David Appleby and Jolanda Pluijmakers
To explain the development of behaviour problems and know how they can be prevented, diagnosed and treated it is necessary to understand how they are influenced by emotions. Many behaviour problems relate to a type of emotion or intensity of emotional arousal the owners finds problematic. This may substantially affect the relationship between the owner and the dog and decrease the quality of life of the pet as well as the person to a more or lesser extent.
Emotional processes control the behaviour of both humans and animals. They coordinate many types of behavioural and physiological processes in the brain and body with the aim of increasing the chances of survival for an individual. Seven primary emotional systems that evolution has built into the mammalian brains to evoke coherent emotional action tendencies have been identified and labelled as SEEKING (desires), CARE, ANGER, FEAR, LUST, SADNESS and PLAY by neuroscientist Panksepp (2012).
Arousal of these systems is experienced as either positive or negative. The SEEKING, LUST, CARE and PLAY systems are associated with pleasure. They result in approach behaviour towards the eliciting stimuli. For example, the SEEKING system promotes survival by making animals intensely interested in the world. They feel curious, enjoy exploring, solving problems, happily anticipate new experiences and become excited when they are about to get something they desire. Arousal of the ANGER, FEAR and SADNESS systems is experienced as negative, resulting in behaviour intended to avoid the stimulus or situation. The individual might have feelings of anxiety and feel tense when the FEAR system is aroused. They might feel irritation, anger or frustration due to activation of the ANGER system, or lonely and distressed when they are not with individuals they are attached to, resulting from stimulation of the SADNESS system.
Activation of emotional circuits is concurrent with changes in the autonomic nervous system, hormonal changes and behavioural responses. The behavioural responses consist of the muscular movements, postural changes, facial expressions and vocalisations appropriate for the emotion elicited by the situation. The emotion also triggers coping strategies that have proved to be adaptive during the evolution of the species or have been learned during the life of an individual.
Emotions are subjective. This means that although for all mammals and members of a species the emotional systems consist of subcortical networks located in the lower brain regions, are similar in their chemistry and generation of instinctive behavioural responses, this does not result in the same outcome for each animal or person. The brain of each individual creates a personal view of the world, feelings and perceptions that control learning and memory and, in humans, higher mental abilities such as thoughts, insights and plans. Emotional and motivational feelings are unique experiences that help an individual make choices, such as looking for companionship when lonely, searching food when hungry and exploring a new environment.
How an animal is affected by a situation or judges a stimulus is influenced by many factors, such as genetics, environment, the development of the brain, past learning experiences and the complex information processing procedure within the brain. The latter is influenced by the relevance of a stimulus and the attention paid to it. The emotional and motivational value assigned to a stimulus and the extent to which parts of the brain are sensitised for arousal in response to it influences the autonomic-hormonal, cognitive and motor-expressive processes. From this it follows that the coping response, through which an individual minimizes an aversive effect of a stimulus or context, may differ enormously. Con versely situations that give pleasure will also vary enormously.
The ability to feel, think and act in a variety of ways in diverse situations inherited in the brain and physical form of a species and individual traits within that species.
By observing the emotional expression of his children and comparing them with people living in various isolated cultures around the world Darwin (1809-1882) was able to conclude that there is an innate species-typical repertoire of emotional expression.
At a genetic level, all members of a species inherit the full repertoire of behaviour from their ancestors, in dogs, as discussed in the chapter about their ethology, the sensitivity to observe and react to various stimuli and perform particular tasks has been changed. They increased in some and were allowed to diminish in others through selective breeding. As a result of breed and individual differences emotions are easier to trigger in some dogs than in others, resulting in different behavioural outputs. For example, there are differences in hunting behaviour between breeds traditionally used for it and breeds utilised in other ways. Furthermore, there are differences between breeds that were traditionally used for hunting. Breed variation results in some finding it easier to display some parts of the hunting repertoire than others, such as pointing or retrieving. There are also different sensitivities for observing and thresholds for reacting, such as in response to movement or scent. These inherent traits mean that breeds seek different, but not unrelated, activities that give them pleasure. For example, most Labradors are happy to endlessly retrieve a ball while many Jack Russells might equally enjoy solo play with toys that squeak or digging holes in the garden. The latter is an example of how active individuals with high arousal of the seeking system might display undesirable, but from the dog’s point of view, natural behaviour when their needs are not met.
The variability of behaviour from breed to breed was shown in research conducted in the 1960s when a number of breeds were reared in identical circumstances and tested at different ages for their behavioural performance. Fox Terriers, for example, were described as aggressive and non-fearful, Basenjis as aggressive and fearful and Beagles as non-aggressive and non-fearful. If breeds are genetically predisposed to display patters of behaviour, it follows that the type of problem behaviour displayed by dogs will often be a result of their genetic predisposition. For example, a Border Collie has such a strong drive to herd that it will not only herd sheep but any livestock whose movement stimulates the response. When given inappropriate learning opportunities, it may also be stimulated to chase cars, cyclists and joggers. The genetic predisposition for the performance of problem behaviours that can be triggered by stress provides a further illustration. For example, a Doberman may suck its flanks whereas a German Shepherd Dog may chase its tail.
That an emotional tendency can be inherited has also been shown experimentally in the parallel breeding of two lines of Pointers. Dogs from Line A were confident in the presence of people and remained so. Dogs from Line E were shy of people. Puppies that were bred from dogs in this line showed severe aversion of human company. Cross-bred descendants (one parent from Line E and one from A) were initially confident in the presence of people but subsequent generations of this cross resembled line E and were shy of people. This experiment suggests that in these lines the inheritability of nervousness was dominant. This is important because the genetic potential for fear and other emotional states helps to determine how an animal will react in a situation.
Differences in sensitivity and arousal of the emotional systems causes the experience of moods and, over a period of time, personality traits, which, in humans, may be described as happy, irritable, anxious fearful, etc. In domestic dogs personality traits, such as curiosity, playful ness, chase-predisposition, fearfulness and aggressiveness have been identified. Attempts have been made, by scientists and others, to identify personality traits, such as aggression, through the development of temperament tests. For shelter dogs, for example, such tests are sometimes used to increase the chance of successful rehoming with adopters that match with their needs and to identify the presence or future risk of behaviour problems.
A few stimuli, typically those that present a significant, life-challenging situation, automatically activate the emotional systems that organise the autonomic, hormonal and behavioural changes that have proved to be adaptive throughout evolution. Other stimuli do not cause a spontaneous emotional response, instead it has to be learned through classical conditioning, during which the emotion becomes associated with a neutral stimulus once the learning has taken place. This means that the brain structures have integrated the emotional state of the animal with cue-and context-related information. If the stimulus is associated with an aversive experience the individual will become frightened when it encounters conditioned stimuli that allow it to predict it or a comparable situation. As every individual strives to maintain a state of emotional homeostasis, they will display behaviour to try to avoid or remove this negative emotion. When, through operant conditioning, they have learned an effective coping strategy that minimizes the aversive effect or allows them to avoid the stimulus entirely, the emotional response will no longer occur. Conversely, an animal will work to get access to or approach stimuli that elicit pleasure, such as the company of another dog or human to play with or just the feeling of comfort and safety associated with the company of another individual.
The sensitive period of behavioural organization, discussed in Chapter 2, is an example of how genetically predetermined biological development combined with environmental factors, such as learning experience, have a profound influence on the emotional development of an individual. The biological process regulating the maturation and integration of different systems in the brain determines the timing of the sensitive period. That exposure to stimuli in early life reduces the risk of unfamiliar stimuli eliciting fear reactions in later life was illustrated by several research projects in the 1950’s and 1960’s. Recent research conducted by the authors confirms some of these finding. It is shown that exposure of puppies to video images between the age of three and five weeks decreases fear in a novel situation when tested at the age of seven weeks. Further, raising puppies in a domestic environment and regular exposure to urban environments from before the end of the socialisation period until at least six months and probably year, has been shown to be the best procedure for preventing the development of inappropriate avoidance behaviour and aggression in response to unfamiliar people later in life.
Research of the heritability of personality in identical twins has shown that personalities are established by both genetic and environmental factors. However, the degree of influence of different behavioural traits may vary. Some having stronger or weaker loadings for genetic or environmental factors. The combination of these factors constitutes the personality of an individual, which is illustrated by its style of feeling, thinking and its behaviour. The personality of an individual may cause positive or negative cognitive bias when appraising events that happen in their life. The same event, e.g. exposure to a novel stimulus, may, in one individual, result in a negative evaluation and an avoidance response but an individual with a positive bias may assess the stimulus as positive, resulting in approach behaviour.
Emotional states are automatically opposed by mechanisms of the central nervous system, which reduce the intensity of both pleasant and unpleasant feelings. Following the introduction of something pleasurable a positive emotional response begins and quickly rises to a peak (state A). It then slowly declines to a level where it remains if the quality and intensity of the stimulus is maintained. These reactions are opponent so if A is pleasant, B is aversive; conversely if A is aversive B will be pleasant. The B-process will acquire more strength if frequently elicited. It will also rise to a higher peak and take longer to decay than the A process. In addition the effect of the A process decreases through repeated stimulation.
The effects of frequent State A stimulation may be at work in dogs displaying attention seeking behaviours such as stealing. By giving a lot of attention to a dog pleasure (State A) is created. Repeated stimulation of State A results in an increasing seeking and craving for attention when it is not available (State B) and more attention is required to return the dog to state A and so on. The craving can become so strong that the dog may learn the strategy of stealing objects, such as the remote control for the TV, purse, the owner’s glasses etc. when the owner is pre-occupied because it finds that they will always respond when it picks them up.
Primary emotions are experienced in response to unconditioned and conditioned stimuli or behaviour that activates memories. Memories, in contrast to first experience of unconditioned stimuli that elicit a ‘spontaneous’ emotional and behavioural response, contain learned associations and response information. What takes place between the perception of a stimulus and the response to it can be described as a complex data processing within the brain. This process is assumed to be present because the response to a stimulus varies.
The process involves a number of stages, which are summarized below:
1. Assessment of the stimulus: What is the relevance of the stimulus or event to the individual? Is the quality the individual assigns to it something it desires or wants to avoid? Is the event familiar or unfamiliar; how do the properties of the stimulus compare with stimuli that are familiar?
2. Assessment of context: the context is evaluated to assess the potential to remain in control of emotional homeostasis in the presence of an aversive experience or to gain access to a positive stimulus.
3. Evaluation: Based on information from previous stages (the appraisal of the stimulus and expectations) the importance of the stimulus/event is calculated, which determines the capacity to elicit arousal in the various emotional systems and the behavioural priority it is given. If it is high ongoing behaviour will be disrupted.
4. Behaviour plan: An action plan is generated based on information from the previous stages
5. Physiological changes and selection of behaviour
6. The behaviour is performed
In contrast to what this might suggest the process is not an isolated, linear process. The recording of information and the evaluation of its relevance are continuous. As long as an organism is awake it will scan/explore its environment and compare the stimuli it encounters with its interests, which are not static. The process between the perception of the stimulus and behavioural response is highly individualised because it is influenced by the emotional systems, stimulus assessment, cognitive processes and potential for emotionally driven arousal.
It is normal for behaviour to result of the process described above. However, parts of the process can be ‘left out’ or overtaken by conflicting processes and it can be interrupted at any time. For example context evaluation may be skipped in response to sudden, intense or unexpected events in which there is no time to evaluate. Everything between context evaluation and overt behaviour may be left out if the individual has an innate response or has learned a response that is strongly established.
The FEAR system is involved in self-preservation. It is activated when a stimulus or situation is interpreted as having a negative effect on survival. Variation in the coping strategies used to decrease aversive experience is dependent upon the characteristics of the individual, the situation and the intensity of the emotion experienced. Some dogs become restless, pace, tremble, pant or salivate when anxious because of an anticipated aversive event. Others may bark, whine or seek comfort from maintenance stimuli e.g. by trying to hide where they feel secure or by seeking proximity to the owner. When actually confronted by a fear eliciting stimulus they might freeze or try to escape by flight eg. by digging into locations or scratching at doors or windows. If necessary a dog may display defensive behaviour in an attempt to escape from the situation.
Learning through classical and instrumental conditioning is relevant to the development of anxiety, fear and phobia, its generalization to other situations and any increase or decrease in the intensity of the animal’s emotional response. For example, a dog that is always friendly to other dogs may, as a result of being bitten by a large black dog, start to avoid large black dogs. This behaviour can easily generalize to all types of dogs through emotional responses being triggered by dogs that look almost the same size and colour, then ones that are less similar and so on. If the dog has several more unpleasant experiences it may display an intense and immediate emotional reaction every time it sees another dog. Conversely if the subsequent experiences with other dogs are positive the same dog may learn to overcome its fear.
Some stimuli have greater potential for triggering genetically predisposed spontaneous and intense arousal of the FEAR system than others. This is because they were a serious danger to the chances of survival during evolution. The large number of dogs that suffer from noise phobia suggests that an example of such a stimulus in the dog could be fear of sudden loud noises. When the stimulus is encountered there is often an immediate activation of the FEAR system and intense behavioural reaction before the brain has identified exactly what the noise is, where it is coming from, if it is actually threatening and the appropriate coping strategy. All these steps are initially skipped because, in a life-threatening situation, there is no time for the relatively slow evaluation that involves more cognitive parts of the brain, whereas fast and immediate reaction may substantially increase the chances for survival.
Experience influences learning and memory. For example, stimuli present at the time a sudden loud noise occurs are very easily associated with the negative experience and can subsequently trigger intense fear because of that association. Learned associations between stimuli will normally decrease and extinguish if they don’t reoccur simultaneously or contiguously. However, associations with stimuli that have a strong capacity to trigger innate arousal of the FEAR system do not diminish easily, even if the initial fear eliciting stimulus does not reoccur in this context. This explains how, after one frightening experience, dogs can develop a sound phobia. If, because of previous experience, they anticipate something frightening may happen they may display anxious behaviour. In extreme cases can live in a constant state of fear because the FEAR system is strongly and constantly active. It elicits negative memories and supresses pleasant memories previously associated with the context.
Here is an example of how this can influence an animal’s behaviour. Some dogs become reluctant to go out to relieve themselves before the owners go to bed or go for a walk after dark because they are concerned that fireworks may re-occur. Except for certain times a year, we can predict that it is unlikely that fireworks will occur but darkness allows a dog to anticipate there might be. In mild cases this association will extinguish over time, during which the onset of darkness is not followed by fireworks but it may continue in dogs that have developed a phobic response.
Remaining indoors to avoid exposure to fireworks at night is no guarantee that a dog will be able to satisfactorily control its exposure to the bangs and its emotional response because, to a lesser extent, they continue to occur. When they do the dog’s capacity to predict its environment and maintain control of its emotional state is further reduced and further still if they occur during daylight. For some this is sufficient to cause them to live in a constant state of anxiety.
Therapy involves changing the underlying emotion using systematic desensitisation and counterconditioning techniques, during which the dog is exposed to a decreased intensity of the fear eliciting stimulus (e.g. by using sound recordings of fireworks) while eliciting a positive emotion through play.
The ANGER system can be aroused in various situations. Dogs may feel angry when there is competition over resources, when they are restrained, irritated or frustrated when they do not get what they want. Activation of the ANGER system can result in the display of aggressive behaviour such as growling, barking and biting.
Aggression is almost certainly the most acute and threatening behaviour problem for the dog-human relationship. In its natural setting agonistic behaviour has value for the survival of the individual and species. It is a form of behaviour aimed at repelling another individual and communicating to increase distance. However, not all displays of aggression are agonistic behaviour related conflict over resources. Dogs may growl and bite, for example, during play or bark when exited in anticipation of a pleasurable event.
In the domestic dog aggressive behaviour is often wrongly perceived as abnormal and misinterpreted. Judgement is often only based on observation of behaviour that may but is not necessarily part of agonistic behaviour displayed in conflict situations. Often the underlying emotion, how the behaviour developed and influenced by factors such as genetics, emotional development and learning are insufficiently analysed.
In social animals conflicts may be inevitable when resources are limited and not every animal can exploit them equally. They must communicate with each other to gain access and utilization. Genetically programmed, species-specific, ritualised signals are displayed reducing the possibility of fighting and, as a consequence, increasing individual and collective chances of survival. Vocalisations, facial expressions and body postures communicate the emotions of animals involved in conflict. Various factors influence the potential for aggressive behaviour such as temperament, learning from previous encounters, gender, age and the extent to which higher cortico-cognitive systems inhibit and regulate the sub-neocortical ANGER system.
Aggressive behaviour caused by competition for resources and directed towards group members in the natural environment or familiar people and dogs living in the same household, has, until recently, often been called dominance related aggression. Descriptions of this behaviour include growling or biting when competing for or protecting resources such as a bone, a favourite place on the sofa or food. Dominance has been described as a personality trait of an individual that is often defined as an individual trying to achieve constant control over all social interactions, situations and resources by climbing up a dominance hierarchy and frequently using aggression to achieve this goal. The existence of a dominance hierarchy in domestic dogs and dominance as a personality trait, is now highly criticized by many scientist.
Interpreting dog behaviour using the dominance concept has caused a lot of suffering. Owners misinterpreting the behaviour of their dogs, fed by the fear that their dog is striving to take control over them, whether or not it has become aggressive, motivated them to use harsh and punishment based training techniques, totally neglecting the emotions and emotional well being of their dog.
In simple terms a sense of being able and motivated to control resources can be expressed as an equation of Resource Holding Potential (RHP) + Value over Cost. This comes down to; do you normally get your own way plus something you want minus any concerns you may have about the ability of an individual that wants the same thing to stop you and cause you harm. If you think you are stronger than the other individual, really want the resource and do not think the other individual will harm you, it is likely that you will not be inhibited by them and control the resource. If two individuals keep having incidents where this equation comes into effect they should reach the point where they can anticipate who will win and in what contexts this is likely to occur, resulting in a social system that avoids challenge and conflict. Conflicts over resources do not need to occur or do not need to result in a conflict if the motivation to obtain the resources differs between the individuals or the individual is not challenged about it.
An illustration of this is the escalation of conflicts resulting in aggression when a dog is challenged over the possession of its food. Many owners, thinking of the dominance concept, start to take their dog’s food away while eating as in their view the subordinate should accept the leader doing this. Their dog, which did not feel challenged over his food, learns that proximity of the owner when eating might result in food being taken away. Some dogs may accept this, others that are highly motived by food or have an ANGER system that is easily aroused and/or insufficient inhibited by higher cortico-cognitive brain systems, may start to display threatening behaviour to induce distance between them and their owner and keep control of the resource.
Frustration when not achieving a goal or getting what an individual expects, results in anger and might result in aggressive behaviour. A common example of this occurs when a dog is reactive to another dog while held on a leash is suddenly touched or taken by its collar to stop the behaviour. The frustration that has built up and the subsequent aggressive behaviour might be directed to this new source of restraint, resulting in the dog biting the owner.
Learning plays an important role in aggressive behaviour. Here is an example of how basic motivational-emotional systems and learning experiences influence behaviour. If a dog is never fed tit-bits from the owner’s plates it will not expect anything and will not look for it. However, if someone in the family sometimes feeds the dog from their plate they create an expectation that it will happen again and so the dog learns to sit and watch people when they are eating, just in case. If it takes longer than he expects for someone to feed him, he might try to remind them that he expects to get something by pushing under the person’s arm. If they do not react immediately the frustration and anger he experiences will make him try harder and push more or try another strategy, such as barking. Not such a problem you might think but the dog’s ability to predict its environment and know how to respond will take a turn for the worse if he then finds that one or more family members, perhaps not those that did the original feeding, tell it off for ‘begging’. The extent to which it is affected emotionally will depend upon its personality, the degree of threat the dog perceives itself to be under and its confidence in its capacity to cope. It may try to cope by avoiding its owners in this context, giving them what they intended, or by becoming defensive. Any telling off for being defensive that follows will only confirm to the dog that it was right to be defensive towards the owner. In response to the owners becoming unpredictable the dog may become defensive on other occasions, perhaps, initially in the context of the owners being in possession of food it is interested in and they tell it to do something but this can generalise to when the dog perceives itself to be confronted in other situations, just in case the owners turn nasty.
Problems that occur when a dog is left at home alone constitute a significant portion of the behavioural specialist’s caseload. There are many causes for separation problems that are not related to arousal of the SADNESS system. For example, destructive behaviour may result from a dog being bored and activation of the SEEKING system to stop the negative emotion by seeking pleasure through an activity to entertain himself. Playing with a cushion, tearing up the newspaper or digging in the flowerbeds might be a way of achieving this.
One of the causes of problem behaviour that occurs when a dog is left alone has been defined as ‘separation anxiety’. Separation anxiety can be defined as apprehension due to removal of significant maintenance stimuli, which are typically social, for example, be persons, other animal(s) but can also be non-social, such as familiar surroundings The loss of emotional support activates the SADNESS system resulting in the dog feeling an intense negative emotion, which can be recognized by the display of signs indicative of separation distress, such as howling and barking and coping strategies to regain access to maintenance stimuli. Activity in the SADNESS system stops when the feeling of comfort and safety is reinstated by the presence of maintenance stimuli.
An opponent process affects the dog’s emotional homeostasis because comfort due to social contact (A process) is replaced by negative emotions due to loss of sense of security and control when the dog is left alone (B process). Repetition of these contrasting emotional states results in attention seeking and neediness when the owners are at home and as a consequence an enhanced emotional state occurs when the dog is left alone. This example illustrates how emotional systems are intertwined and can inhibit or activate each other. It also illustrates the need to develop a diagnosis based on the overall assessment of the emotional state of an individual in different situations and not restrict it to the symptoms considered to be problematical to the owner, in this example when left unattended. Analysing the way in which a dog uses maintenance stimuli to maintain in emotional homeostasis and which stimuli cause disruption of homeostasis is a useful model that can be followed to achieve this goal. An example for three groups of dogs, groups A, B and C, is given in table 1.
Dogs in Group A are those dependent upon social contact to maintain in emotional homeostasis. They have remained dependent upon the mother figure or a substitute for them, such as the first owner, during their entire life. This may be caused if the owner is inclined to encourage close contact rather than independent behaviour, where the puppy has been unwell or has a fearful temperament resulting in the need for constant social contact and comfort. They become anxious in anticipation of being left alone. To prevent arousal of the SADNESS system and the experience of an intense negative emotion they will continuously follow the owner that provides him with a feeling of comfort and safety and display a high frequency of attention seeking behaviour. From puppyhood onwards and every time they are left alone, they will howl and whine in an attempt to call the owner back or might cause destruction to doors and windows in the direction the owner left to try to follow him.
Dogs in Group B are those that have developed a broader maintenance set of social and non-social things through learning. Their emotional homeostasis can still be upset if one or more things they depend upon heavily are removed from the maintenance set and/or their confidence in being able to cope is reduced by exposure to novelty or perceived or actual threat to its well-being. Some dogs only start displaying symptoms indicative of distress after a house moving as the new environment lacks many established stimuli exposes them to many novel and potentially fear eliciting stimuli. Activation of the FEAR system can be inhibited by social contact or other non social stimuli the dog has a learned to associate with safety such as his bed while the owner is present. However, when left on their own the lost of feeling of safety due to the absence of social comfort will activate the SADNESS system.
Dogs in Group C have such a broad maintenance set that they can cope with the removal of stimuli from it because enough remain to enable them to stay in a positive emotional state when on their own. However their FEAR system can be activated by the presence of aversive stimuli such as sudden loud noises. These dogs may not show any dependence on the owners when they are present, unless the fear eliciting stimulus occurs. When left on their own they will only show symptoms when the fear eliciting stimulus is present. This will result is a strategy to avoid exposure to the stimulus, which often consists of digging into a sofa, corners of rooms or at doors that give access to locations where the intensity of the stimulus is decreased.
Dogs can move between groups. For example, a dog in group C will have a broad maintenance set and not be dependent upon an owner. But if an owner stays at home for a long period of time during redundancy or maternity leave their availability, the quality of the relationship and the resultant emotional association may result in them becoming more important in the dog’s maintenance set.
There are other reasons why separation problems occur when dogs are left unattended, the symptoms of which are the consequence of an emotional state. Some problems occur because the dog is not able to anticipate that they are expected to stay, resulting feelings of frustration and annoyance when they can’t leave with the owner. This may result in problems such as barking in a manner consistent with these emotions or giving the cushions a good shake. It is easier for a dog to know that it is going to stay behind and thus avoid these problems if its owners wear different clothes for walking it and going out without it. Even a pair of Wellingtons or a hat only worn when it is going to be taken out will help. The dog’s lead being left undisturbed as the owner gets ready to leave and being left behind once they have gone should cause the dog to expect to stay at home. However these clues are missing if the owner hangs the lead with the family’s coats so that it rattles every time someone gets a coat or keeps the lead where the dog cannot see it. It is preferable for the lead to hung on its own hook in an area of the house where the dog can always see it and can learn that that if it remains undisturbed it is going to stay behind.
Emotional processes control the behaviour of both humans and animals. They coordinate many types of behavioural and physiological processes in the brain and body with the aim of increasing the chances of survival for an individual.
Emotions are subjective. How an animal is affected by a situation is influenced by many factors, such as genetics, environment, the development of the brain, past learning experiences and the complex information processing procedure within the brain.
Many behaviour problems, including minor ones, are the consequence of disruption of emotional homeostasis, the performance of behaviour that has become disorganized and ineffective as a coping mechanism or is effective but inappropriate for our requirements as pet owners and society in general. Therefore, it is essential that the emotional states of an animal are properly understood and what is learnt included in our approach to preventing and treating behaviour problems.