Do dogs self-medicate?

Last night, around three am, Talos suddenly got up, and asked to be let outside. I figured she might want to go use the bathroom, usually she uses her litter box, but she has not done so in a couple of days. This could mean one of two things, either she has not pooped, or she's been pooping outside. If she has not pooped, it would make sense for her to need to go at an odd time.

This was not the case, however. Once outside, she proceeded to eat grass. Huge mouthfuls of it. Grabbed it and mowed it like a horse. Kept it up for about five minutes, then came back inside.

She repeated this a number of times, I watched her for the entire time for the first four or so, then I pretty much let her out, checked that she was doing the same thing, and went back to bed leaving her to her grazing.

I expected her to throw up, but she did not. I expected poop this morning, but there has been none. That's not so much the topic of this post, however (don't worry, her behaviour is otherwise perfectly normal, wolfs down her food, plays, walks, naps on my lap and we've taken some 'move yer bowls' action. If there's no poop by tomorrow we're headed for the vet!)

What this has me wondering is if dogs have the ability to self medicate. I know they eat grass occasionally anyway, but many people have a similar story where their dog eats grass seemingly to get their bowels a-moving, or to induce vomiting. Basically, it looks like they're taking a laxative to feel better.

This is pretty much right up there with anthropomorphising your dog, as bad as seeing the 'guilt' in their eyes when they've done something bad (it's all in out heads, by the way, they're not feeling guilty at all). Most dogs will nibble on grass, and some seem to really love it, especially fresh young shoots. It's hard to argue that this nibbling has much to do with inducing vomiting or bowel movements, given that after their graze, they have perfectly normal digestion related events. It would be an entirely reasonable supposition that their grazing when they're feeling less than optimal is just ordinary grazing that we now take note of because of our heightened observation of our unwell furry buddy.

But that does not quite cover what I saw last night. That nearly desperate ripping out of the poor lawn and gulping it down looks nothing like the dainty sampling of leaves she does ordinarily. It also does not cover other pet owner's experiences, which seems to hint, like I'm thinking, that dogs do indeed have some sense of which plants (or minerals, many dogs eat clay occasionally) have what effect on their systems, and use them to effect changes in their bodies. Zoopharmacognosy is the official term.

The evidence is hardly clear on the matter, but it seems there may be a case for it. It is well documented that animals make 'choices' regarding foodstuffs that do indeed relate in some way to their physical state. Especially interesting to me is how other mammals than us humans also sometimes get it wrong, and ingest substances that harm them in association with a certain physical condition. I mean, we know how very many of our 'folk' medications turn out to be duds, despite people having sworn by them for hundreds of years, and even our contemporary biomedicine gets it wrong all too often (pills for depression being a big one, often being only as effective as a placebo in long term studies - here's an interesting article) . It's quite cool then to see that it's a feature of animals to 'get it wrong' sometimes. To me, at least.

Here are some additional articles, if you're interested:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zoopharmacognosy
http://skeptvet.com/Blog/2012/10/zoopharmacognosy-do-animals-self-medicate/
http://pacificcrestpethealth.com/blogs/?p=68

My dog can bite off your finger.

Wow, what a title. Just to catch everyone up, I'm talking about Talos here. Talos the pug. Kira could do it too, but people are less surprised by a terrier mix's ability to bite.

Intimidated yet?

Equally, no one would be surprised if I made that comment about a large dog, like a boerboel or a german shepherd dog. But I've watched my pug systematically work her way right through a pork shoulder bone, leaving only a tiny stump of the thickest part. Gruesome, sure, but what I'm hoping to illustrate here is that pork bones and human bones are nearly identical in size and density. Chicken feet are not that different from my fingers, and those don't even need a systematic approach.

She could bite my finger off of my hand.

Now why does this matter?

Am I warning everyone out there about my massively dangerous pug? No. The thought that Talos is an aggressive dog is laughable. The odds that she'd ever bite anyone is pretty much zero. Even Kira, who guards resources, is extremely unlikely to be labelled a dangerous dog by anyone.

But the fact remains that my dog could do this. And if my small pug, with her tiny teeth and tiny jaws can do this, every dog can do this.

That's why I chose such a dramatic title. All dogs are capable of doing serious damage with their jaws. The fact that they don't, given that we barely teach them the skills they need to navigate their lives, barely give them enough time and attention, and probably the worst offence, barely understand their body language is an absolute testament to their patience and endurance. That said, statistically 50% of kids in the US will be bitten by dogs before they're 12. Half of all kids - and guys, this is not a case of Americans being daft. It's not so different in the UK, one in six hospital admissions of kids are due to dog bites. Here, our stats are not so nicely collated in easy to digest articles (google the two mentioned above and you'll see what I mean), but I feel pretty safe in saying they're much the same.

My dogs are good dogs, safe dogs, family dogs. But almost all dog bites come from good dogs, safe dogs, family dogs (luckily these bites are almost always very minor - fatal bites, by contrast, tend to come from dogs kept in the yard or on a chain). I know the power of those jaws, and I know that humans generally suck about being sensible with dogs. Especially little humans, who have even smaller fingers than me, and tend to keep their faces at dog's eye level too. We have to do more to protect people, but especially kids, from dog bites. We owe it to our dogs to not put them in a position where they finally choose to use their teeth, and we owe it to everyone else out there to keep our dogs out of such a situation.

With that in mind, I want to make some commitments.

1. I commit to only letting my dogs around kids if I am fully capable of supervising them.
2. I commit to allowing my dogs a safe, secure space that they can go hide in should they need to, where no one will bother them, not even me.
3. I commit to learning to read, and to respecting my dog's body language. This includes removing them from a situation where they are scared or overwhelmed, even if it ends my fun.

Join me?

Cute puppies - don't get one.

Puppies are cute. Adorable, actually. Look at that face. That little pawsie. And aw, biting my toes!

Here are some more adorable puppies, not mine, not my pictures, but adorable:

Lookit the little great dane nosey-wosey!

An itty-bitty-pitty!

and... aw, a husky. Everyone's favourite with those blue eyes.

Why we find them cute is easy enough to understand. Most mammals are, by the nature of their hormones, bound to like baby mammals. Yep, scientifically, you think they're cute because your body thinks it's a baby, and you're wired to want to care for babies. (Seriously, don't take my word for it, here's a linky)

But, and I hope this is obvious, getting something because your hormones are screaming at you that it's a baby and you want to protect it and keep it safe is a pretty stupid thing to do. This is true of human babies (but thank the lucky stars our hormones do that, since babies really try their parents' patience), but it is especially true of puppies (or kitties, or bunnies, or fishies, or any animal that will be dependent on your benevolence and care for the duration of its life).

The thing is, that cute puppy grows really quickly. By five months, your adorable puppy is teething with all its might, and that little bite to your toe is now a needle-fanged piranha preventing you from walking barefoot, in socks, or even with loose laces. It's all fair game. Sure, it ends in a couple months, even if you teach them nothing (but teaching them helps a lot! ... oh, and is actually really important to avoid bite risk in the future ... another linky for you!).

By 8 months, we have entered adolescence, were their brain melts and runs out their ears. You, and your interests, take a second seat. That puppy that always came when you called is now running across the busy street at full tilt chasing a kid on a skateboard - something Fufu (what do you name bassets nowadays? Captain America? Bruce Wayne? I digress) has never done before. This is when you usually discover a new fitness regime, and either grow a patience muscle the size of a theoretical Olympic athlete specialised in the patience event or buy a crate (or toss the dog outside for the rest of its life, sigh).

As adolescence wanes (which, for small dogs, takes a couple months. For big dogs, you're in for another year or even two) and your dog takes on a young adult's persona, things become easier. Well, sort of. Did you get a husky? Congratulations on your running partner. An hour or more, a day, every day. Sound good? Awesome! You are one in a million people (I over exaggerate, but I am honestly frustrated by this) who actually got a dog you can adequately care for.

Every dog, even a pug (perhaps, especially a pug) needs 30 minutes of intense cardio, two to three times a week. Heck, you do too, but you're considered a human, and so can decide for yourself how much you care about your own health. This can be a rowdy game of tug, fetch or flirt-pole chasing. This can be swimming, or sprinting, or zoomies. This can be anything, as long as that heart rate gets up there and stays up there. Strong bones, strong muscles, and a happier dog. Some really athletic dogs (australian cattle dogs, collies, pitt bulls, huskies ... most working dogs would fall into this category) will need much, much more than this. I'm pretty sure Aussies can do this all day and still be ready for more.

This has not yet occupied your pet's mind. Yes, your dog has a brain, and in some cases, they may even be smarter than you. I know Talos has me outsmarted often, and her brain is the size of two thumbs squished together. Take that, ego!

One of the easiest ways to occupy their minds is to take them for a walk. New sights, but most importantly, new smells, really gets them thinking. With smaller, less fit dogs, this walk can sometimes provide enough exercise too - given a good hour and a daily frequency. With bigger dogs, and more athletic dogs, it won't.  Other ideas include nose-work, training, puzzles, climbing (both a physical and a mental challenge - "find a way up this boulder, Piddles"! (Piddles is, of course, a rottweiller. Maybe 'Mayhem' or 'G.I. Joe' would be better?)

That was the fun part. Your pup will need bathing (if you're me, this is weekly), nail clips (this should be weekly, and yes, dog owner over there that hasn't done it in a couple months, I'm looking at you!), parasite protection both internal and external, both manual (tick removal is fun, yo...) and chemical. They will need specialised care according to their breed (wrinkle wipes, face wipes, butt squeezies (sigh, alright, emptying anal sacs) ear cleanings, paw cleanings, fur brushings, and so on). They will need food, and it will cost more than you thought to get them the even moderately good stuff (which you really should. The bad stuff is really, really bad). They will need to go to the vet. They won't like it, they will be harder to manage than you could ever have imagined, and all your training will fail and fail and fail before you succeed. Vet bills will be astronomical.

Then there's the sad part. Your pup will get old. They'll need your care in the last years of their life. The fun stuff slowly shrinks and is replaced by sleep. They will get old, and fragile.
Dumping them in the pound is never an option simply because they are old. There are always better alternatives, even putting them to sleep (which will happen anyway in the pound, just with your dog scared, lonely and abandoned).

I think we should sell puppies with old dog faces. Here! Get this adorable dog! He adores humans but has a death wish around big dogs, pees pretty much where he likes (including women's legs), barks at things that don't exist, can't hear, can't see very well, and is likely a little demented. He has a dodgy hip and he really can't walk half a block before you'll need to carry him. He will love you more than you can ever understand, and you will never be the same as before he came. Dog pictured may take over 13 years of dedicated assembly.

Barking mad

In the realm of dog behaviour, I know very little. I'm learning, but at this point it feels the more I learn the less I know. Most dog behaviour, especially when it comes to communication, is very nuanced. One turn of the head, shift of the ears, slight paw lift, arching of spine and dropping of tail, all in a millisecond, all so subtle that only the luckiest photo catches even half of it, is a whole conversation about access to resources, threat level, pack rank, mood and sociability that we, as a rule, miss almost completely.

So, let's set that aside and work on an easier one. Barking.

This is probably one of the most problematic things for dog-people interactions. For one thing, aside from toilet habits, this is perhaps the most vilified of harmless things that dogs do. This is downright weird, though.

If we accept that our dogs are domesticated wolves, it helps to contrast dogs and adult wolves to see what is 'nature' and what is selectively cultivated by humans. Adult wolves don't bark. Adolescent wolves bark - this is another wolf puppy trait, like attention seeking, playfulness and a greater dependency on others that we chose to keep in the formation of dogs.

We wanted barking. It's easy to see why. Sheep-herding dogs need to be very alert to small movements and change - and guess what? They're typically your worst barkers. Flock guards are pretty high on the list too, with a low tolerance for things being 'out of order'  -like a wolf bothering the sheep is out of order, or, in our more typical modern context, the garbage van collecting the garbage is out of order. It is because of this, on the one hand, the very sensible reasons for having dogs that bark, and on the other, the deliberate selection of puppies that will keep on barking their whole lives, that I get saddened by people punishing dogs for barking.

But let's take a step back. We now know why our dogs are capable of barking, but this tells us very little about why dogs bark.

It seems that barking comes when a current situation boils over a certain point. If you want to anthropomorphise, this is when a situation gets to a certain point of stressfulness - good or bad stress. When excitement becomes a lot of excitement, there is barking. When there is tension, and the tension does not alleviate, the dog begins barking. When there is something to be aware of, and turning your head, pricking your ears and generally calling attention to it in a normal way completely fails to alert your human (or the other dogs), barking is what happens. When there is fear, a moderate amount, many dogs will bark (a lot of fear often leads back to silence). Different breeds, and different individuals within breeds will have different tolerance levels, different points where they will start barking.

When you're yelling at your dog to stop barking, you're actually yelling at it to feel differently about a situation. This does not seem vary fair, honestly. It also explains why distraction often is the best way to end a barking session, and why bark collars only sometimes work.

With this in mind, I think barking is one of the less nuanced behaviours of a dog. This does not mean barking cannot, or does not convey a wealth of information, it simply means that it's more of a one sentence thing than most other dog communication. There seems to be five types of bark:

1. An informational one, "something is going on over there"
This most often sounds like the Hollywood bark. A clean, clear 'woof' that does not rise or fall in pitch.

2. An aggressive/threatening bark, "come closer and I'll do more than make noise"
This bark is often low in pitch, can be quite slow and is sometimes punctuated with growls. 'Grrrrruf!'

3. An excited one, "oh, my gosh, greatest thing ever!"
Here is often where you hear the high pitched 'yip-yip-yip'. Excitement has gotten so much that he doggy cannot hold it inside anymore, and it bubbles out in rapid, high pitched barks. Watch dogs doing agility, barking all the way - that is a typical excited bark.

4. A fearful one, "help! Scared!"
This bark goes up in tone at the end and is often half whine. It starts off as a bark but ends in an 'eee' sound, or an 'ooo' sound.

5. An attention seeking one "look at me, play with me!"
This is a bit trickier to describe, since it will differ from dog to dog, and I would argue that this is more common with companion breeds than others. It is a bark that starts or ends with a 'm' or an 'n' sound. It can be soft, but it can also be quite loud. Talos makes a soft, almost muffled "nuff".

 "Nuff" says little Talos, who is not impressed with me fiddling
with the camera in stead of playing. 

Of course, a list of types like this is idealised. The barks are often used in combination, or change halfway through from one to another. I'm also pretty sure this is not exhaustive - but, it does give me a starting point when listening to dogs going at it.

As my very last word - if your dog is barking too much for your liking, please, don't de-bark it, or use a shock collar, or a spray collar. If I (and other people who are actually dog behaviourists and scientists) are correct about why dogs bark, you need to address the underlying emotional state if you want less barking. Usually, a good distraction works (oh, you mean 'keep your dog busy with mentally and physically stimulating activities'? No way!). Also, we all need to let go of barking as a 'bad dog' behaviour. They're just letting their feelings be known - even if it sometimes makes us barking mad!