highly aroused, their ability to process information, respond to cues and make sensible choices may be affected.

This doesn't mean:

“Aroused dogs can't learn.”

They absolutely can.

It means we need to consider the state the dog is in when we're asking them to learn.

There is a difference between:

“My dog doesn't know this.”

and:

“My dog can't reliably access this behaviour in this state.”

That's a really important distinction.

But low arousal isn't automatically good

This is the other side of the argument.

If we're constantly trying to make dogs calmer, quieter and less enthusiastic, we can accidentally create a dog who is simply inhibited.

A dog lying perfectly still isn't necessarily relaxed.

A dog who doesn't react isn't necessarily comfortable.

A dog who has stopped exploring isn't necessarily calm.

A dog who doesn't move away isn't necessarily coping.

We need to look at the whole picture.

Is the dog loose?

Are they able to explore?

Can they make choices?

Can they engage?

Can they disengage?

Can they recover?

Can they show normal behaviour?

Stillness isn't the same thing as regulation.

The goal isn't “calm”

This is probably where I'd challenge the language most.

We often say:

“I just want my dog to be calm.”

I understand what people mean.

But perhaps what we're actually asking for is:

“I want my dog to be able to regulate their arousal appropriately for the situation.”

That's a much bigger goal.

Sometimes appropriate arousal means lying quietly beside you.

Sometimes it means enthusiastically chasing a toy.

Sometimes it means being highly focused while working.

Sometimes it means being alert because something unusual has happened.

The goal isn't one emotional state.

The goal is flexibility.

Think about recovery, not just reaction

This is one of the things I find particularly useful when assessing dogs.

We tend to focus on what happens when the dog goes up.

How excited did they get?

How loud were they?

How much did they bark?

How hard did they pull?

How dramatic was the reaction?

But I also want to know:

How quickly do they come back down?

That's incredibly useful information.

A dog who gets wildly excited for thirty seconds and then happily goes back to sniffing might have very different regulation skills from a dog who spends the next three hours pacing, panting and scanning the environment.

The peak matters.

But the recovery matters too.

Sometimes the best training is nothing

This is probably one of the least exciting things you can tell an owner.

There isn't always another game.

Another trick.

Another training exercise.

Another food puzzle.

Another enrichment activity.

Sometimes we need to find somewhere quiet, sit down and do absolutely bugger all.

Let the dog sniff.

Watch the world.

Listen.

Look around.

Let nothing happen.

And learn that nothing happening is actually okay.

This is something I think we have lost sight of.

Dogs don't need to be entertained every waking second.

They don't need a full activity schedule worthy of an Olympic athlete.

Sometimes a dog needs to learn:

“Nothing is happening. And that's fine.”

So what do we do with arousal?

We don't necessarily try to eliminate it.

We learn to work with it.

We can teach dogs to:

recognise patterns

disengage

pause

settle

switch between activities

recover after exciting events

tolerate frustration

cope with changes in arousal

make choices

use appropriate outlets for breed-typical behaviours

And perhaps most importantly:

We can stop constantly pushing them higher.

Sometimes the answer isn't another game.

Another repetition.

Another ball throw.

Another exciting training session.

Sometimes the answer is:

Enough.

Not as a punishment.

Not because excitement is bad.

Just because the dog's nervous system needs an opportunity to come back down.

“He's too aroused” isn't the end of the conversation

It's the beginning.

If somebody tells me:

“My dog is too aroused.”

I'm interested.

But I'm going to ask:

Aroused by what?

How does that arousal look?

Is it excitement, fear, frustration, anticipation or something else?

What happens immediately beforehand?

What happens afterwards?

How quickly does the dog recover?

What happens if we reduce the intensity?

What happens if we increase distance?

What happens if we give the dog a choice?

And perhaps the most uncomfortable question:

Are we accidentally creating the very arousal we're complaining about?

Because sometimes we are.

Arousal isn't the enemy

Your dog getting excited isn't a failure.

Your dog getting excited isn't automatically a problem.

Your dog having drive isn't a problem.

Your dog enjoying things isn't a problem.

The problem is when the dog's arousal becomes inappropriate for the situation, difficult for the dog to regulate, or creates a safety or welfare issue.

And even then, the answer isn't necessarily:

“We need to make the dog calm.”

It might be:

“We need to teach the dog how to move through different levels of arousal and come back down again.”

Because life isn't permanently calm.

And neither should your dog be.

We don't need dogs who never get excited.

We need dogs who can say:

“OH MY GOD THIS IS AMAZING!”

and, five minutes later:

“Right. I'm going to have a lie down now.”

That isn't a boring dog.

That's a dog with a functioning brake.

And sometimes, in dog training, the ability to stop is every bit as important as the ability to go.

Less obsession with “calm down”.

More focus on regulation.

Less trying to eliminate arousal.

More teaching dogs what to do with it.

And perhaps, occasionally:

Put the bloody ball down.