E381: 제니퍼 서머필드 & 제시카 페리 헤크만(Dr. Jennifer Summerfield & Dr. Jessica Perry Hekman) - "반려견의 불안"

I am a research geneticist. And I do a bunch of different things these days. But probably the most relevant thing that I do is run the Functional Dog Collaborative, which is a nonprofit dedicated to rewriting the narrative on where dogs come from and trying to fix the system so that there's more dogs coming from really good beginnings in the United States and in the rest of the world. I see I have two dogs currently. Jenny is she's going to be 15 in a month, which is crazy. Um, and she's actually doing really, really well, but she does have a slow growing cancer. So I don't know that she's going to be with us all that much longer. And then I have, and she's a mixy mix. She's a whole lot of different things. And, um, and she has fear issues. So you'll see lots of pictures of her in this particular talk. Um, she was, she's, I got her actually when I was in veterinary school and I was interested in learning more about really anxious dogs. And so I got her knowing that she was anxious. I went into it with my eyes open because I thought she'd be a good project. And she was, and she's doing much better than she was when I first got her. And then I have my eight-year-old English shepherd, Dashiell, who is really lovely. Um, we do agility together. We don't compete, but we really enjoy going to classes and practicing. And he's done nose work. He's competed at the NW1 level. And then we have, uh, played around with a variety of different sports, but none that we've actually gotten to compete with. And, um, and I have a male human. His name is Christopher. I don't do any sports with him. That's not true. Actually, he and I have done Taekwondo together. Um, and we're thinking about starting that up again this winter when it's too snowy out to go for walks. I live in New Hampshire, a little cabin in the woods, and we have, uh, 250 acres of, um, town forest right behind us, which is perfect. So we get to walk with the dogs off leash there, but we don't have to take care of it ourselves. I see the, the ball python, um, extending herself. She is. She really wants to be involved. She does. I don't know if she has thoughts on anxiety and dogs that she would like to share, but she says that she would really like to come out of her enclosure right now. And I should warn people that I'm getting over a cold and, um, I can feel that my cough drop is almost gone right now. So we'll see how that goes. We'll hope for the best. So we're going to jump straight in. Um, what is anxiety guys? Are there different types that can impact our dogs? Yeah, I, I can jump in a little bit on that one if you want to here.

Um, to start with, I know that that may be something that you'll be covering as well, uh, Dr. Heckman in your, uh, webinar, but I know, um, one of the things that I'm going to be talking about some during my presentation is kind of this definition of what is anxiety? How is it different from fear? And, you know, what are some of the types of things that our dogs can be anxious about and kind of how much overlap is there between what we humans are anxious about and anxiety disorders in people and, you know, how much of that is applicable to dogs and how sometimes it's kind of hard to tell because we, you know, so much of anxiety in people has to do with kind of the inner, uh, you know, the inner thought process that's happening about things, which is not something that we can very readily observe in our patients. And that makes it more challenging. But essentially, um, when we talk about anxiety, the, the big difference between it and fear as such is that when we talk about fear, we mean that this is a response to an actual threat that is present, you know, that something that is happening now actually happening currently to you, like you're being chased by a lion on the Serengeti, you know, then that's normal to be fearful in that situation and have a fearful reaction because there is an actual threat. Anxiety tends to be more about anticipation of bad things that might happen. And in humans involves a lot of kind of obsessing about that and sometimes ruminating over it. And, uh, that's the part that's kind of hard to measure in dogs, but we certainly know that dogs do a lot of things behaviorally that would lead us to believe that they're probably capable of experiencing similar feelings in certain situations. So, obviously, they're not going to be anxious about necessarily the same types of things that we would, but we definitely see dogs who are anxious about, um, you know, certain types of scenarios, you know, going to the vet's office, right, and just being kind of generally anxious while they're there. Dogs who are anxious, um, you know, when they're left alone at home. Dogs who are anxious about social interactions or in novel environments or things like that. And the big, um, you know, commonality between those different things is that it's not normally that anything bad is actually happening to the dog at that moment that you can tell that they're just anticipating that something might, and they're just really uneasy and uncomfortable. Oftentimes they seem really hypervigilant, you know, they pant, they can't settle down.

Um, so that tends to be kind of the common thread in the different scenarios where we talk about, you know, dogs being anxious or having anxiety disorders related to certain, um, you know, situations or contexts. I like to say that, um, fear is when there is a lion and anxiety is when you keep thinking that there might be a lion. Um, and yeah, I do, I do go into that in my talk a little bit. I, I feel like because it's so hard to really think about that, that rumination aspect of it when we talk about dogs, obviously that at least in my talk, a lot of it is about what we would classically call anxiety, but a lot of it is also about what we might call inappropriate fear. Um, and I just sort of lumped that all together under anxiety. I don't, is that the same for you, Jennifer? Yeah, I think that's fair. I, you know, and I think one of the challenges with trying to give these definitions is that in casual conversation and in practice, we often tend to kind of use anxiety and fear relatively interchangeably, um, you know, when we're talking. And I think that's fine as long as, you know, we all know what we mean in a lot of those cases. So I do think a lot of the things that we talk about when we talk about anxiety disorders in dogs, as you say, could also be just as appropriately called like, Hey, this is a, this is maybe more of a fear that is just not, um, you know, that's out of proportion to the trigger or something like that. So there's definitely, I don't know that the definitions are quite as neat and clean. They're always as we would like them to be, but, but yeah, I think that's fair. I hilariously have had anxiety about the title of this, this particular presentation and whether people will get frustrated with me that I said anxiety and then also covered fear. I literally have woken up in the middle of the night and had anxiety about that. There you go. I mean, that's just, that captures it. Yeah. Fair enough. So, um, I'm sorry to hear that we're waking up in the middle of the night. That's certainly not the intention, but, um, so I know Jen, you talked a little bit about, uh, panting and inability to settle. Can, can you both just talk maybe a little more about what it looks like in our canine companions? As, as you mentioned, it's really hard. It's not like we can ask them. So. Yeah. Yeah. I would say that the, the types of sort of behavioral indicators that we tend to say, um, you know, that we see in, in anxious dogs, aside from the ones we had talked about a minute ago, like, you know, panting, pacing, uh, kind of hypervigilant behavior, right.

Or kind of this inability to settle down and relax without seeming like they're just kind of on high alert all the time. Um, we also see some physiologic changes, right. So we might see things like dilated pupils or, um, they can certainly have elevated heart rates, although we don't always have a great way to measure that. Sometimes you'll see that their little paw pads get sweaty. So a lot of times with anxious dogs, like in a veterinary clinic type setting where we have a hard floor, we may see that they're leaving, um, you know, little, little wet, sweaty paw prints on the floor. So that can be a pretty good indication that the dog is anxious. And of course, sometimes we can get vocalization to like whining or barking or howling, depending on the situation. When my dog Jenny used to go to the veterinarian, when I first had her, when she was really bad, she used to actually spike a temperature. Her, the tips of her little ears would turn red. Um, I think from, from trembling so much. Yeah. Yeah. Um, I'm, I'm not going to weigh in too much though on, on what it looks like. Cause I think that's, that's definitely in Dr. Summerfield's area of expertise more than mine. Fair enough. Well, how about one for you then? So what do we know about why a particular dog may develop anxiety? Yeah. Yeah. So obviously, yeah. So, so obviously there's, there's a genetic component that puts you at risk. And, um, my talk is, is basically all about the non-genetic parts of, um, of why anxiety develops. So you imagine that you're, you're born with some genetic differences, um, between you and somebody else that might put you at some risk, but it's not like a switch that gets flipped. Right. So then why do you actually develop it? And that has to do with how your brain develops from a very, very early age. Um, you know, your brain is taking in information about the environment from as early as while it's developing in the uterus. And the mother is already at that point passing information to help the brain know what paths to go down. In, in some ways, anxiety isn't necessarily a pathology or a bad thing. It's just a mismatch between the way the individual development develops in the environment that it's in. So a wild animal, it's very appropriate for that animal to be quite concerned frequently about where's the food coming from? Where's the danger coming from? You know, where, where am I going to find this thing that I really need is, you know, is, is, is something going to come injure me? Like it's, it's very appropriate for a wild animal to be quite vigilant and, and what we might

call anxious, but in an animal that lives in our homes and has all of its needs taking care of, it's not appropriate to spend so much energy on hypervigilance. Not to mention it's a welfare issue, both for the animal and often for the human, right? Living with an anxious dog can be just watching them be anxious can be a problem. Um, right. Cause we feel so bad for them, but there's all kinds of other human welfare issues where, you know, the dog could be ripping things up. Or when I first got Jenny, I couldn't touch her without her peeing, um, stuff like that. So there's, there's plenty of reasons then why, you know, to say that, that, that mismatch can be a problem. So, yeah. So basically just a lot of different, different environmental pressures from, you know, from conception in the uterus. Um, then after birth, the interactions with the other puppies, um, very early learning experiences. Um, and then all the way, all the way on until when you are an adult and it, that personality type starts to really manifest. Anything to add, Jen? Uh, I mean, I think that that's a pretty comprehensive covering of it. And I know that I think that's something that you cover pretty in depth in, uh, in your webinar. And I just touch on it a little bit in mine because I know, um, you have it pretty well covered, but I, I do talk a little bit in my presentation about, um, you know, that basically we can kind of divide those causative factors for, you know, why are some dogs this way, right? Into, you know, genetic contributions, but also, as you said, which I think gets overlooked a lot, that perinatal period, you know, all of those things that factor in and also things like, you know, just lack of adequate socialization during puppyhood all the way up through, um, things that are a little bit more intuitive to most of us, I would say, which would include like negative life experiences, you know, something bad has happened in this context before. So therefore I'm going to be anxious about it in the future. And then all of those factors of course can commingle in different ways and different individuals to give us, you know, different, um, you know, what we actually see out in practice. Are there, you know, things that we can do to help our dogs, either in terms of management or in terms of training, if they're, they appear to be anxious or we're seeing signs that they may be anxious? Yeah. So fortunately there is quite a bit that we can do for these guys. And that's something that I spend quite a bit of, um, uh, the webinar, my, my half of

the doubleheader talking about is kind of that clinical piece of how do we help these guys? And in terms of management, um, the big things for dogs that have anxiety disorders are going to be things like usually anxious dogs really are helped by having a pretty consistent structure and daily routine. They like to know what to expect from the world and the more that we can give them that the better they tend to do. So that's important. We also look at trying to avoid triggers for their anxiety as much as possible if we know what they are and if they are things that we can avoid. And we also want to prevent rehearsal of that anxious behavior as much as possible, just because we know that, you know, as with most behavioral issues, the more time the dog spends in that emotional state, the more it kind of feeds on itself and, and tends to kind of get worse over time. So those are our big goals in terms of just the management side of things, which of course basically means everything that happens when you're not training. In terms of behavior modification, um, there are quite a few different things we can do there as well. Probably the most obvious option that we tend to think about would be desensitization and counter conditioning to specific triggers, right? So if we know what those triggers are for this particular dog, like let's say they're, you know, afraid of thunderstorms, right? Or they have separation anxiety, or they get really anxious about vet visits or something like that, then that gives us something specific that we can isolate and design a desensitization and counter conditioning protocol for and kind of help work through it that way. So, um, I definitely tend to do a lot of that when I see patients for anxiety disorders, depending on, you know, what the specifics of the case are. In terms of other things, um, kind of more general things sometimes, we know that, um, relaxation protocols can be really helpful for some of these guys. And, you know, there are lots of different versions of those out there, but basically, um, they tend to be kind of like a form of mat training, just with an emphasis on the dog's emotional state and wanting the dog to be genuinely relaxed on their mat or on their place, not just kind of holding a down stay, right? Because those can be different things. So you can also do, um, just activities in general to help build confidence. Like, um, I know that, you know, Julie Daniels has done some really great classes through FDSA on, you know, her empowerment, uh, classes are really good for that.

You know, basically just trying to teach the dog that novelty is really cool and not something to be scared of, rewarding them for choosing to investigate new things or interact with new objects. Um, and also just things like doing some basic obedience or trick training, as long as it's reward-based. Um, some of my patients, my anxious patients have really enjoyed learning how to do agility obstacles, right? Not necessarily with the goal of competing in agility or anything like that, but just because they seem to find it rewarding to learn to like walk on this thing, you know, that they initially thought was scary to do like the dog walk at a low height or to do the teeter or to do an A-frame or go through a tunnel. So things like that seem like they can really help dogs build their confidence. And sometimes we also teach specific behaviors that we can have them use in, you know, situations that tend to make them anxious. So lots of things that we can do on the management and behavior mod front for sure. What about nose work? Do you ever have, have anxious dogs do nose work? Yeah, I think it can be really super helpful for them. I know that people who do nose work seriously as a sport talk about that it can be a really, you know, they found that for their dogs, sometimes they're a little more on the anxious side. It can be really helpful. I don't usually do a lot of like formal scent stuff with my patients just because that's not an area that I am super well versed in. You know, I've never done nose work with my dogs, but we definitely do some little games with them sometimes, you know, scent games where we hide treats and let them find those. And I have had a couple of patients who were interested enough in nose work. You know, I told them like, hey, if this is something you, you know, are interested in, you can get, you know, the beginner kits and, you know, take a class. And I have had a few people who opted to kind of branch out and do that on their own and felt like their dogs really enjoyed it. Cool. It's, it's just also for, it's a thing that you can do without your dog having to leave your house. So Jenny is very smart and very trainable and actually pretty fun to train, but I can, I could never take her to a class. She would not be able to cope with that. But, um, we've, we've done little bits of nose work and a tri-ball with Melissa as well. And she's enjoyed that. Yeah. It is really nice that you don't need much in the way of equipment or you don't really have to go to novel locations or anything like that to do it. So that's a definite advantage for a lot of these guys. Yeah.

And well, I didn't want to, I don't want to weigh in on, um, management of, of these dogs because that's, that's not what I do. I did want to weigh in that, um, you shouldn't be feeling guilty that it's something that you did to your dog. And that's something that I feel like a lot of people really believe that the dog is a blank slate when they receive it at eight weeks of age. And then everything that happens that every personality trait that the dog manifests is something that they have somehow, you know, either done something wrong or failed to protect the dog. And there's just so much that can happen that you don't see, you can't perceive it. The dog has all these experiences that you may not recognize. And, and again, a lot of the stuff that's happening is very important early on and may even have been before you got the dog. So even with the dog that you've had as a tiny puppy, don't, you know, life is messy and the stuff happens and just don't, don't feel like it's your fault. When is it, you know, worth thinking about medication or, you know, just additional medical help when we're talking about anxiety? Yeah. So I am definitely a huge fan of medication as part of the treatment plan for dogs who have significant enough anxiety issues that their owners have made an appointment to come and see me about it. You know, usually that's a pretty good, uh, a benchmark for like, well, this is probably moderate to severe, right? If it's bad enough that they, they filled out the questionnaire and they scheduled the visit and they wanted to talk about it. So we know that a lot of what's driving this sort of abnormal anxious behavior, you know, like, uh, you know, Dr. Heckman was saying kind of this mismatch, right? Between what is realistically required of the dog and the, the environment that they're in, you know, and the way that the dog is actually feeling and reacting to things. A lot of that is driven by stuff going on in the brain chemistry, right? That's not normal or that's, you know, that, uh, it would make our lives easier if, if it were different in some way. So that's something that we can affect with medication. And so oftentimes we do use that as part of the plan to help, you know, kind of manipulate those neurotransmitter levels. And we know that that's not all medications do. Um, but that's tends to be kind of the, the most straightforward way to think about, uh, you know, how their, their mechanism of action and, you know, oftentimes adding medication into the game plan for these guys can be really helpful because for one thing, it tends

to make the rest of our treatment plan more effective, right? With a lot of these guys, you can be doing all the right things in terms of management and, you know, your training or behavior modification. And it may still be really hard for you to make progress because the dog is just not in a frame of mind ever where they can learn, right? They're, you know, they're just constantly in such an anxious state or, you know, they're so sensitive to their triggers that it's really hard to just find that foothold where, you know, they're, they're in a frame of mind that they're able to kind of learn what you're teaching them and start to learn, you know, that, Hey, maybe this isn't so bad. Maybe I can take some treats or I can learn to relax. So oftentimes having medication on board as part of the plan just gives us that little extra bit of help that we need so that the dog is actually able to start learning and making headway with the other things that we're doing. So that's really important. The other thing I feel like medication does, which is also important is in an awful lot of cases, it really dramatically improves the dog's quality of life pretty quickly, right? If you have ever experienced having any kind of anxiety disorder, it's super not fun, right? It's not an enjoyable way to live. And we know that a lot of these dogs, you know, it really does impact their quality of life, right? And we know that we can make headway with that, with management and training and all that, but that's going to take quite a while. And if there's something that we could do that would help them feel better more quickly, then I think that is a really worthwhile thing as well. Just like we would if they were, you know, had some kind of medical condition that was physically painful, right? We would want to treat that with medication while we were also trying to address the underlying problem. So I think it's worth thinking about anxiety in that same kind of way that these dogs are suffering in the same way that they would be if they had a physical problem. And so if we can get some meds on board to help alleviate some of that while we're also working on addressing the underlying issues, then the dog is going to be a lot happier for it. And I think that's a really laudable goal as well. Yeah. I personally got on anxiety medication while I was in veterinary school because veterinary school sucks so much. Yes. It's very common, I think, for a lot of us. And then I kept going to school and then I had a challenging job and then I had all those injuries that I had to recover from.

So just a couple months ago, I decided my life was so much easier that I might try getting off of the meds. And just so I'm here to tell you, you can really feel the difference. It's I, for weeks afterwards, I would, and this is tapering down too, right? I didn't go cold turkey, but I was jumpy, had a queasy feeling in my stomach, had trouble sleeping, antsy all the time. And then I would start picking fights with my husband. And so I would say that I definitely was becoming aggressive. Because I'm human and not a dog, I'm still trying to push through because I find that I can help. I can actually start working on my anxiety consciously when I am not, when I don't have the meds buffer a little bit, but dogs can't. So I just sort of giving people that personal taste. I feel like I'm trying to broadcast right now as I can talk about what it feels like is it's, you know, when you get on the right meds, it's a real difference in your quality of life. It's, yeah, it's magical. Magical. Yes. So you are both offering back-to-back webinars on the 31st. You've offered the ones before on Halloween. And so when Halloween came around again, it was like something about anxiety for trick-or-treat just, it hits the right note, man. So can you guys each hear a little bit about kind of what your webinar is going to cover and who should consider joining us? Yeah. So I, again, I sort of skim right over the genetics part and really focus a lot on the early life experiences and what anxiety means for how the brain operates and, you know, the sort of health consequences of being long-term anxious and some of the trade-offs and why certain breeds might be more predisposed to anxiety versus others. I like to say that my webinars tend to be for the real nerds who really want to geek out and go into the deep dive on like, what's the biology behind it? What's the brain actually doing? I am not the person to come to for advice on how to fix it, which is why I love being part of a double header like this, because I feel like it's the perfect lead-in to come to my talk and be like, oh, I get what's going on in the brain now. Okay. Now what do I do about it? And then. Yeah. Yeah. So in terms of what I will be covering, I agree that these are two topics are very complementary to each other, which is great. I am going to talk a bit about, you know, as we have here today, what is anxiety? Talk a little bit about why some dogs develop anxiety disorders and others don't kind of go through some of those factors that we talked about. Not in nearly as much detail as Dr. Heckman's going to go into, but we'll touch on it.

But I would say that the bulk of my talk is going to be focused on how do we help these guys, right? So we're going to be talking in quite a bit more detail about management, quite a bit about behavior modification for these guys, what that can look like, and then also a fair amount about drug therapy. And I do talk a bit as well at the end about prevention. You know, what can we do in terms of, you know, what do we know about risk factors for developing anxiety disorders? And how can we use that information both while we're sort of making the decision about initially getting the dog? Where is the dog coming from? You know, are we getting it from a breeder? Are we getting a rescue? You know, how do we assess that at that level? And then also what you can do, you know, with a new puppy, or if you start to notice that there may be a potential issue going on, you know, how to kind of intervene in that hopefully sooner rather than later. Any final thoughts or maybe key points either of you would like to leave listeners with? I guess I would say I'm really glad that Dr. Summerfield's talk is out there because it can be so hard for the average person to find a veterinarian who really understands the complexity of behavior problems. I've seen so many people who have dogs who need help and they go to their primary care vet who doesn't really understand behavior modification, maybe is comfortable putting the dog on fluoxetine, Prozac, but doesn't really understand that there's a variety of medications that might be perhaps more appropriate for that particular case. And so just having people start to recognize the complexity of these cases so that they can get an idea of whether their veterinarian is able to handle it well or not, I think is incredibly valuable. Yeah, no, I agree. I think it's really important information to try to get out there for people. Anxiety issues in dogs are super common. You know, I definitely see a lot of behavior cases that involve anxiety issues of one kind or another. And goodness knows there are a whole lot more dogs out there in the world that have anxiety disorders than the ones that actually present to a veterinarian or a behavior consultant to address them. So I think it's good information for folks to have in general, you know, about kind of how to recognize what's normal, what's not normal, what we can do about it, just the fact that there are things we can do about it, right? I think a lot of people who have dogs with anxiety issues sort of think like, well, that's just the way they are. And there isn't really much of anything to be done about it.

And that's really not true. You know, there are lots and lots of things in both in terms of medication and also the behavior mod side of things that can really make a significant difference in these guys' lives. And so I think the more we can kind of get that information out there and make it readily available to people, the better. Yeah. Jenny's here to tell you there can be, I mean, I still can't, I may still not be able to take her to classes, but I mean, she doesn't pee when I touch her anymore. She's like a normal dog around the house. She has a very good quality of life now. Yeah. That's huge for some of these guys. Yeah. It's a big change for her. So yeah. Progress can be made. Awesome. All right. Well, thank you both so much for coming on the podcast. Yeah. Thank you for having us. It's always a blast. Yeah. Thank you, Melissa. And thank you to all of our listeners for tuning in. We'll be back next week with several presenters from our upcoming Dogs with Big Feelings one day conference to chat about that topic. If you haven't already, subscribe to the podcast in iTunes or the podcast app of your choice. Our next episode automatically downloads to your phone as soon as it becomes available. Today's show is brought to you by the Fenty Dog Sports Academy. Special thanks to Denise Fenty for supporting this podcast. Music provided royalty free by bensound.com. The track featured here is called Buddy. Audio editing provided by Chris Lang. Thanks again for tuning in. Happy training. Thank you.