Trigger stacking and snapping

[C_phillips]

Some of you may follow my blog post on my snapping cocker spaniel Jake.

One of the most interesting things we learned from a behaviourist was the idea of "trigger stacking" - or rather, a stressful event may lead to greater stress that builds up over time and can make aggression more likely.

We had 4-5 months of no incidents with Jake, but then last week, I got a bit overfamiliar with him while he was sleeping on the sofa (stroked his ear) and got snapped at. Nothing serious, but since then, we've had 4 incidents (back to where we were this time last year).

Around this time we also had a groomer in, and we know being handled is a big source of stress for Jake, and he was noticeably more anxious for a few days afterwards.

It all just reaffirms to me that hardcore dominance / punitive methods just would not be effective on Jake, and would just raise his anxiety up by way of trigger stacking. My opinion is it could either go two ways - we may have less snaps, but when he did bite they would be more serious (as he'd be at his threshold of stress). Alternatively, it might just make no difference, we'd have the same amount of bites but they would get more serious as his "warnings" aren't working. Treating stress with more stress seems illogical for everyone, so we're gonna keep at the positive training even though it does feel at times as if we are just ignoring the problem

On another note, we've just moved to St Neots, near Cambridge and are having some lovely walks!

[Leo0106]

Trigger stacking is a new term to me! But makes perfect sense! We have a dog who is wary of touch and times and will snap if we do the 'wrong thing' in his eyes. I've always noticed that there is a build up in his behaviour over a short period of time, I've had to learn alot about his body language to know when he is happy to be touched by unfamiliar people (he can't get enough affection from me and demands it constantly)
One issue for us is play, if he is too excited during play he will nip us to get his toy back, but like you said, we can have months of no nipping, he will do it once and then we will have a week of reverting back to nipping to get his toy!

Enjoys st Neots. We are close by and love it!

[ejp]

That terminology is not one I am familiar with, but the behaviour, absolutely.  Interesting to hear what happened with Jake. 
We spent a lovely 10 days at the Camping and Caravan Club site is St Neots, beautiful area.

[Katieee1985]

Very interesting. I definitely agree with keeping the positive training, spaniels are very energetic, driven but they are also very delicate and sensitive souls so I’ve also thought that positive training has the best effect with them. This might be slightly different but my Mia started snapping like this when she was little - like 6 months old or so. She would snap if someone sat next to her on “her” sofa or got close to her when she thought she wanted space. I read a very good training advice that told me to react how another dog would react... how would a grown up dog react if a little pup snapped at them? He would probably growl or even bark and look at the pup for few seconds like it’s in big trouble. I only had to do it twice or three times and it worked magic haha my Mia is the most loving dog now and I would never expect her to snap at all. But like I say this could be a different problem. I agree that stress causes a lot of problems. Good luck, sounds like you’re getting there slowly but surely