“My dog has never done that before”, is a phrase I hear so often. The despair and confusion in an owners voice when they are attempting to work out what happened is something you may have experienced yourself.
One particular call started this way. Their dog, Eddy had always had a recall other owners admired – until this day.
Out of the blue Eddy took off across a vast field as if his owners no longer existed.
No amount of calling worked and as most of us know, as humans we can not keep up with a dog in full flight.
My mind was already going down the thought path of, ‘What filled Eddy’s bucket leading up to this?’.
If we have met, either in person, on the phone or online, you will know I love to chat and this is what this owner and I did. Having already been told about his fabulous recall, I knew we needed to delve deeper into the time leading up to this walk.
Something had filled Eddy’s bucket.
This particular walk had taken place on New Years day and we were chatting a few days later. Christmas had been fairly busy with lots of seasonal excitement.
Eddy’s Christmas present had lasted the predicted 5 minutes before the squeaker was killed with great victory – maybe not loved so much by the homes bank manager.
Between Christmas and New Years they had friends staying with them. Eddy loved all the extra attention and playtime with two additional small people on top of his normal human siblings – he had people fussing him at any given moment. His normal nightly sofa cuddles with mum and dad were filled with two extra humans, lots of chatter, laughter and late nights.
On New Years eve, the children were allowed to stay up to watch the fire works from the garden, which was a treat as most years New Years Eve was fairly uneventful for them. The excitement this year was off the scale.
Where Eddy had previously been a little worried by fireworks, this year he was particularly scared by them. The adults attempted to calm him down, even in their merry state, they could see he was not copping too well.
The next morning, with tired eyes and cloudy heads, it was decided a good New Years Day dog walk would wake them all up. This was a first for Eddy, he had 8 humans on his walk with him – with four younger ones that were racing each other and encouraging him to join in.
Then it happened…
As they just entered through a gate into the next big big field, they could see some other walkers with a few dogs way off in the distance – and so could Eddy. Like something we only imagine ‘in our worst nightmares’, Eddy took off like a rocket. In total shock the humans called him, panic growing in their voices, with two of them taking off in a sprint after him. Nothing was working, it was as if Eddy no longer knew they were there with him.
They could only watch as Eddy came to an abrupt stop with the other walkers and what they could now determine were three labs. Eddy was bouncing all over the other dogs and people. As a stroke of luck, the other three dogs were all enjoying their new friend – this could have gone so easily the other way with a disastrous outcome.
Eddy’s owners were still only half way across the field at this point, with Eddy and his new friends still a way off. The excitable barking echoed all around the field.
As a second stroke of luck, the other walkers could appreciate what was happening and started walking towards Eddy’s very out of breath and confused owners with the four dogs having the time of their lives jumping all over each other as they followed them.
After retrieving Eddy and thanking the other walkers, they ended Eddy’s party with his new friends. They all needed to go home (with Eddy firmly on the lead). Thoughts of how wrong that could have gone were all they could think about. What if the other three dogs had taken offence to Eddy, reacted badly and Eddy or one of the other dogs had got hurt?
A few days of attempting to digest what had happened and fearing Eddy had somehow lost his fabulous recall, led his owners to calling me.
What had happened to Eddy’s recall and could they ever trust him off lead again?
My answer to them was that Eddy had not lost his recall, he had just had a blip and I could help them prevent this from happening again.
Just like us dogs have an imaginary ‘stress’ bucket. Good stresses and bad stresses all pay into filling these buckets. If a bucket gets too full and overflows, think of this like an emotional outburst. For dogs this quite often will come out as an undesirable behaviour. For Eddy it was to take off and ignore his owners calling him.
The days leading up to this walk had been busy, with lots of stresses (good and bad) filling Eddy’s bucket.
Let’s break down some of the key parts and see if you recognise any in your own dog –
*Extra playtime and noise
*Novelty of extra people in the house
*Reduced sleep
*Fireworks
*Walk with additional level of excitement
All of these fed off of each other filling Eddy’s bucket almost to the brink, with very few opportunities for it to empty.
The excitement of the walk and then the sight of the other dogs was too much and Eddy’s bucket overflowed. His behaviour choice to take off was one that shocked everyone.
Eddy’s ability to make his normal fab choices when off lead had totally gone out the window.
As his owner and I chatted through all of this, they started to see the lead up to this walk was very different to Eddy’s normal walks.
I wanted to give Eddy’s owners the confidence to be able to help Eddy in the future with protecting his bucket from over filling and erupting.
When we are able to recognise that our dogs bucket is starting to fill, we are in the position where we can help them and protect the bucket from over flowing.
So if you find yourself in a similar scenario, what could you do?
Recognising that your dog may not be getting as much deep sleep as normal is a key starting place. Dogs sleep a lot more than us, with most dogs needing 16 hours plus over a 24 hour period.
Think of ways you could protect your dog’s sleep.
Maybe moving their bed out of the busy living room or kitchen to somewhere quieter when you have guests. It would be a bit like us trying to have a sleep on the sofa with lots of others around chatting and disturbing us from getting a good quality ‘cat nap’. If we were to go to our room, close the curtains and lay down on our bed, we know we are going to sleep so much better.
If your dog gets worried by something like fireworks, then take it as a given that their bucket is going to be fairly full afterwards. This would also apply to anything novel that worries your dog, maybe a stressful vet or grooming appointment or overexcited play date.
You know your dog best, so you will know from watching them what worries them or gets them over excited (over excitement can be just as bucket filling). Think of a child that has just come home from a friends birthday party – are they in the right head space to make good choices?
Research has shown it can take up to 72 hours for a dogs bucket to get back to their natural baseline. I know I have seen it with Bobby in the past after a stressful grooming visit, he has been more vigilant, more restless and generally not himself for 2-3 days.
With this in mind, the best way you can help your dog is by limiting the level of responsibility you give them if you know they have a fairly full bucket. Going off lead, like in Eddy’s situation, is giving our dog’s a lot of responsibility to make good choices.
We have to feel confident that they are in the right head space to make good choices. And if we feel that their bucket is too full and they are losing the ability to make good choices, then we need to look at what we can do to help our dogs in those moments.
My advice for owners after any ‘bucket filling’ experience is to focus purely on ‘bucket emptying’ experiences.
So in Eddy’s case, this may have been leaving him at home for the New Year’s Day walk or keeping him on lead and asking the children to help keep Eddy calm by planning their races for later in the day when Eddy is not watching.
Licking and sniffing are also amazing ways to help our dogs empty their buckets as these release the calming endorphins in their brains. Rather than put your dogs food in a bowl, you could put their food in a kong or lick mat and pop it in the freezer (I love to keep a few ready made up for when I feel Bobby needs some calming down). You could also scatter some kibble in the garden and let them sniff it out.
Life happens to us all and there are times when we know our dog’s (and our) buckets are going to fill up. Recognising when this is happening is key. Having strategies in place alongside building general calmness is going to be like gold in the times you and your dog need help.
If you recognise this in your dog and would like to chat through some strategies, I would love to help you and am always here to help.