THE NITTY, GRITTY OF TRAUMA: It Can Even Affect Your Dog’s Toileting Habits

By Dr. Laura Donaldson, PhD, CDBC, KPA CTP.

Housetraining! Just referencing the word elicits cold sweat from some canine caregivers and anguished grimaces from others. For many of us, helping dogs learn appropriate toileting is one of the most challenging goals we accomplish with our dogs. Housetraining is critical not only to save caregiver sanity (and preserve their residences) but also because the absence of it has historically topped the list of why people surrender their dogs to shelters. The traditional description of teaching toileting skills as “housebreaking”—as if it were a Friday night fight between dogs and their humans—belies the harshness lurking beneath many of these methods. However, what is too often suppressed in both “housebreaking” and housetraining is their often-complex intertwining with other factors such as traumatic stress. What, you might be thinking, can trauma really affect the way my dog pees and poops? My answer is a definitive “yes” because this happens much more frequently than anyone suspects. I would like to offer a case in point.

Recently, I did a series of behavior consults for a thirteen-month-old Labrador Retriever who, along with her five littermates, was abandoned by the side of a road in a box, rescued and then flown from Alabama to the northeastern US. Even as an eight-week-old puppy, Emmy (not her real name) displayed extreme fear, stress and anxiety issues such as hiding from social interactions. As she approached one year of age, Emmy’s toileting habits remained problematic. While she did learn to pee reliably outside, Emmy would immediately run back inside and defecate in the house. Her preferred place to poop indoors was a three-sided spot framed by the back of the living room couch, a house wall and the low front of the fireplace. When I began my work with Emmy, her human reported that she “pooped in the house every morning.” By thirteen months, any dog should be able to control all aspects of their elimination process. Emmy’s inability to do this not only caused her adoptive family significant stress but also presented a puzzle: what was motivating her refusal to poop outside?

Many people would respond by calling out Emmy’s stubbornness, her naughtiness or her willfulness in blowing off her human family’s desire to preserve their flooring and rugs. However, being trauma informed emphasizes that “resistance is information and our job is to become curious enough to understand the message” (Schwartz, 2020; see my article on this for Happy, Healthy Dog: https://happyhealthydog.org/drlaurajuly). Instead of labelling, then, I tried to understand the message communicated by Emmy’s toileting habits. Her experience of being abandoned as a young puppy had clearly caused some traumatic stress because she subsequently found the world to be a dangerous space. This was evidenced by Emmy’s hyperaroused and hypervigilant behavior toward unknown people and dogs as well as growling at anyone she considered to be an intruder, such as repair or delivery people. Consequently, perceiving Emmy’s toileting issues as part of her belief about “outside”—even her own backyard—being far too dangerous was not a big leap. After all, avoiding, refusing and stopping are a dog’s way of signaling the current situation or context has become untenable, either because of physical pain or emotional distress.

One reason for Emmy’s specific reluctance to defecate outside stems from the fact that pooping takes longer than peeing and necessitates dogs assuming a hunched-over posture. For many reasons, this hunched position is far more vulnerable than the fast squat or leg lift dogs use for urinating: hence Emmy’s willingness to pee but not poop in the backyard. But if this is the problem, what could provide the remedy? The answer here came from the comprehensive behavior program I had developed for Emmy which stressed Deep Safety—a visceral, embodied sense of safety. Along with a bit of “thinking outside the box” creativity, this experiential foundation of Deep Safety provided the perfect place to start addressing Emmy’s toileting issues.

Here is a viewing link for the outdoor toileting space I asked Emmy’s human to create for her dog. I call it the Deep Safety Housetraining Tent (DSHT). To construct it, we used a canopy already owned by the client, clipped tarps to several of the canopy’s sides and located it abutting the back porch. The video (taken by Emmy’s human) captures the first time Emmy encountered the DSHT. Given her toileting at the end of the video, this strategy proved to be a resounding success—but only after this remarkable young Labrador arranged the “safety” part of it to her own liking. You might notice that Emmy again chose a three-sided space but not from the DSHT’s interior. Instead, she quite deliberately opted for the outer side of the DSHT plus an adjoining wall of the house and the side of the family’s garage. In follow-up communications from her family, Emmy’s triangulated pattern of using the DSHT continued and her toileting issues were resolved. Trauma-informed housetraining works!

Always remember resistance is information, so always ask “why” rather than label. Our canine partners and family members deserve compassion, empathy and our curiosity—not our judgement. Peace, Love and Trauma Informed Housetraining💖🐾💕!

Dr. Laura Donaldson, PhD, is a Professor Emeritus from Cornell University located Ithaca, New York, United States. She is an award-winning writer on dog behavior who has worked as a canine behavior specialist for 20 years. Laura is a Certified Dog Behavior Consultant (CDBC/IAABC) and a Karen Pryor Certified Training Partner (KPA CTP). She is also a Certified Trauma Professional. She created the very popular program, Slow Thinking is Lifesaving for Dogs® and given a number of online webinars as well as conference presentations. Laura currently lives in upstate New York (northeastern US) with her husband, working Border Collies, three cats, an African Gray parrot named Obi and a small flock of Navajo Churro sheep.

References

Schwartz, A. (2020). The complex ptsd workbook: a mind-body approach to regaining emotional control and becoming whole. Sheldon Press.