Adrenaline & your Dog
And what it means for you
I had to take my dog to the vets recently (happy ending, by the way). He’s generally pretty good with vets but when we pull up in the car outside, he does become nervous. There is a little shaking and lip-licking. Once we get inside to the waiting area he is obviously tense. But he does busy himself watching the comings and goings of people and animals. He had a significant limp which was why we were there. But on his way from the car into the building, and then into the consultation room, the limp had all but vanished. Had the cause of the limp just disappeared? Typical! Actually…
As the vet commented, the sudden disappearance of a significant injury symptom can be quite common in these situations. What was going on with Woody was that his body was producing a lot of adrenaline very quickly, which was now displaying as nervous excitement (uh-oh, the vet table !). But adrenaline suppresses pain for a short time. Adrenaline and your dog will produce outcomes very quickly. What still amazes me with the vets was how quickly this had happened. Sure enough, once we got home and he had calmed down, the limp re-appeared just as it was.
What is adrenaline?
Adrenaline is a hormone produced in the body that prepares the body for exertion. The result is increased pulse, breathing, and muscles in the body primed for more extreme use. Its purpose has obvious evolutionary benefits and its effect both over-rides pain receptors as well as impairing cognitive functions (thinking).
It is well-known that when we sustain a physical injury, if it’s painful enough our bodies can go into ‘shock’. The resultant adrenaline that is produced can have a sedative effect on the pain. But we know it’s gonna hurt later! This is another good example of its temporary but powerful effect.
Why are dogs so efficient in producing adrenaline?
Domestic dogs’ ancestors, like wolves and other wild canids, had to make quick decisions to survive. The quickest way to make a decision is based on an emotional reaction, rather than thinking about a problem to try and solve it (which dogs are most certainly capable of doing). The most efficient way to have an emotional reaction is to produce a lot of adrenaline, very quickly. So it’s a genetic relic, of little practical use for our domestic pets, but not something we can remotely change.
Is adrenaline just more energy?
No. The effect is the consumption of more energy, but it comes at the expense of the fixed energy supply available in the body, so it’s common for the dog to feel more tired afterwards. Energy we measure in joules and calories. Adrenaline is like a turbo boost that really opens the taps to access that energy, but it drains the tank quickly.
What does this mean for dog behaviour and training?
Anything and everything! If your dog is either very scared or over-excited about something, a lot of adrenaline will be produced very quickly. This covers everything from aggression to more innocent excitement. The result is the brain will filter out everything not of relevance to their immediate situation. (Remember that survival instinct.) This means they can’t hear you. So they may not be able to respond to you, they won’t be interested in the treats that usually never let you down, and they certainly won’t remember what a “Come Here” means. It’s all just ‘bah!’ and white noise! They are hyper-aroused.
We need to recognise our limitations with this scenario. Your dog is not behaving badly. Your dog is an animal, and it is in a highly aroused state, because of adrenaline. It’s a physical, not a wilful reaction, resulting in something over which they have no control.
What we do next is the important bit, because if we shout at or try to punish our dog for the consequent behaviour, think about what this means to them and how they perceive you. They will certainly be able to process it all afterwards, when that adrenaline has worn off.
The best thing we can do is do our best to remove them from a situation that is causing this, and potentially putting them in harm’s way, or in a less dramatic situation, recognise it for what it is, and let them burn it off doing those zoomies! Removing them from triggering situations is where training can help: if we have rehearsed and reinforced a routine to do just this, you have a much better chance at succeeding, even with that adrenaline. And then we need to calm down, because although we have changed the situation, the adrenaline is still there.
Is an ‘adrenaline rush’ somehow ‘addictive’ for dogs?
Dogs are quite capable of working themselves up into a hyper-aroused state by themselves (think about those zoomies). Repetitive ball-play can produce a similar effect if the dog is naturally over-excited by this. A spaniel seeing a pheasant? Now there’s a rush. It’s well known that for humans doing sport or gym activity that the buzz from an adrenaline rush is self-reinforcing, whether subconscious or outwardly recognized as a beneficial side-effect. Could dogs learn that certain situations and activities are beneficial because it simply makes them feel good too?
In dog behaviour studies there is always discussion about a category of dogs that appear to enjoy being aggressive, even to ‘enjoy fighting’. A more accurate description would be they enjoy the adrenaline rush that comes from aggressive situations. Every dog has a survival instinct, and physical aggression is expensive (injury) and risky (death). But could it be that some dogs learn that the adrenaline buzz is always produced when they are hyper-aroused, and they enjoy that feeling itself? It’s quite plausible, and certainly food for thought!
Adrenaline and your dog always co-exist. But for most of us, next time your dog is over their threshold, it doesn’t mean we have to be invisible. We just have to know what to do.