Unpacking Canine Neuroscience: Transforming Aggression and Building Resilience with Dr. Melanie Uhde

Join us for this spectacular episode with Dr. Melanie Uhde as we explore the cutting-edge intersection of neuroscience and dog behavior. Understanding the role of neurotransmitters like dopamine can transform the way we approach canine aggression, as well as provide insights into the so-called winner effect. Dr. Uhde takes us on a journey from her groundbreaking research at Columbia University to her hands-on experience with village dogs in Thailand, emphasizing the importance of translating academic findings into actionable strategies for dog trainers and owners alike.

ABOUT MELANIE:

Melanie is passionate canine specialist, pioneer of innovative training programs, and educator. Her unique approach is rooted in a deep understanding of dogs, encompassing their behavior, neurochemistry, and motivation. Her expertise and research at Columbia University have left a lasting impact on the field, with 16 peer-reviewed publications in prestigious scientific journals such as Brain Behavior and Immunity and Psychiatry Research. With qualifications that include a Ph.D. in Natural Sciences and a Master's Degree in Biology, Dr. Melanie Uhde continues to push the boundaries of canine research and training. Additionally, she completed advanced studies of anxiety disorders at Stanford University and is a Certified AKC Evaluator, further attesting to her dedication in the field. But if there is one thing she can't live without (other than dogs), it's coffee, fiction books, and her loving husband. 

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Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:02

In this episode we're going to geek out a little bit as we dive into the topic of neuroscience and why it's so important in our understanding of aggression. Melanie Uda joins me and we're going to discuss fascinating topics like dopamine and aggression, something called the winner effect and five considerations from a neuroscience perspective to be an effective dog trainer. Melanie is a passionate canine specialist, pioneer of innovative training programs and educator. Her unique approach is rooted in deep understanding of dogs, encompassing their behavior, neurochemistry and motivation. Her expertise and research at Columbia University have left a lasting impact on the field, with 16 peer-reviewed publications in prestigious scientific journals such as Brain Behavior and Immunity in Psychiatry Research. With qualifications that include a PhD in Natural Sciences and a Master's Degree in Biology, dr Mellie Uda continues to push the boundaries of canine research and training. Additionally, she completed advanced studies of anxiety disorders at Stanford University and is a certified AKC evaluator, further attesting to her dedication to the field. But if there's one thing she can't live without, other than dogs, it's coffee, fiction books and her loving husband.

Speaker 1: 1:17

And if you are enjoying the bitey end of the dog, you can support the podcast by going to aggressivedogcom, where there's a variety of resources to learn more about helping dogs with aggression issues, including the upcoming Aggression and Dogs Conference happening from October 11th to 13th 2024 in Scottsdale, arizona, with both in-person and online options. You can also learn more about the Aggression and Dogs Master Course, which is the most comprehensive course available anywhere in the world for learning how to work with and help dogs with aggression issues. I also have a wide variety of webinars, upcoming courses, videos and articles, all from the foremost experts in training and behavior. We are your one-stop shop for all things related to aggression in dogs. Hey, everyone, welcome back to the Bitey End of the Dog dog. This week I've got a very special guest that I met at a conference some couple years back, I think. Dr melanie uda is here with us and she is a neuroscientist and we're going to dive into that topic today, especially in the relationship to aggression. So welcome to the show, melanie thank you so much.

Speaker 2: 2:23

Super excited to be here.

Speaker 1: 2:24

Thanks for having me thank you, and and one of the things we actually chatted about at that conference was sort of bringing the worlds of training and science together and why that needs to be done much more. And you know we see it sometimes. But there can be a sort of a translational wall that comes between us sometimes where we're trying to extrapolate information from the sciences. But one of your goals is to really make it accessible and understandable to folks like me that may not be academics or know how to necessarily read papers at the volume that you do. So talk a little bit more about what got you into that and your background for us.

Speaker 2: 2:59

Yeah, that's a really good question. And you know, even just within the academic field there is a subcategory of translational research, because even there you kind of want to do research that applies directly to, maybe, patients. This is very different from basic research. So that's pretty much what I've been doing right before I stepped more into hands-on training, which was at Columbia University after my PhD in Germany, and there was really basic research, some basic animal behavior in terms of experiments with rodents, not so much targeted on animal behavior, but how do animals behave if you manipulate the genetics and all that fun stuff if you think it's fun? Back then I thought it's fun.

Speaker 2: 3:45

And then I moved to to hamburg at the institute for tropical medicine, because my first instinct was like, okay, what do we do? People who actually suffer from certain diseases, how does whatever we find in animal models translate to, you know, treating diseases? And that was still too much of like experimenting with animals that I had moved to New York City, to Columbia University, and there it was very much into. Hey, let's really see, whatever I do, how this impacts. At the time it was patients actually suffering from gastrointestinal diseases. At the time, was patients actually suffering from gastrointestinal diseases? So, research-wise, this is how it started to be all about the gut-brain axis. So more so about how obviously the brain works to certain nutrients and whatever you do, and how it affects also the gastrointestinal tract and how it affects mental disorders or how it causes mental disorders. So I was working with patients that suffer from depression, that suffered from anxiety, that had fatigue that we all thought are like just pure mental disorders, but again the research was really based on immunology and nutrition.

Speaker 2: 4:57

So from there, kind of in parallel, I did some volunteer work in Thailand Because again I still wanted to like, okay, now help the people that are really, really in need or someone that is in need. And that was an eye-opening experience because not only did they not care what I was doing behind the walls in my research lab, they couldn't even understand it, even if they wanted to, and they also didn't need it. So it was really very, very basic things that I helped them do by cleaning up Excel sheets. And it was an eye-opening twofold because one I thought, wow, like now you do this stuff here. So much money goes into funding research projects and then the people that probably could potentially benefit the most because they're the most in need, neither have access or know what to do with it.

Speaker 2: 5:48

And then the other kind of site event that happened at the same time and this was in 2016, so eight years ago was a lot of village dogs. Were there A lot of free roaming dogs, and even though my work was research driven, the original idea why I got into biology was like I love animals, all kinds of animals, I want to do something with animals and we have the most access to cats and dogs. And there are these dogs hanging out there looking at me and then starting to chase me down and barking at me. And I'm on my little village bike, you know, going to this research lab in the jungle almost, and I didn't know what to do with these dogs. I didn't know how to read them, I didn't know if they're going to attack me or not, if they want to be friends with me, if it's territoriality.

Speaker 2: 6:37

And that was the second eye-opener because, again, just because you think you understand dogs or just because you think you've researched them for at that time, 12 years, doesn't mean that you know exactly what to do when you're in real life scenario, real life situation, where a dog chases you down. So I thought this has to stop Ends here, not in Thailand, but back in New York, where I then completely quit academia. So that was kind of coming all together. I was like I don't want to do this anymore, I want to be more hands-on stuff. So I kind of had to support that transitioning by going quickly for a very short time into corporate world and while I'm setting up. I was setting up my dog training, canine education kind of business, and then six years later this is where we are now with all the things that I hope I can bring to the public and to dog lovers and enthusiasts.

Speaker 1: 7:36

You've got me wanting to now dive into a hundred different topics and I'm not sure where to start. Sure where to start. You've dived right into some of my favorite things. You know talking about street dogs and natural behavior that we might see at different environments. You know whatever's natural to that environment, I guess, but also you know the neuroscience of aggression as well.

Speaker 1: 7:55

This is a shout out to your website, because there's so many great articles and blog posts that do exactly what you're trying to do is, you know, really extrapolate the science and make it easy for folks like me to understand. So definitely appreciate that. So check out Melanie's website. I'll leave a link to that in the show notes, as usual. All right, so let's, let's kind of start with the easier stuff, in a sense of the neurotransmitters and aggression, just so we get a baseline on this conversation, cause I have other questions I want to ask.

Speaker 1: 8:21

but dopamine, right, that's the most common, or? Well, I'll let you take it away from there. What's happening when a dog displays aggression towards something and makes it go away? Kind of the process there.

Speaker 2: 8:32

Oh yeah, so that you know this is where it starts, where I want to go super complicated, but probably not necessarily the best way of approaching it. Because for me, when I hear aggression my brain really jumps to aggression that is wanted. So I'm kind of like what is proactive aggression? A doctor kind of wants to go out and has a goal in mind. Right, what can this aggression, this aggressive behavior get me? And that part is, whenever something is very goal-oriented in that sense to achieving something, being motivated to behave that way, totally linked to dopamine.

Speaker 2: 9:15

But when achieving something means getting away from the threat, so pure threatening behaviors, because you want to increase the distance, you want this other dog to turn the corner or this intruder to go away.

Speaker 2: 9:30

There, it's almost like a relief from that threat and that is the rewarding aspect of it, right?

Speaker 2: 9:37

So whenever, like something, say, this experience is actually painful because it is driven, the dog gets super startled by another dog that is lunging.

Speaker 2: 9:46

And the dog is young, it's never experienced that, it doesn't know if it's safe, all the fear, all the stress, all the threatening processes are being activated. Now the dog is like whoa, I can't have that. I'm going to either hide or I'm going to threaten back and then, as soon as this situation is over, it is kind of like a relieving moment. And that relieving moment is obviously the reinforcing part of it, because the brain tries to get back to homeostasis. And how you get back to homeostasis when something was really bad is well, you kind of bring out a little bit more feel-good hormones endorphins, maybe dopamine I don't think there is anything that particularly measures that in dogs or has been measured that in dogs in those kind of moments, because it would be really really difficult to say that was the original motivation for that behavior. But again, dopamine and endorphins and kind of thing kind of play a role in achieving something motivated behavior, goal-oriented behavior.

Speaker 1: 10:47

And you had touched upon, you know, the difference between proactive versus reactive. So let's maybe use an example a dog that is and you talk about this in one of your posts as well it's like where a dog is kind of doing it more I don't want to use the word sport, but it's, you know versus, like you just mentioned, like the first, the young dog experiencing something very fearful for the first time, versus, let's say, a dog that is making other dogs go away from its territory, its property, and it does that constantly, sort of like on a daily basis. And so you might argue that there's different mechanisms happening there, or so tell me more about that.

Speaker 2: 11:29

Yeah. So one of the very interesting researches has been a focus point of a lot of different fields and studies is actually rewarding aspects of aggressive behavior, and that often is in the context of proactive behavior. Proactive aggression, basically dogs seeking out this kind of conflict and enjoying it as they're doing it, and you can basically say again the motivation here how much is a dog willing to work to be put in a situation where this conflict can happen? So we now know that there is a very, very particular brain area that has very specific neurons that trigger the aggressive behavior, or at least are involved in triggering the aggressive behavior. And the interesting part is, yes, they're also connected to the amygdala. I'm not talking about the amygdala, it's the hypothalamus, but the hypothalamus and the amygdala both areas that we know. You know, fear-inducing threat reflects. But you can be aggressive without being fearful. I don't think that is something that is surprising. We have that feeling for ourselves too sometimes. So what is happening if the amygdala, the fear, falls apart and it's just the aggressive behavior? Now we know in these kind of research studies that mice rodents. They are willing to work in order to get, to be put into a fighting situation, and there is some genetic part to it, of course, but also they get a kick out of it, and they get a kick out of it especially if they win and especially if the other mouse is a little bit more submissive.

Speaker 2: 13:03

So now again, how does this translate to dog aggression? Right, most of the time we still kind of intervene in any kind of dog fights that might happen at the dog park, the doggy daycare, so it's not like until the end, until someone wins. But the act of being aggressive, the act of chasing, pinning, potentially biting, can be rewarding for a dog, and that might also happen as the behavior is being rehearsed. It might not have been the original motivation when it started out first, but over time you're like wait a second, it actually feels pretty good, I actually got a kick out of it, and that also leads to reinforcement, as in I'm going on a walk because I want to lunge and bark at the dog, not because I'm scared anymore, but now I'm really making it a sport, like you said, and that's because it can be rewarding in a sense.

Speaker 1: 14:02

Is that, like you mentioned the winner effect in one of your articles as well is.

Speaker 1: 14:05

That's, that's kind of what you're talking about. It's so interesting. Now can we talk about emotions a little bit too here. What's going on? So let's say we use that example again, the two examples we had of the dog that's just experiencing like a really threatening thing for the first time. So we might say that you know, the basic emotion is fear. That's happening there. But then let's say let's use that same dog. Let's say it is the dog going out and barking and lunging. Now it's like, okay, I've got this down. I know how to make other dogs go away. I know how to accomplish my task. The more I bark and lunge, the better it gets. And then they get that winter effect happening where maybe they've made contact, whatever it is that they've actually had this reinforcing property to it. What would you say? The emotion is happening at that point, maybe from an effective neuroscience lens maybe the systems like let's unwrap this a little bit.

Speaker 2: 14:52

Yeah, I think you would probably call it rage, almost as the emotional state that the brain is in, especially if fear kind of goes away. Brain is in, especially if fear kind of goes away, and rage here is really similar to someone who's I don't know need to let some steam out and goes to a bar for the sake of starting picking a fight and actually getting into a fight. Like there's some driving moments that already puts this person or in our case the dog already in a certain situation or in a certain emotional state. Now I don't say that it is actually rage, because the whole topic of emotions in dogs we still don't know exactly how that looks like, but I think the closest that we can say or describe it as is emotions as a neurobiological state where hormones play a role, neurotransmitters play a role, certain brain activities play a role and that state whether it's rage or fear or happiness or excitement that determines what behavior follows and understanding what the motivation is of that state. That explains certain behaviors potentially.

Speaker 1: 16:02

But it's kind of like a black box still in many cases explain certain behaviors potentially, but it's kind of like a black box still in many cases. Yes, yeah, so interesting, cause I'm kind of thinking about so many other guests that I've interviewed on the show and similar lines of thinking about different sciences, which is, you know, it's so interesting, but it all kind of starts to tie together when we're talking about it and I also want to ask about when these things are happening in that sequence, so the changes in the neurotransmitters during a particular sequence. I'll give you an example. Let's say it is that dog that's now going out on the streets and is looking to scare the dogs away. In a sense. Is there's an anticipation of that? Let's say, there's a dog it sees coming down the street but it hasn't gone to the barking and lunging yet. Can you talk a little bit about what's happening from, I guess, an anticipatory standpoint, or the neurochemicals that are starting to happen, and then also after the event, what happens?

Speaker 2: 16:52

Yeah, that's probably one of the biggest problems we have with dogs that tend to react super quickly with a super short fuse, sometimes before you as a human even see anything. As a handler, you can't prepare or be proactive because the dog smells something. Potentially, and in very extreme cases, as soon as you take the leash in your hands, the dog is anticipating. Because we have created a picture for a dog that does not just include another dog but it includes going on a walk, being outside, being outside and my owner most of the time not engaging with me, being outside, my owner not engaging with me, and it's daylight being outside, my owner not engaging, it's daylight, and it's summertime. All these things create a picture for the dog and it's like a puzzle piece, the dog's brain. Not that the dog is doing it consciously, but memory is how it works. It's like one piece comes together, then the next, and they all fit perfectly and the dog gets closer and closer and closer to this anticipation until just one little wagging tail around the corner and boom, the dog reacts because it has been anticipating that kind of event all along and that obviously is the dopamine right, the motivation behind this.

Speaker 2: 18:14

It's if there might still be some fear involved. You know, we don't know. I wouldn't say it's everything's black or white. Cortisol stress, right, doesn't have to be bad, but activation adrenaline is up. So all of these kind of just going down the wrong path. And when we then just start working on directivity with another dog and ignore all these other little pieces, we're going to have a very hard time. Because the behavior seems to be so persistent and consistent, because we need to account for the context in which it happens to and so it's safe to say the dopamine hit is kind of happening even before the event.

Speaker 1: 18:52

And so because, logically, we think, okay, yeah, the dog got relief from the trigger. And then we're like, okay, now the dopamine happens. But you're saying it's happening before it even starts, before even the behavior really kicks in to what we can observe as humans. Yes, it's happening before it even starts, before even the behavior really kicks in to what we can observe as humans.

Speaker 2: 19:06

Yes, it's happening. I wouldn't say way before, but the anticipation is having the biggest boost. So it's like how we are most excited right before Christmas and then Christmas happens to be a disaster for some because everyone is like so anticipatory and then it's not fulfilling and everyone fights right.

Speaker 1: 19:21

Everyone is like so anticipatory, and then it's not fulfilling and everyone fights, right.

Speaker 2: 19:25

Or the morning of Thanksgiving is when we're the most hungry and are more excited about the meal, right? So everything right before the anticipation makes us the most wanting it. And if the dog actually enjoys it, that's when the dog really really wants something or goes for it. And right after, we often see that too, and I see you know my Melanor when she was still very she came as a reactive puppy, I would say, and if she had moments where she actually lunged and barked and everyone can relate to this right after the dog is much more likely to lunge and bark even faster.

Speaker 2: 19:58

Or again, even though the dog would have not potentially reacted to something without the initial first event. And that's because all the systems they don't just shut down right after the systems are still up, especially neurons that determine aggressive behavior. They stay on longer, they're ready to fire again immediately. And we need to account for this, that if you have these kind of moments where the dog actually reacts and it was really bad, try to avoid go home. It's probably the better decision than continue walking, because chances are your dog will explode even faster and even easier.

Speaker 1: 20:35

now yes, yeah, that's a really good argument through how we as trainers have to really be careful about the environment and controlling the environment as best we can until we can resolve the issue right. It's just, you know, from a neuroscience perspective. Now it's giving us the details of what can happen. You had mentioned, like these mental snapshots or these pictures that kind of are taken in the dog's brain, what they see in the environment during a potentially triggering or stressful event, and I want to dive more into that because we have, let's say, the dogs that experience a negative event but it doesn't elicit like traumatic responses or things that we might see in trauma in an animal or human. I'd love to dive into the details of what's happening in the brain there. So the difference between that dog that sees another dog's like okay, I barked at you and it's like, but we don't see physiological changes like the awful diarrhea and like pancaking and like all the typical signs of really trauma responses in a dog versus the dog that is actually.

Speaker 1: 21:36

You see those signs. They experienced something that is so significantly scary to them that it has that lasting effect of trauma. So can you talk about what happens in the brain for those dogs that do experience trauma versus the dogs that were not seeing the same signs?

Speaker 2: 21:50

Yeah, that's a good question and I don't know what exactly causes the difference. I've seen puppies that were attacked and one puppy got half its jaw bitten off, went through surgery, went through rehab and still loves all dogs. I mean that's crazy. That's crazy. You would think, like this dog is traumatized. And I mean I heard that it's like, oh man, this dog is traumatized for life. I prepared myself to go through the whole rehab Nope, not needed at all. And then you have other dogs that get startled because someone rolled a trash can down the driveway and it rumbled, and then now they hate the street, the entire street, right.

Speaker 2: 22:31

So I think for one it kind of highlights that every dog is different. For one, personality really matters and the way whenever, like behaviors that are maladaptive show up, it's kind of a matter of how stressful, how extreme the event for that dog personally was, and the ability to cope with stress, I think, is one of the big factors. And again, there's some genetics that go into this, but most of the time it's how often is the dog being put in a minor stressful situation to learn that bigger stressful situations aren't as traumatic or aren't as bad? It's more like a scale right. There's still some memory learning happening, even if the dog doesn't show extreme physiological responses to some stressful events. This dog still might have not had a good time right and it memorized it, but it doesn't cause this kind of trauma effect that we see in other dogs that become now maladaptive in situations where there isn't necessarily a threatening situation, and I think that's a matter of coping with stress.

Speaker 1: 23:40

Interesting, and so stress resiliency is something we often talk about. It's kind of a hot topic in the dog training world and building stress resiliency, but like nobody really has a concrete way of doing that, like there's no blueprint that says, okay, you do this and this and expose your dog to that and it's going to build their resiliency. So I'd love to kind of get your thoughts on that, because you'd also, you know, in one of your articles talk about the cost of constant pleasure and is that kind of related to stress resilience or the ability to kind of cope with frustration, for instance, for not getting reinforcers? So let's dive into that a little bit, yeah.

Speaker 2: 24:14

Yeah, I think it's a super fascinating topic because it just highlights how much the brain thrives to create balance. That brain thrives to create balance In whatever shape or form anything happens, it's always about balance, because balance is what keeps you alive the longest. You can't be out of whack in any kind of scenario, and that includes positive and negative experiences too. Now, in a relatable way, how the brain creates balance is yes, dogs love food. Most dogs are food motivated. I know there are some that are not, but they enjoy eating their treats. So it's a wonderful, powerful way to train a dog, to motivate a dog to do certain things. That has literally revolutionized our dog training world, because the power of food is very obvious.

Speaker 2: 25:04

But we all run at some point into this problem of well, this food is not as valuable to my dog anymore. I have to level up my value for my food. Now let's think about why that is. Because the brain is like this is a little too much of this goody, goody, goody. Got to bring down the value a little bit. We balance that out and what happens is the value decreases because there's a little bit of an aversion to it that decreases the value of that particular food. Let's say kibbles right, the dog is like I don't care about kibbles anymore because the brain is like this is too much of this. We need to balance out our dopamine spikes. We can't just get excited every single time we see a kibble. There are so many other things we need to get excited about. We can't waste our dopamine too much. So I was like okay, let's put some aversion into it, some pain pathways, some like I don't want this anymore.

Speaker 2: 25:54

That's like the smaller version of how we balance that out. But it can also get to the point where the dog expects reinforcement every single time. Now there's so much balancing out to do for the dog's brain that everything is then at some point not as pleasurable anymore. But we have totally put the dog's balance homeostasis in the wrong direction and now the dog has such a desire to be reinforced. Nothing is as reinforcing anymore. The dog gets anxious to find the next kick. It's almost like an addiction in that sense, seeking out the next kind of really good experience. And then this kind of it makes it very fragile, and that also includes how you cope with stress, because the good experiences are not as good anymore and the painful, stressful experiences are even more stressful and that you see, when the dog hasn't learned to necessarily cope with stress, in the way that it's not just here's some treats or here's some reward, but also you're going to be fine. Let's work through the stress together as a team, even though I don't give you food constantly.

Speaker 1: 27:09

I love this where this conversation is going, because I think some of the listeners are going to be like what would you do? So the dog trainer side of Melanie? So we've got the neuroscientist side, but the dog trainer side of you. If somebody's like, okay, I want to do that, I want to make sure my dog you know I've got a puppy, I'm getting them out in the world, I'm doing this whole socialization thing that everybody talks about. But I also want to help my puppy learn resiliency to things in life without necessarily purposely, like inflicting pain or any kind of super stressful moments. Right, most of us aren't going to be like, yeah, I'm going to do these bad things to my puppy in the name of building stress resiliency, but to my puppy in the name of building stress resiliency, but sort of the stress inoculation or getting your puppy out there what are some things you might recommend?

Speaker 2: 27:48

Yeah.

Speaker 1: 27:49

It's obviously not standard for every dog, but what would you suggest?

Speaker 2: 27:54

Yeah, I think this is where nuances matter and I think this is where good trainers come out as amazing trainers If they see not just. Oh, I hear stress and my dog has to learn to go through stress. So I'm just going to put my dog into a stressful situation. That's it. Everything still happens in the context of training and you are still the one who is in control, or has to be in control of the situation, and it's still teamwork. You have to be able to communicate with your dog situation, and it's still teamwork. You have to be able to communicate with your dog. Then you can set up situations where the dog learns to go through stress.

Speaker 2: 28:30

So for my maybe I give like an example, my personal dog again, my, my Melanoa. She is very neurotic, very anxious. She has a hard time, or had a hard time, coming back to balance when she was experiencing something she has never experienced before. So I was working a lot with her on this mental resilience to stressful situations, coming back to balance when she was experiencing something she has never experienced before. So I was working a lot with her on this mental resilience to stressful situations, and there are three things that I do that helped her a lot. So for one, you will see how different kind of nature these experiences have, but they still kind of go into the same category of mental resilience. So for one, when I actually play with her, so we tug, we play fetch with the ball and it goes into a tugging, me being very conscious of how much I challenge her in terms of you don't get the ball or now I'm going to get the ball from you is totally underestimated. This is really challenging or stressful for a dog who really wants the ball and has to kind of adjust by. I'm fighting back but I also can't fight too much because it still has to be friendly, right. Or sometimes, when she is really into it, I cap the energy by saying before you get the ball, go into a down, but very smooth. I don't want to wait 10 minutes for her to go into a down because she, you know, needs to calm down. I want her to go really quickly into a down and then she gets the ball back. It's like brain jiu-jitsu, it's like hyperactive going to a down, hyperactive going to a down, fighting back In two minutes, five minutes in, she's completely exhausted from it. So that's more like the fun way.

Speaker 2: 30:02

Then she also loves my other dog. She's obsessed with him to a point where nothing else matters. So for her being able to go on a walk and not playing with my other dog is also very stressful for her. I don't demand strict, super perfect heel work with my dogs. I don't think any pet dog really really needs that. I think they need to understand how to not pull on the leash crazily, but they don't have to have this perfect, you know, right by my knees kind of thing or at least my dogs don't. But she still, you know, has to walk with me and sometimes my other dog is in front of me, sometimes behind me, and she still kind of has to engage with me and still have fun with me. So that's very stressful for her too and I set that up very consciously.

Speaker 2: 30:48

And then the third thing is and that's really in the context of touch, desensitization and handling because obviously there will be some vet visits there had been some vet visits anything related to muscle training, holding still being touched, anything related to muscle training holding still being touched.

Speaker 2: 31:07

Even though she doesn't want to, she has to work through my holding, her through my grip, for one second longer when I realized she gets to her limit just one second longer holding still before I release her. That has created so much mental resilience and her being able to not freak out and start pacing, because for her the first response is pace, pace, pace, pace, pace. You know, I'm stressed so for her to be able to hold still even though everything inside her says move, that has helped her too. So queuing in hold, holding still me kind of lifting her tail, touching her paws, all these things, and then she starts wiggling a little bit, it's like I don't want any more, you know, and it's just one second, two seconds longer, then I release her has helped a lot too. So and that's different for every dog, right, some dogs don't care about these things. So finding things that they don't like that you have control over, and then work up to it incrementally, little by little, will really really change the mental resilience.

Speaker 1: 32:06

So that was a long answer no, I love it because you cover what's so important in in all of these relationships is the trust aspect your dog learning to trust you and working as a team through these stressful moments where they can trust you that you're going to guide them through the process. I think it's such an important aspect of it because you know, let's face it, we have new pet guard. Is it confused? Oh, what does that mean? Socialization, what is stress? Inoculation it can be all these interesting terms that aren't concrete, but the nuances, but if you learned that trust there and the dog trusts you, that's really the most foundational aspect of it when we think about it. Right? Yeah, so we're going to take a quick break to hear a word from our sponsors and when we come back, I would love to talk about the element of pain in positive reinforcement. Hey friends, it's me again and I hope you are enjoying this episode.

Speaker 1: 32:59

Don't forget to join me for the fifth annual Aggression and Dogs Conference, either in person or online, from Scottsdale, arizona, from October 11th to the 13th 2024. This year's lineup includes many incredible speakers, including Dr Clive Wynn, dr Jessica Heckman, emma Parsons, sarah Kallnice, lori Lawless, carmeletta Ofterheide, jess Feliciano, dr Amy Cook and many more. Head on over to aggressivedogcom and click on the conference tab to learn more about the exciting agenda on everything from advanced concepts in dog body language to working with aggression in shelter environments, to genetic influences on behavior. Dr Amy Cook will be bringing her entertaining and energetic personality to the grand reception and cocktail party, which, by the way, will be live streamed as well as in person, and, as usual, you'll find a wonderful, kind, caring and supportive community at the conference, both in person and online. I also want to take a moment to thank one of our wonderful sponsors this year Pets for Vets.

Speaker 1: 33:58

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Speaker 1: 34:45

Pets for Vets has a positive reinforcement mentality at its core for animals, veterans and trainers. In addition to helping veterans and rescue animals, clurisr has created a generous opportunity for positive reinforcement trainers to join our organization. Trainers are able to participate anywhere in the US while receiving stipends, professional development opportunities and maintaining a flexible schedule. Pets for Vets is also seeking new partnerships with animal shelters and rescue groups from around the country. For more information, please visit petsforvetscom. All right, we're back here with Dr Melanie Uda and we've been talking about all things neuroscience and aggression, and one of the things I want to jump into now is you mentioned there's this element of pain when it comes to positive reinforcement, or maybe I'm not phrasing it quite correctly, but that's an interesting talking point, I think, so let's dive into that. What do you mean when you say that?

Speaker 2: 35:44

Yeah. So again, there is no black and white in how the brain works. And when we process reinforcement let's just take the example of food it could be really anything that is reinforcing or rewarding. When we talk about rewards, the brain makes sure that, again, it doesn't go too far, where the dog would get addicted. And we do see dogs that get addicted to fetch right, chasing up all these kind of things when it gets too far. So the brain is very smart in that way and it's like okay, dopamine goes up the anticipation. We love our reinforcement, but some pain pathways are being activated almost at the same time. And why do we know that? We know that because that pain pathway ultimately is a little more complex than that but ultimately makes dopamine also come back to the baseline or supports dopamine being back to the baseline. So the dog is available for the next kind of reward.

Speaker 2: 36:46

And there have been some very interesting studies. It wasn't with dogs, it wasn't monkeys, where reward is being given and dopamine is being measured, spike right before the treat is being given and it goes back to baseline. Spike back to baseline, and then they stopped giving the reward. The anticipation was still there, but then the dopamine tanked even more, because now dopamine wasn't there to kind of like okay, I'm ingesting, I'm feeling good.

Speaker 2: 37:15

Now it's more like the pain pathways that took over and because of the discrepancy of the spike and how, how much it dropped without actually giving the reward, is the pain pathway saying, well, that was not good, like what just happened, right. So we kind of need both to understand what is the expectation, what is reality. And pain pleasure helps us, helps dogs do that. So you have to have pain in order to understand pleasure better and you have to have pleasure in order to understand pain better. And they kind of almost communicate with each other and if something is too much, one or the other, then it becomes a problem it's so interesting because when you say the word pain, we're talking about the pathways and not you know.

Speaker 1: 38:00

yeah, we're not inflicting physical pain to the dog, but the same pathways are happening and it's really important to look at it from that angle, from the neuroscience lens. When we're talking about that and there's some other things that might cause pain, I guess you would say like social rejection, emotional distress. Can you talk more about that as well? And even like I think you also mentioned something like you can see a reduction in that if a person's on Tylenol, for instance, because it's meant to address pain, because it's working on those receptors. So tell us more.

Speaker 2: 38:34

Yeah, this is one of an example where I totally sometimes forget somewhat hands on with dogs all the time, what it means to them to hear pain. Because for me, from a neuroscience perspective, pain is we all kind of want to see pain as like a much broader spectrum than just physical pain. For one, physical pain, how dogs experience is probably very, very different than how we experience it. Hard to measure, even in humans it's hard to measure and so subjective, right? So we don't know. And two, we also know that very sensitive dogs are much more likely to see social rejection as more painful than if there was a physical pain, even if they're like stepped on glass, you know, and they hurt their paws.

Speaker 2: 39:12

We all have seen dogs that continue walking, bleeding because they don't experience it as painful, but social rejections say still no, and they don't look at you the rest of the day, right?

Speaker 2: 39:25

So the pathways are overlapping and it's not so much physical versus social versus something else, it kind of all overlaps and signals what is pain signaling? Most likely, avoid, get out of here. That's the main goal of this. And we know how social rejection feels because we know that there have been studies I don't remember if it was with kids or adults I want to say kids, but I would have been really cruel to do this with kids, poor kids. But I think there were some sort of experiments where they told not to include one kid in the social game, which sounds really cool to us and obviously I feel socially rejected, and painkillers that you would think is just there to reduce the physical pain made that experience less painful, meaning they felt less socially rejected Again, another way of saying they're overlapping these pathways. And I would say for dogs, especially dogs that are very much into teamwork and very much in tune with their owners, social rejection is probably much more dominant or important to understand in detail than physical pain or physical correction or whatnot.

Speaker 1: 40:42

Yes, it's so interesting because you think about, you know, a dog that experiences separation anxiety, you know, and then the loss of that social, you know, just the person walking out of the home could be such a significantly aversive event. Yeah, and how much they would. Actually, you know, some dogs would do painful things to get back to them, like going through that glass window or trying to scratch through a wall. Those kinds of things which we can argue would be very painful for us if we tried to do that, but just to relieve the pain of not being next to their person.

Speaker 1: 41:12

You know it also makes you think about. It may not be something like that. It could be just the moment of withholding a treat for some dogs that it's so significantly a powerful event that those receptors are in play, would you say that's kind of a good statement, or not a good statement, but a correct statement.

Speaker 2: 41:29

Yeah, yeah. So whether this is just not giving a treat, you turning your back or like you do something and then you withhold the treat and the dog doesn't understand why. It's not just that there wasn't a treat, it's like you didn't give that treat and that, for some dogs, can be very frustrating and what you then see is, you know, they might get a little more bitey mouthy, they might get, you know, seemingly misbehave even more because before they jumped on you then they don't get the treat and now they jump even more. Like there are nuances to it where I see a dog that is really frustrated and, without saying in the human context, but feeling hurt because they didn't understand the situation. It's not so much that they want to misbehave even more. I think it's sometimes an outlet of that kind of perception of the situation.

Speaker 1: 42:18

Interesting and I want to go back to. You were talking about fetch and some of these other activities and we can also talk about drive and motivation in a moment, but sort of these high energy activities. What's the issue with it for our listeners that might be playing fetch and they're just throwing nonstop and the dog's just going and catching the ball. From a neuroscience perspective, what's going on there that it could be detrimental to our dog's behavior or to what we want when we're asking them to do something?

Speaker 2: 42:47

I think the biggest problem is that it gets out of control, so that the dog him or herself has very little control over and it becomes a matter of just throw the ball again. It's not a matter of teamwork anymore, it's not a matter of you play together. Everyone at this point can potentially throw the ball and, more importantly, if the ball goes away, that dog might also kind of lose his or her mind and crumble like a cookie, because the only thing that kept this dog alive was the ball. That severity and you know how this developed Again, not every dog develops this kind of addiction, I think is the the prevalence of falling into certain motor patterns that are very specific to a certain breed.

Speaker 2: 43:33

You know fetching, or like running and being agile. Some dogs, just like you, do this often enough and it becomes like oh, really like this, oh, I was born to do this in a way. And if I was born to do this and we do, and if I was born to do this and we do this all the time, I want to do it even more right. And some dogs couldn't care less about fetching or getting a frisbee, just because inherently they don't find it internally as rewarding. So that drive that comes in there and all the motivation for that kind of play instinctively might come into.

Speaker 2: 44:04

Yes, it might be the prey drive because I'm chasing after the frisbee, but it's really kind of this motor pattern that has been activated over and over. It is so inherent in that dog's genetics and all the other things, maybe there's no other outlet. This is the only time the dog really gets to run like that, the only time they get to play like this. All these other factors make this like a really addictive behavior, which is addiction is never good right, ever. This for humans or dogs very difficult to handle them and get out of the dog again.

Speaker 1: 44:34

And that boils back down to the dopamine that the dog is seeking out and just constantly needs to meet that in the brain.

Speaker 2: 44:41

Yeah, yeah, because now the spike is really high. But if the spike is really high, it also tanks very low. And that's the craving of the next run after the ball to get the spike again, and then it tanks really low and then eventually the spike is not as high anymore, but it still tanks really low and then it becomes like I need to, I need to, I need to. So it's really this going from I want to to I need to that makes it very addicting or very dangerous.

Speaker 1: 45:09

Hmm. So for the listeners probably like, oh my gosh, I can never play fetch again with my dog, or I can't do any of these activities because my dog could get addicted and stop listening to me. What are some things you put in place? Because you know, let's say you have a Malinois, let's say it's tug, for instance, and we all know Malis like to grab things and hold them with their mouth. So what are some things you put into practice? Let's say, you do want to play fetch, but you want to put controls on it. You want to control things like the arousal, the frustration, all those problems air quotes here that can come into the mix. What do you recommend to? Let's say it's?

Speaker 2: 45:43

one of your clients. I think again, balance is a homeostasis we want to use the scientific term is really the the key to all of these, all of these things. Right, I play tug and all kinds of bitey things with my Mal and as soon as she sees that toy she's like you can see her saliva coming and dripping, but she's not addicted to the point where it becomes unhealthy, because obviously it's not the only activity we do. Like I said, there has to be a lot of things that start out with the engagement with me first, and you kind of can put some and I want to say rules, because that kind of sounds too much like taking away the fun. But you can put some traffic signs around the activity by just saying, okay, well, before we do this, let's do this first. Right, we do this and now we do that together. And if you don't want to go through, like some food games with me first or some other games that doesn't involve the frisbee, maybe it's not the time for you to play frisbee right now and you try again five minutes later, right? So it's just kind of creating different pictures of what it means for the dog to play frisbee. It's not about the frisbee. It's about you and I do something together and maybe we interrupt it and do some other fun stuff in between.

Speaker 2: 47:00

I also would say, if your dog really likes this kind of activity, to do that in different environments, different times, not just in the yard, because then the yard becomes again the kind of anticipation of I'm only playing frisbee in the yard. So whenever you go in the yard, again the kind of anticipation of I'm only playing frisbee in the yard. So whenever you go in the yard you have to stand back barking for the frisbee because the dog is put in that situation and keep that unpredictable for the dog. That's really it kind of you know, stay away from oh, my dog loves it so much. Although I need to give it more and more and more and more to my dog loves it so much, how can I link it to other things?

Speaker 1: 47:35

that kind of brings my dog back to work with me that makes sense and I love the actual traffic sign analogy because you kind of think about you know you give your teenager a sports car. There's got to be some rules in place, right it's a lot of fun.

Speaker 1: 47:48

It'd be a lot of fun, but, yeah, traffic signs, that's a great analogy, that's a good one to use. Now we talk a little bit about well, we talk a lot about drive in these terms drive and motivation in the dog training world but they can mean so many different things depending on who you're talking to, and so I think I would love to hear your definition of drive and or motivation from a neuroscience perspective.

Speaker 2: 48:12

So I think actually it's a good question. I haven't thought about this too much before because I think for me, coming from what's happening in the brain, it just comes again back down to what is reinforcing. What is the dog seeking? What is the goal here? And drive?

Speaker 2: 48:32

I think we often put this into like hunger drive. Right, we don't really necessarily associate this with motivation. But there's this hunger drive. I must eat and the motivation then comes in play and saying I'm motivated to go hunting even though I might not be successful. But there's this initial hunger drive, that kind of kicks in Prey drive or predatory drive. It's kind of like the same thing and the motivation really is kind of the movement associated with this.

Speaker 2: 48:57

Motivation equals behavior, equals movement, so it makes the dog do something to achieve something in the future. But then there is the motivation that is maybe unrelated to certain drives, to certain motor patterns that you can teach a dog to be motivated for, which is oftentimes obedience. No dog comes with a drive to be obedient, comes with a drive to do certain things, but you can teach a dog to be motivated to work with you. You can teach a dog to be motivated to stay on the place bed for an hour, right Given there's something coming after. You can teach a dog to be motivated to hold eye contact and keep walking next to you when there's a trigger. And this is very little to do with drive, it's just the motivation for certain work that you put in place. And that's the beauty of like the control we have over a dog's behavior.

Speaker 1: 49:50

Well put. I like that. It kind of makes things easier for me to understand from that perspective as well. Because, again, we were talking earlier on in the show about the need to be clear in our definitions, especially when we're talking from the different sciences, and one thing the dog training world does is we extrapolate information from many different sciences and that's where it can get a little muddy because the terminology might be different depending on who you're talking to, because the terminology might be different depending on who you're talking to.

Speaker 1: 50:14

So that's where some confusion comes in, because I've heard people say oh, there's no such thing as drive, it's all stimulus control.

Speaker 1: 50:24

So there's different angles, but I think that's because of the confusion in the terminology One of the things as part of your work. You also talk about these effective dog training neuroscience factors that you'd like to have. So you mentioned these five key factors in training from a neuroscience perspective. Can we dive into some of those? So like alertness attention rests, which is really important in my book in aggression cases, but let's dive into those. So alertness attention, what do you mean by that and how does that relate to the neuroscience lens?

Speaker 2: 50:52

Yeah, so it comes from me wanting to communicate these things really comes from a perspective of making it easier for dog owners, who may have a dog with challenging behaviors, but also full-time job and kids at home and a husband or wife or partner and, hopefully, other social activities. So not everything is always about the dog, because that kind of gets you to burn out. So what can we do to make all the work that you're already doing more effective, maybe faster, maybe easier on you? And none of these things are like the ultimate solution to everything, but there are sometimes, again, the nuances that can make something stick. And that's all we want, right, like all the training we put in place, all the work we do and these five things that I have put on this blog and this video is really something coming from seeing owners trying so hard, where I want to say let's just take a step back Before you start working with your dog, check in and see if your dog is with you.

Speaker 2: 51:58

That's very easy. Often our living home kind of phenomenon, right. It's like, yeah, of course there's nothing else your dog might be interested in right now, but what is it in a group setting? Right, if you have reactivity group classes. For some dogs they're super beneficial, for others not so much. How do you know If your dog has absolutely no way of just being with you and doesn't have to be in a sit? I don't care if my dog is standing walking on the leash next to me. As long as my dog has the ability to focus on me, have attention on what I have to say to him or her, then you have the chance of actually learning or like helping your dog to learn.

Speaker 2: 52:40

Now the problem with, like putting the dog in the sit or down or the problem with the living room kind of training setups. We don't want to put our dogs in such a calm state and push down all the activation that might be happening in more stressful situations, because we do need activation to learn. So these two requirements is focus and activation, adrenaline and acetylcholine. There's some other things too, but I kind of think of it like when your dog is sleepy it's a dark room, and when your dog is activated you turn on the light in the dark room. That's activation.

Speaker 2: 53:20

But now you also need to put a spotlight on one thing that you want to work on, which is you, because you're the one who gives cues. That's the focus. So turning on the light and putting a spotlight on one thing, that's what you need. And if your dog is sleepy, if your dog is too scatterbrained, looking all aware, barely glancing at you, you're just not in a state of mind where your dog can learn. So all you do either takes much, much longer or won't go anywhere. So then reset other situation, try again next day.

Speaker 1: 53:52

What about the making mistakes part of this? You also mentioned repetitions, of course, which I think most trainers know how to do, but making mistakes that has a lot of debate in our world too, and the dog training world should be errorless learning. Or should the dog be given the opportunity to make mistakes? Because you talk about something the reward contingency gap so tell us more about that.

Speaker 2: 54:14

So this is often in relation to, let's say, you wanted to teach certain obedience commands. The jump is a good example, but maybe something more day-to-day basis like sit down or well, sit down is very easy, but really anything where the dog has to move too, so some movement is involved in it to behave a certain way. Retrieving all these things, not chewing on a dumbbell, whatever it is. The brain's most powerful ability is to learn from mistakes without having to be conscious about what the mistake was. So what does it mean if you set up repetitions, dark jumps, taking the example of jumps, because it's so easy to understand the dark jumps over the lowest bar, doesn't touch the bar, great, gets reinforced. Here's a treat Jumps again, doesn't touch the bar, gets reinforced. 10 times, 20 times. You lift, you make it higher and higher and higher. Now the dog jumps and hits the bar and it falls. That's a mistake. You don't, just don't give a treat, right. So now the dog is like wait a second. I thought when I jump I get the treat. Now, the dog didn't get the treat, you reset, you don't have to do anything.

Speaker 2: 55:32

Obviously you can't explain anyways why the dog didn't get reinforced, but you just reset and let the dog try again, but the brain is active now. Now the brain is like what just happened? We must change something. There's something we don't know, but we'll change something and see what happens, kind of. Now the dog might subconsciously jump a little higher, push the legs a little more away instead of running against the bar. Something will change and now the dog gets reinforced and the brain will be like that was better, let's do that again. And that kind of learning from mistake happens subconsciously automatically. If there is an expectation of a reward, that is being then violated. Right, and that's beautiful. I think that is wonderful because it kind of speeds up the process and really lets the dog learn what is expected. Of course there is the other way of making the bar higher in such super tiny small steps that the dog never makes it fall. That would be errorless learning, in that sense of like not letting your dog make any errors.

Speaker 2: 56:41

Will you get to the same result? Probably maybe. I know, if you're really good with this, you can. But I don't think the dog fully understands what it means. What is actually the task? Because now it's just jumping, jumping, jumping. But it's jumping and not touching it. And that's the beauty of little mistakes Now you can't make. The error has to be communicated in the way that the dog still feels motivated, not wants to avoid it, because now it's scared of making errors. We don't want that. It can't happen too late in the process because then the dog is I don't care anymore, this is fun. I'm getting too often rewarded. It can't happen too early in the process because the dog has to have a set of rewards first. But if you time it just right, it's just one or two mistakes that the dog makes. You will get really bulletproof behaviors.

Speaker 1: 57:34

And these are the nuances we were talking about earlier too, because we can think about the dog makes you will get like really bulletproof behaviors. And these are the nuances we were talking about earlier too, because we can think about the dog that has very poor resiliency, right.

Speaker 1: 57:41

So they have make that mistake. They don't get their reinforcer and that's significantly aversive or frustrating for them. Where that can be a problem and that's the nuances that we as trainers have to really or the dog's guardian really just watching for and learning to adapt our training based on that. So, so interesting tying all of this together, so I could go on for days talking to you. This has been really fascinating and interesting, but I want to give people the opportunity to hear more about what you're up to, or can they find you?

Speaker 2: 58:11

Yeah, so I think everything is some way accessible, collected on my website. It's probably the easiest way to get access to my blog and find the links to my YouTube channel and my social media accounts. I think whenever you put in canine decoded, I think it should get you wherever you need to go. Canine decodedcom is my website, and on Instagram it's canine decoded, on Facebook it's canine decoded, it's canine decoded. Everywhere. It should come up there in one way or another. And then YouTube, also canine decoded, where I put out not as regular as I want to, because we all know YouTube and social media can be quite time consuming, but I have a lot more expert guests coming there too, and everything is translated into a blog post or whatever on my website.

Speaker 1: 58:59

Wonderful.

Speaker 2: 58:59

Melanie, expert guests coming there too, and everything is translated into a blog post or whatever on my website. Wonderful, melanie.

Speaker 1: 59:02

Thank you so much for coming on and I hope to see you again in the future. Yeah, thank you. It was a pleasure being here. It's so great to see the topics of neuroscience and neurobiology becoming more mainstream in the dog training and behavior community. It's always been my goal to bring together the many scientific lenses of behavior and I'm so fortunate to be able to do that in this podcast. And I couldn't do that without you and all of the other wonderful listeners who support this show by tuning in.

Speaker 1: 59:25

So thank you for your support and don't forget to head on over to aggressivedogcom for more information about helping dogs with aggression, from the aggression and dogs master course to webinars from world-renowned experts and even an annual conference. We have options for both pet pros and pet owners to learn more about aggression and dogs. We also have the help for dogs with aggression bonus episodes that you can subscribe to. These are solo shows where I walk you through how to work with a variety of types of aggressions, such as resource guarding, dog-to-dog aggression, territorial aggression, fear-based aggression and much, much more. You can find a link to subscribe in the show notes or by hitting the subscribe button if you're listening in on Apple Podcasts. Thanks for listening in and, as always, stay well, my friends.