Stress and Pheromonatherapy in Small Animal Clinical Behaviour

Daniel S. Mills, Maya Braem Dube, Helen Zulch

• Publisher: Wiley-Blackwell
• Year: 2012
• Print ISBN: 9780470671184
• eBook ISBN: 9781118458655
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Medicine
• Subtopic: Veterinary Medicine

Stress and Pheromonatherapy in Small Animal Clinical Behaviour is about how stress impacts on animal behaviour and welfare and what we can do about it, especially by using chemical signals more effectively. This readily accessible text starts from first principles and is useful to both academics and practitioners alike.  It offers a framework for understanding how pheromonatherapy can be used to encourage desirable behaviour in dogs and cats and also a fresh approach to understanding the nature of clinical animal behaviour problems.

The authors have pioneered the use of pheromone therapy within the field of clinical animal behaviour.  As the culmination of many years of research and experience, they offer sound evidence-based advice on how and when pheromones can be used most effectively.

The first part of the book deals with some fundamental concepts, focusing on the key concepts of stress, communication and perception.  It then provides a framework for the evaluation of problem behaviour to allow consideration of the possible role or not of pheromonatherapy.  Part 2 covers the application of these concepts to a range of specific situations, concentrating on conditions in which there has been most research to support the efficacy of pheromonatherapy.

Suitable for veterinarians in small animal practice, students of clinical animal behaviour, veterinary nurses and technicians, as well as specialists and researchers in animal behaviour therapy.

PART I

Principles and Concepts Underpinning the Management of Stress-related Behaviour Problems

Chapter 1

How Animals Respond to Change

1.1 UNDERPINNING PRINCIPLES RELATING TO STRESS IN COMPANION ANIMALS

1.1.1 STRESS AND CHANGE

It has been said that the only constant in life is change, and it seems that some of us cope better with this than others. In this chapter we will explore why this might be. We will focus on factors that not only affect humans but are also relevant to nonhuman animals. Attempting to adapt to change is an intrinsic part of being alive. As a feature of any living system, the environment changes around us all the time, and we have a number of mechanisms for dealing with this. Two obvious ones that are commonly described in the literature are:

• Physiological processes: Pure changes in physiology are often thought of as being relatively simple (metabolic changes), for example a change in sweating when the body’s temperature starts to rise. These changes may be mediated by either the nervous or the endocrine system, or a combination of both. Often changes in simple physiology are relatively inexpensive, energetically speaking, for an ­animal to implement.
• Behavioural processes: Behaviour responses, for example an animal panting when it is hot (Figure 1.1), involve much greater use of resources and energy, and so are perhaps better considered as the second line of response in the majority of cases. However, physiological processes are at the root of changes in behaviour too: it is just that behaviour changes are more obvious and involve a shift in the animal’s posture or position.

Sometimes an animal adapts to a stressor by making a mental adjustment (­cognitive change), for example accepting something novel in the environment as nonthreatening, and this too is ultimately a reflection of physiological changes in the brain, even though we might focus on the cognitive outcome.

Thus, in response to stress, we can recognise three types of change in the body:

• A metabolic shift.
• A change in behaviour.
• A psychological adjustment.

Fig. 1.1 Panting is a response to thermal stress. Animals encounter stressors all the time, but their behavioural flexibility means they can usually cope without significant distress.

These are not independent, but rather are usually closely related, though perhaps with one being more obvious than another at a given time, depending on the demands being made or anticipated given the circumstances. Overt changes in behaviour are typically more demanding and are therefore often a secondary line of defence when metabolic shifts are not possible or do not work.

1.1.2 HOMEOSTASIS AND ALLOSTASIS

The concept of homeostasis has dominated thinking about how animals adapt to change for a long time, but in its purest form it has the potential to limit our understanding in some important ways, as we will see. Homeostasis basically means that an animal’s body works to restore an optimal state whenever this is disturbed (stressed). So if blood sugar goes up, the body will try to bring it down again, since high blood sugar can be harmful. An immediate response might be to increase production of insulin in order to increase the uptake of glucose by cells in the body. At a behavioural level, an animal may stop feeding in these ­circumstances, and at a cognitive level it may no longer show positive interest in cues suggesting food. The concept of homeostasis can be applied not only to ­stressors associated with internal changes, such as changes in blood sugar, but also to external changes such as unpleasant and dangerous environments or situations that are confusing to the animal: thus, if something scares the animal it may run away in order to restore the preferred state of relaxation in a safe and secure ­environment. Sometimes an animal must work very hard to restore balance, or it may be frustrated in its efforts by an inescapable situation, such as when a dog wants to get out of a kennel (Figure 1.2).

Fig. 1.2 A dog trying to escape from its kennel. Successful escape would restore ­homeostasis, but this is not possible because of the height of the pen walls. It is better to see the walls as a barrier which gives rise to frustration to the animal’s attempts at escape than to simply consider the animal bored, since this focuses attention on the types of intervention which might be most effective. If we consider the animal to be bored, we are using a vague concept and our recommendations for intervention may be equally vague – such as unspecified ‘­environmental enrichment’. As we will see later in the text, if we recognise that the animal is frustrated by a specific stimulus, we can ask the question: what action is being frustrated and why? The answer in this case is that there are things outside it wants to gain access to. So treatment should focus on not only removing this frustrated desire by ensuring the stimuli outside are less ­interesting, but also, and more importantly, making the inside more engaging for the animal. This means enrichment needs to be applied that is dynamic and interesting. A few toys will not be enough.

From these examples, it should be apparent that although responses may share some common features, such as an increase in arousal, stress responses vary according to the nature of the trigger. Thus the specific response is quite different when the trigger is a rise in blood sugar than when it is frustration at a barrier.

The key feature of homeostasis that we will now consider more closely is that the body tries to minimise the impact of stressors (things that disturb us from an optimal set point in some way) by responding to changes. The word ‘responding’ is emphasised as it suggests that it is the disturbance which drives the process. A concern with this idea is that if we provide an animal with a balanced diet, fresh water, an optimal temperature and so on in a nonthreatening environment, we might be tempted to think that the animal should not be stressed. This was one of the errors which led to the belief that factory farming would be good for animals. We now recognise that because animals have evolved in environments in which change inevitably exists, their bodies have come to expect change and so they are driven to do things even when everything seems optimal. This is probably because such a state is never very long-lasting in nature, so there is no evolved mechanism to simply accept that life is good and will remain as such.

An outcome of the evolutionary expectation that life exists within an ­ever-changing environment is the development of an anticipation of change within the core processes governing the regulation of the body’s metabolism. The body therefore changes in anticipation of change. This is what is meant by the term allostasis, which provides a better model than homeostasis for many physiological processes. The key difference between allostasis and homeostasis is that in ­allostasis responses are driven by the anticipation of change as well as by actual change. So if an animal is always fed at the same time each day, insulin will ­eventually be produced at a certain time, even if there is no food available and even if this leads to a significant lowering of blood sugar which the ­animal then has to counter by producing the antagonistic (opposing) hormone glucagon.

From the preceding example, it might be tempting to think of allostasis as ­simply a training of the homeostatic response, but it is much more than that, as it helps to explain why animals have natural rhythms to their metabolism and ­activity even in the absence of cues. It also helps us to understand the wider and changeable psychological needs of animals, which we discuss in the next section.

1.1.3 PSYCHOLOGICAL NEEDS

One of the things which many animals do when they have all their fundamental physiological needs met is seek information. There are several reasons why this is useful if there is an inbuilt expectation of change. For example, it allows them potentially to exploit resources more effectively in future (e.g. by knowing where the next meal could come from if the current supply were to dry up) and it might reduce the risk of future harm (e.g. by knowing how strong different potential competitors are). Therefore, when times are good we will often see animals ­investigate and play much more. Object play allows animals to learn about the physical properties of things, while social play can help them learn about the ­characteristics of other individuals, including their strengths and weaknesses. An important implication of this is that, in such circumstances, providing for some of these activities should not be considered a luxury, but rather essential for an animal’s well-being. In humans, a hierarchy of needs has been described in the literature by Maslow (1943), which indicates what ­individuals seek as different needs are met. While some of the higher levels originally described may not be directly applicable to nonhuman animals, this hierarchy can be adapted to give a guide as to animals’ priorities in different circumstances (Figure 1.3).

Fig. 1.3 A hierarchy of needs for animals, adapted from Maslow’s hierarchy of needs for humans. The labels to the right indicate the type of need, with those at the bottom being initially most important. As the lower-level needs are increasingly met, the higher-level needs become increasingly important. Thus if an animal’s physiological needs are being met, the need for safety and security is more pressing, so it can be expected that the animal will become less willing to take high risks to obtain its food and so on. All of the needs depend on the acquisition of information in order to be met efficiently, but the type of information changes with ascending levels.

Another use of this hierarchy is to help us appreciate why an animal is not performing particularly well in a given aspect of its life and what needs to be done to help resolve the issue. For example, an owner might complain that their pet lacks confidence, and this might be at least partly due to unstable social relationships at home, which mean that the animal is focusing resources on social networks as a priority. Without addressing this lower-level need, it may be difficult for the ­animal to grow in confidence, as its priorities are elsewhere.

This hierarchy indicates that safety or a sense of safety is a big priority for ­animals after their physiological needs have been met. Most pets are well fed and watered, and so the issue of safety deserves further consideration. Safety broadly means knowing that you can escape potential harm, and so requires that the animal has some freedom to withdraw from situations that it finds unpleasant. In the home, this means the animal has a safe haven, or some other secure attachment. We will return frequently to the importance of providing coping strategies when we discuss the use of pheromones in a clinical context to help animals cope in a variety of settings. The need for safety also helps us to understand why the inappropriate use of punishment, especially by an owner, can be so disruptive to an animal’s well-being. Quite apart from being ineffective in altering the underlying motivation for the unwanted behavioural response and disrupting the bond between the owner and their pet, the inconsistent use of aversive methods leads to the animal’s lacking a sense of safety. Thus common basic requirements for managing almost any behaviour problem are that all ­punishment should cease and that a healthy relationship between the owner and their pet should be established. Only with these foundations in place can we expect the animal to have the confidence to change inappropriate emotional responses. Once again, pheromones can be useful in this process, as we shall see. However, there are also important constraints on what can be achieved, which are considered in the next section.

1.1.4 THE GENOME LAG AND EVOLUTIONARY CONSTRAINTS

Companion animals evolved in a particular environment over centuries and today often live in a very different one. The modern environment can be very stressful for both humans and their companion animals. The fact that evolution may not have equipped them with the mechanisms to deal with the sorts of stress or that they face in the domestic home can pose a problem. Let us look at the dog as an example: it is a social animal and is adapted to live in close social groups. Hence, being left alone can be very stressful for a dog and it will use the mechanisms that it has received through evolution to cope with this situation, such as howling in order to try to reestablish contact with the members of its group. Other possible behaviours it might attempt include trying to escape from the environment in which it is isolated, which can result in considerable property damage (Figure 1.4). We might think that a dog should know it can’t break through a wall, but solid, all-enclosing walls are not something it has evolved to deal with. An important thing to appreciate here is that although a behaviour may not be very effective (i.e. maladaptive), that does not mean the underlying behavioural control systems are broken (i.e. malfunctional). There is sometimes a tendency to think that a behaviour must be pathological if it does not bring an obvious benefit, but this is not always the case; an animal may simply be using its evolutionary rules of thumb in an inappropriate context because of the artificiality of the ­environment. This has important implications as it means we should not be ­looking for treatments to correct a supposed malfunction, but rather we should be looking at the environmental contingencies and perceptions of the animal that are leading it to perform in this way. However, although the response may be a ­functional one, that is not to say it cannot be problematic or give rise to pathological processes as a result of its inappropriate deployment ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title page
• Copyright page
• Preface
• PART I: Principles and Concepts Underpinning the Management of Stress-related Behaviour Problems
• PART II: Clinical Scenarios Involving the Management of Stress-related Behaviour Problems
• Appendix A: EDED (Evaluation of a Dog’s Emotional Disorder) Scale
• Appendix B: The Lincoln Sound-sensitivity Scale
• Glossary
• Index