Oxytocin & PTSD

How Oxytocin Has an Adverse Effect on Dogs With PTSD

What Is Oxytocin?

You may have heard about oxytocin, a neuropeptide that facilitates social bonding in mammals. For instance, some studies show that when we pet our dogs it increases blood-serum levels of oxytocin in both the dog and owner. Oxytocin is also released when dogs and dog owners make eye contact. Other studies show that reducing levels of oxytocin causes normally monogamous prairie voles, who usually mate for life, to become promiscuous, while increasing oxytocin levels cause normally promiscuous prairie voles to become faithful companions. Oxytocin has also been connected with feelings of trust and generosity.

Oxytocin is a neuro-chemical, a hormone found in mammals, which is released in both males and females. But women have a stronger response to its effects because oxytocin is enhanced by estrogen. The corollary of oxytocin in men is vasopressin. Its primary functions are water retention and constriction of blood vessels. It also has an influence on male sexual and social behaviors as well as paternal feelings.

Oxytocin also facilitates childbirth by causing the uterus to contract and helps shrink the uterus after delivery. Oxytocin is also released when a newborn suckles at his mother’s breast. It also promotes the emotional bond that takes place between mother and child. For instance, female rats generally dislike newly born rat pups. But after they’ve given birth, they develop strong feelings of attachment for them.

When a child is born, the interactions between mommy and baby cause an increase in the infant’s levels of the hormone, creating a kind of oxytocin glow, ensuring that mother and child will form a deep and lasting bonds.

Oxytocin levels go up five-fold during sex. In men, however, they drop almost immediately afterwards while vasopressin levels go up, which explains why men often feel a sudden sense of separateness from their partners after sex.

The Dark Side of Oxytocin

In the summer of 2013 the owners of a dog I had been working with for several years had a baby. Early in his life, this dog developed PTSD as a result of serious abuse by his original owner (a male). Before the birth of their child the dog had been very careful not to exhibit any aggression toward the husband, but was biting the wife, his dog walkers, and me. Strangely enough after the baby was born, the dog began acting in a very, though obsessively “loving” manner toward the wife and baby, but became guarded and aggressive toward the husband, a complete turnaround.

Before the baby was born the couple expressed their concerns that the dog might want to bite the baby. I told them I didn’t think that would happen because, as far as I knew, oxytocin would probably have a calming effect.

Within a few weeks, though, a strange thing happened, one that I hadn’t anticipated. The dog developed a kind of obsession for mother and baby. He couldn’t be separated from them. If left alone he would whine and cry. When he was with them, he was constantly trying to lick the baby’s toes and skin and fingers. This suggested to me that oxytocin was at work, creating a bond between dog, mother and child. However, it wasn’t a healthy kind of bond at all. Like I said, the dog seemed obsessed.

Then another strange thing took place. Whenever the husband was home, especially when he was interacting with mommy and baby the dog became extremely agitated and began growling and snarling at him, something he’d never done before. They thought he was “protecting” the baby. Strangely enough (or perhaps not so strangely), the dog was fine when he was alone with the husband. They got along very well. The dog only became agitated when the four or them were together: mommy, daddy, baby and doggie.

I suggested that they keep the dog crated when the husband was home with the baby. And that the husband should take the dog on long walks, play fetch and tug with him outdoors, and work on getting him to hold a long down/stay.

Then, a week or so later I came across a study showing that oxytocin can sometimes re-awaken and even strengthen memories of past abuse. (“Fear-enhancing effects of septal oxytocin receptors;” Nature Neuroscience, 2013.)   

“Oxytocin is usually considered a stress-reducing agent based on decades of research,” said Yomayra Guzman, the study's lead author. “With this novel animal model, we showed how it enhances fear rather than reducing it, and where the molecular changes are occurring in our central nervous system.”

“So that’s what’s going on,” I thought. The poor dog’s PTSD has come back to haunt him. He’s like the war veteran who hears the sounds made by a local news helicopter, and, in his mind, he’s instantly transported back to the battlefield. This dog felt he was back in his original home with his original, abusive owner. He didn’t see the husband coming home to hurt the baby. He didn’t see the husband at all, at least not while he was near the mother and baby. All he saw was his original attacker coming to attack him.

This is a very important point, because dogs form basic templates in their minds based primarily on emotional valences. This is why, for instance, a very smart border collie featured in a famous Youtube video (above), keeps dropping a stick at the feet of a statue of Alan Turing, hoping to get the statue to throw the stick for him to chase. He doesn’t see the statue, he sees a template of a human being (or humanoid) sitting in a position that indicates he’s ready to play with the dog. For dogs, deeply emotional past experiences—positive or negative—outweigh present circumstances.

Aftermath

The dog's owners decided that the dog needed to stay with me for a while, so that I could work out some of the emotional kinks in his system. They were right. As long as the memories of past abuse were constantly being re-triggered in the now-moment by the oxytocin—which dissipates within a few months after child birth—it would be a losing battle.

So I began doing the 5 Core Exercises with him again, deliberately putting the dog in stressful situations, initially just mildly stressful. Then I steadily and gradually started injecting more and more stress into the mix so as to increase his carrying capacity.

He’s fine now, by the way, a much different dog. We’ll see if that changes if his owners decide to have another child. 

But I don’t think it will.

Lee Charles Kelley

“Life Is an Adventure—Where Will Your Dog Take You?”

Update: They had a baby girl in November, 2017. And everything is fine with the dog, mommy, daddy, and the now 4-year old boy. 

Canine PTSD: Its Causes, Symptoms & Treatment

How Can You Determine If Your Dog Has PTSD? 
 Originally published in "My Puppy, My Self," at PsychologyToday.com, August 8, 2012.
 

“Reactivity” in Dogs
I got the following email message the other day from a company called Dogwise. They publish and sell books primarily about reward-based dog training. 

“Probably the hottest topic in dog behavior and training circles right now is reactivity. You may never be able to ‘cure’ a dog who is reactive—it’s hard to counter poor socialization and/or genetics—but there are a number of ways you may be able to control it, at least some of the time...”

My first reaction was to the word “reactive.” I’ve never understood how or why that term is being applied to behavior problems in dogs. It seems to me that if a dog doesn’t react to stimuli, that’s when he’s got serious physical, emotional or behavioral problems. 

Then, when the blurb informed me that “you may never be able to ‘cure’ a dog who is reactive,” I chalked that up to the fact that behavioral science techniques are usually ineffective, or at the very least only mildly effective, at solving most behavioral problems in dogs, because in my experience they’re geared to focus on changing outward behaviors rather than finding and changing the underlying cause. 

But as I thought more about it I realized that a very high percentage of the dogs being described as “reactive,” are actually over-reacting to stimuli, which suggests that they may be suffering from Canine PTSD, which is, indeed, very “difficult to cure.” 

Stress: The Underlying Cause
The database of the National Technical Information Service—an agency of the U.S. Government—shows that as many as 70% of individuals [human beings] living in the United States have experienced at least one serious traumatic event during their lifetime. But according to investigators at Boston University School of Medicine only 8% of those people who’ve experienced some form of trauma have developed PTSD as a result. 

Unfortunately, we don’t have a database showing the percentage of dogs who’ve experienced trauma. But given the number of dogs abandoned or brought to shelters every year, plus the number injured in fights with other dogs, and the number who’ve been mistreated by their owners, or mishandled by their trainers, groomers or vet techs (it happens), not to mention those who’ve been struck by a car, gotten lost, were fought over during a divorce, etc, etc, etc, I would be very surprised if the number of dogs who’ve experienced some type of trauma wasn’t at least 70%. And I’d also be surprised if the number of dogs who’ve developed symptoms of PTSD as a result of such wasn’t very close to the figure of 8% found in human beings. 

This would suggests that since there are roughly 75 million pet dogs in America, there’s a real possibility that more than 6 million American dogs might have PTSD. 

Meanwhile, The New York Times reports that “more than 5 percent of the approximately 650 deployed military dogs are developing some form of canine PTSD,” meaning that there are only 30 or so who’ve developed the disorder. Granted, in working military dogs the symptoms are usually much more severe than what see in pet dogs. But the problem still exists pet dogs, and in much larger numbers. 

So when does a traumatic event of any kind stay a one-time thing, and when does it actually cause PTSD? And can we apply any of the criteria used in diagnosing PTSD in humans to diagnose our dogs as well? 

I think so. 

Diagnosing Canine PTSD
In humans, PTSD is not just caused by a traumatic experience, but one that causes a tremendous amount of stress. The traumatic event causes the body to release a cocktail of hormones and neurochemicals specifically designed to deal with that stress. But in large doses those chemical agents also can reportedly cause the same or similar kinds of neurological damage found in patients with a traumatic brain injury (TBI). This can adversely affect mood, memory and learning in deep and lasting ways. (See: “Does PTSD Cause Brain Damage in Dogs?”) *


Since much of the literature on how stress affects memory, learning, and behavior in humans comes from animal studies—primarily on rats and mice—and since a dog’s body produces the same basic kinds of stress hormones produced by rats and humans, it’s very likely that dogs—even pet dogs—can develop symptoms of PTSD. 

In humans these symptoms include re-experiencing the original trauma, fearful avoidance of stimuli associated with that event, and increased forms of arousal such as an sleep disturbances, rage, aggression, and lastly hypervigilance, or in the lingua obscura of some dog trainers: “reactivity.” 

Granted, our lives are much more complicated and stressful than the kind our dogs lead. A human being can develop PTSD simply by observing the scene of an accident or natural disaster. Some can develop symptoms just by looking at videos or photographs. Dogs aren’t as deeply affected by the passive observation of horrific events as we are. 

On the other hand, there are far more cultural taboos and legal restrictions against doing harm to human beings than there are about hurting dogs. Remember, up until a few years ago the most popular training book in America—How to Be Your Dog’s Best Friend, by the Monks of New Skete—contained the following “training” advice: “How hard should you hit your dog? If she doesn’t yelp in pain you haven’t hit her hard enough.” 

Hurting dogs is pervasive in our country. People like Philadelphia Eagles quarterback Michael Vick—who spent time in prison for running a dog-fighting ring out of his home—are just a drop in the bucket in terms of the kind of people out there brutalizing dogs on a regular basis.

With all that in mind I would be very surprised to find that the number of dogs in America who have Canine PTSD isn’t more than double or even triple the 6 million I suggested above. 

Diagnostic Signs of PTSD in Human Beings

• Criterion A – Exposure to a traumatic stressor. 
• Criterion B – Re-experiencing the event (flashbacks). 
• Criterion C – Avoidance and numbing. 
• Criterion D – Hyperarousal. 
• Criterion E – Duration of symptoms for at least 1 month. 
• Criterion F – Significant impairment of normal functioning. 

Personally, I think dogs can exhibit all 5 of these signs and symptoms. The only one that might seem controversial is the idea that dogs can have “flashbacks.” I think that depends on how we view the differences between how memory operates in humans and dogs.
 
In human beings, memory operates on three basic levels: physical (i.e., unconscious or procedural) memory, emotional (or affective) memory, and mental, or declarative memory (which includes semantic, episodic, and autobiographical memory). Only the last requires both a sense of self and a linear sense of time (knowing that there’s a past, present, and future), forms of cognition that dogs don’t have (or don’t seem to). 

In human subjects, flashbacks come primarily from sense memory; the sound of chopper blades for example. This then triggers emotional memory, where the fear, panic and helplessness experienced during the original trauma, come flooding back, raising blood pressure, releasing stress hormones, etc, etc. In many cases, the subject doesn’t even realize that he or she is not actually safe in bed or hiding in the closet, but is convinced that he or she is back on the battlefield or is about to be sexually assaulted, etc. 

It seems to me that dogs are quite capable of experiencing both sense memory and emotional memory. In fact, the work of two Russians—physiologist Ivan Pavlov and theater director (and inventor of “method acting”) Constantin Stanislavsky—show quite clearly that sense memory and emotional memory are inextricably linked. 

I should point out that the 5 diagnostic criteria I mentioned above are only broad categories, and that there are many much finer points to be looked at when diagnosing PTSD in humans. I think the same should hold true for diagnosing Canine PTSD as well. 

To help with this I’ve created a mock-up for a potential Canine PTSD questionnaire to be filled out by a dog’s owner, veterinarian, trainer or behaviorist. It can be found by clicking here. (I would be very interested in getting feedback, whether some things should be added, subtracted, or tossed out altogether.) 

Please keep in mind that most of what I’m saying is hypothetical. We need more research, we need to create a much larger yet credible database. We need to start thinking along new lines. PTSD is not something that can only happen to human beings, or to our military dogs. Those brave and hardworking four-legged members of our armed forces are showing us that there’s a much larger problem right under our noses, affecting millions of American doggies, animals who are currently nestled safely on their doggie beds or sleeping on our couches, and yet who may be in emotional distress and need our help. 

If you agree with or relate to anything I’ve said, please pass it on to your vet, dog trainer, and anyone else you think might be able to help us move forward in making this problem more widely known. 

I firmly believe that Canine PTSD is a very real condition that can be found in a great many pet dogs, and we need to start addressing it now.

LCK
“Life Is an Adventure—Where Will Your Dog Take You?”
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