Monday, September 20, 2010

Sound habituation and dog wash

[Trust me, these two seemingly disparate topics are loosely related.]

Anyone in the Suwanee area may want to take advantage of an upcoming dog wash. The North Gwinnett High School Humane Society Club... yeah, try to write all that out on a t-shirt... is hosting a dog wash in a couple weekends. Wanted to mention it here because I believe it important to support youth efforts at humane education. While at the Suwanee Day Festival this weekend, some of the students stopped by our booth with some fliers. Here is the info :

When?  Saturday, October 2,  from Noon to 2:00 PM
Where?  Suwanee Animal Hospital, 85 Buford Hwy, Suwanee, GA
(Next to George Pierce Park)
Here is a map http://tinyurl.com/Oct2DogWash


Suwanee, Georgia is Northeast of Atlanta and was once a small town. In the last 20 years it has grown to be a large, suburban community. The Suwanee Day Festival this past Saturday is a growing and very well attended annual event there. It makes for a loud, active, at times quite crowded, venue to hold a Meet and Greet. And this year it happened to be really hot, as in temperature not just popularity. The Greyhounds never fail to impress people at these events. This may have been the most challenging we have attended, one that could exhaust even the well seasoned M&G Greyhound. Thankfully our M&G hosts, the Stricklands, had provided us a wonderful set up including two comfy, shaded xpens for any hounds needing a much deserved break. The tent was frequently crowded with people. Many, many children wanted to pet the dogs. We were set up right by the amphitheater which meant more traffic, a good thing, but also as the day went on the noise level kept increasing, not a good thing.  People were amazed at by how calm and wonderful the Greyhounds were especially when the live bands started and we had to yell just to try be heard. One person said, "I cannot believe how relaxed they look with all this noise. My dog would be freaking out." Numerous others expressed similar sentiments. They were correct and I know there are many Greyhounds who would not have handled it as well. Their loving owners wisely leave them out of these situations.

Then Sunday we went to the Fall RV show held at an expo center in a different Atlanta suburb. It is a much quieter, less hectic scene. As a bonus it is indoors with A/C. I love that!... um, for the hounds... yeah, that's it... just thinking of the hounds best interest...  Anyway, our booth was in a nice spot, near the back but right on the path to food vendors and the ever popular restrooms. No loud bands here, even the PA system was of reasonable volume. All relaxed, comfortable, pleasant visiting with people...  [cue the soothing orchestral music] ...but then... [the string section builds to suspense] ...BLAST comes the sound of a huge truck horn blaring right next to our ears. Someone had hit the horn of the RV parked next to us with its front end grill just 4 feet away. All the humans jumped or flinched. The hounds just blinked, one's skin twitched, my girl perked her ears and turned her head. The dogs appeared less startled than the humans.

This leads to the sound habituation observation I want to make. In this case I am using the habituation definition from Merriam-Webster Online, "decrease in responsiveness upon repeated exposure to a stimulus". So why are some Greyhounds nearly bomb proof with sounds while others startle reflex kicks into high gear? The same question could be asked of individual dogs of any breed but since the majority of Greyhounds are raised in fairly similar circumstances the variance in response seems more interesting. What is the correct answer? Sorry folks but I have no idea. Wish I could tell you. Maybe some wise, knowledgeable Greyhound person reading this will offer a response I can post. I suspect, with what limited knowledge & experience I have in these things, that the answer is both simple and complex, not necessarily just nature or nurture but the usual messy mix of both. Greyhounds are individuals born with a range of temperaments and innate tendencies. Various experiences and exposures to stimulus then get mixed with what nature originally provided and later we get to adopt the complex and wonderful, jambalaya like concoctions that are our beloved hounds' personalities. Still, it seems to me at this point fours years out from my indoctrination into the Greyhound cult that this breed in general adapts or habituates more quickly than the average pet dog. Well, that is at least when I am comparing adopting an adult Greyhound to the average adult dog from a local shelter.

My girl, Venus, is the Piglet sort. She would like to be brave and get involved in everything but it is such a big, surprising world for such timid creature. You can watch her body and know she is debating where to give something a try. She is the first Greyhound I adopted. At the adoption kennels she was friendly but not needy, played with balls but wasn't obsessed, confident not pushy, but most of all she was very, very polite. In short, she was little miss perfect. I loved that and chose her that first meeting. Venus was very trusting of the leash. From the moment of adoption she would go anywhere I lead her as long as the leash was on her. Her head was up. Her tail was relaxed. That gave me a false idea of her confidence level. If I had known more of canine body language and had more Greyhound experience I may not have been surprised to find out that she was actually feeling rather overwhelmed with everything, "Oh d-d-d-dear me," as she followed me with blind faith that it was all going to be alright because her leash was on, "Oh my. It's all going to be OK. We are going to be fine... right?"

So, whether because of inexperience, ignorance, lack of observation or some other reason, it caught me totally off guard the first time something out of the blue happened and she tried to bolt. This occurred on our second day together, July 2, on our first walk through the neighborhood. Someone set off some fire crackers and suddenly it felt like I had a young, terrified colt at the end of a lead rope. The event was to be repeated multiple times in our early months together and usually the trigger was loud or sudden noise. Interestingly, though she proved to be a much more timid dog than I thought I was adopting, with a stronger startle reflex than I would have expected, this girl has amazing bounce back. She is far from a spook. Each time she tried to bolt it was to a spot maybe ten feet away. At that point, she would stand still and again collect her composure. Then to my amazement we could simply continue on our way and shortly she acted as if nothing had happened. In time, bolting 10 feet away faded to a hop sideways or backwards and now she barely even bats an eyelash.

So what did I do to improve the situation, helping her to get to the where we are today? How did we go from terrified colt to could hardly care less? Um, well again I would love to give you an precise answer. The best I can say is habituation. I just tried to learn what startled her, minimize her exposure to it but still keep her active, taking her places that I thought she may be ready to handle. At times it pushed her limits a bit but if she startled or froze I learned to just let her stop and take it all in for a bit. Then I asked her to proceed. If she wouldn't I gave her a bit longer hoping to at least get her to take one step, move one inch more. At that point either she recovered and continued or we retreated and found another less intimidating route. Blessedly, I think we only had to reroute a couple times. As she had more and more experiences that proved to be safe she became more and more comfortable. She habituated. I guess at least one of us, her or me, did something right along the way.

If I were to do it over again, I would try to be more careful in some ways and more diligent in others, seeking out good opportunities to ease her into this big wide world, trying to strike an appropriate medium between over-sheltering her and pushing her over-threshold. One way or another, my little piglet dances a jig each time her leash comes out. She is thrilled to get out of the car and join me any time she is given the chance.

Habituation, it's a beautiful thing.

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