Austin Pets Alive!

Demystifying the “Difficult Dog”

In a world of mixed signals, dating is hard enough. And while humans fill group chats with messages pondering the significance of a hair flip, a head tilt, or a glance down—“He looked up and over to the right. Doesn’t that mean he’s either madly in love with or a sociopath?”—we love being welcomed home to loving arms by a far more simplistic creature to decipher— our dogs. But according to dog trainer Amber Marino, our adoration for the simplicity of body language cues that our pets bring may not simply be the case.

“Dogs are always communicating with us, but most of the time, we’re not listening, which can lead to behavioral issues,” she explains.

And just like that, the illusory narrative we’ve so delicately crafted about dogs begins to crumble. If Tik Tok videos of dogs with linguistic boards are any indication, it’s apparent they’ve been trying to communicate information to us all along, and perhaps, as Marino posits, we just weren’t ready to hear what they had to say.

In fact, as it turns out, dog body language is just as nuanced and complex as human body language is to discern. And it may be that we aren’t as great at decoding our four-legged friends’ signals as we think.

For instance, take a wagging tail. While many may see this as a sign of adoration and happiness, it can also indicate excitement or arousal in dogs. Other common behavior signals that are misinterpreted include things such as lip licking, yawning, shaking, or paw lifting, which often indicate stress and anxiety rather than joy or enthusiasm.

 And nowhere are these behavioral cues more critical to understand than in a shelter environment where the stress of shelter life can place a larger burden on staff members to properly assess dogs for safety and placement. Austin Pets Alive! has led the charge to redefine how dogs deemed “Behavior Dogs” are treated by the shelter system, seeking to save this vulnerable subset of the population from euthanasia by providing behavioral modification and training, dog socialization playgroups, and adoption follow-up services.

Dog Behavior Program Manager Thomas Brown explains the intake evaluation process for APA!, “When we bring over a behavior dog from Austin Animal Center, we evaluate them based on their previous notes. Our most common evaluations are a tug test in which we test the dog’s drive, a long-line assessment to test a dog’s avoidance and interruptability, a playgroup assessment to see how the dog interacts with other dogs and whether or not it can take part in our twice daily playgroups, and a resource guarding test.”

Former Dog Behavior Team member and current APA! Data Engineer Ellis Avallone can personally attest to the importance of the behavior program, working to help one of APA!’s long-stay behavior dogs, a 5-year-old black mouth cur mix, Ruthie, to find a suitable adoptive home. Ruthie initially came to APA! as a puppy when she was ill with parvovirus, finding an adoptive home for nearly four years before being returned to APA! due to her behavioral quirks.

“I refer to her as my project dog, and that’s very much what she is,” Avallone affectionately states. “She is a project. She’s a wonderful companion. But wonderful companions more often than not require effort.”

When Ruthie first came to the shelter, Avallone describes that initially, staff members had trouble distinguishing her behavioral quirks from signs of aggression. They explain, “A lot of staff members were scared of her because of how she acts in-kennel and how she can throw very large and jarring tantrums. She is a big dog with a big bark. She doesn’t have a bite history at all, but she can be very scary when she does throw a tantrum. When people leave her space and she hasn’t decided that she’s done interacting or if there’s a break in her routine, she’ll throw a fit— she’ll bark, show teeth, and lunge and get bigger and try to jump on you.”

While many may have initially seen this behavior as threatening, aggressive, or violent, Avallone wasn’t so quick to conclude that Ruthie was beyond reproach.

“I kind of called her bluff when I first met her. She was pretty spicy with a few other staff members, but I went into her kennel because she wasn’t threat-displaying or anything, and she was immediately a wiggly dog. I guess the biggest misunderstanding about her behavior is that she isn’t trying to hurt anyone when she throws her tantrums. She’s just upset and doesn’t know how to express it,” they commented.

Thomas Brown echoes that sentiment explaining the most significant factors contributing to the return of so-called behavior dogs, “Sometimes it’s poor management on the part of the handler/owner, introducing people to dogs too soon, letting them access resources they have a history of guarding, and misreading a dog’s body language.”

APA!, however, is determined to help adopters overcome the unique challenges working with behavioral dogs may present. Each adopter is given follow-up sessions conducted by the Behavior department staff to help with issues that may arise throughout the adoption process, including phone consultations, private lessons, and unlimited support for life.

Additionally, APA! has chartered revolutionary and lifesaving operations for behavior dogs that may need a little extra help finding the right home, such as their Flight Paths program, which aims to secure foster or adoptive homes by creating volunteer teams around these animals. Each team, called a Flight Path, seeks to protect the mental health of each animal in the shelter environment by focusing on the dog’s marketing and promotion, their quality of life, their training and behavior regimen, and fielding all inquiries from the public about each animal.

Program director Lana Lesley states, “Since the program officially began in March, 55 dogs have been enrolled, with 50 people serving on Flight Crews. There have been 37 total placements (17 foster/FTA, 1 Sanctuary, and 19 adoptions), meaning that 67% of enrolled dogs have been placed.”

For dogs like Ruthie who seek adoption through their promotion by the flight path program, the stress of being contained in the shelter environment for long periods of time can cause additional behaviors to arise.

“She has so much love to give,” Avallone states, “But that isn’t really seen in the shelter. Since getting to know her, I’ve realized just how shutdown in the shelter she is. She is a very high-energy dog who loves people, almost to the point of being rude.”

Avallone pauses for a second before continuing, “Her biggest problem is that she’s incredibly stubborn and also incredibly smart. Too smart for her own good. When I take her back from field trips, she knows the roads that we take back to APA!. As soon as we get off the exit, she starts crying, although she has gotten a lot better.”

However, Avallone is quick to point out the progress Ruthie has made since her time with APA!, including diminished resource-guarding behaviors and mastery of basic obedience commands.

“Sometimes, I forget that she is a spicy dog because of how she is around me. Being friends with Ruthie has been the best part of working and volunteering at APA!. I love how excited she gets when she sees me and how she instantly turns into a wiggle machine when we leave for campus field trips. If you need a dog to pick up on emotions, she’s your girl.”

For the staff at Austin Pets Alive, judging a book— or, more aptly, a dog, by its cover can mean life or death consequences. As Brown explains, “Each dog is an individual. Some dogs aren’t safe for placement at first, but with training and behavior modification can become great pets. Dogs are social creatures and, just like humans, benefit from practicing their social skills.”

While dogs may have spent thousands of years alongside humans deciphering and decoding our body language, one thing becomes utterly clear: we haven’t spent enough time trying to understand the nuances of theirs. But perhaps within the rescue community, Austin Pets Alive! can make a difference in bridging that gap so that humans can truly begin to work in simpatico with our four-legged friends.

To learn more about Ruthie, click HERE or follow @ruthie.the.bean on Instagram HERE.

For more information about APA!’s Behavior Program, click HERE.

For more information about APA!’s Flight Paths Program, click HERE.

I was given the task of writing an article that would help people to better understand the psychology of long-stay dogs at Austin Pets Alive’s mainstay shelter, including their unique challenges and behavioral quirks.